No test scores for you!

My non-proficient students took the reading proficiency test last month. I found out yesterday that the scores came in. The principal shared the overall passing rate (around 30%) with the school, but I was told that teachers will not be getting the scores or any of the score data. How am I supposed to know how each of my students did and what I need to work on in order to help them be proficient by the time the test is given again in March? So much for being effective.

Teaching: No Longer About the Kids

Last week I had four meetings after school. This week I have five meetings after school, two of which are on the same day at the same time. All of them are mandatory. I have a 50-minute prep period every day. All of my lesson plans (ten total, because I teach two subjects) need to be done one week in advance. I have to grade papers, call parents about tardies, update grades in the grade book, write my standards and lessons on the board every single day, write the week's lessons on a weekly calendar for both classes, and have all of my prior handouts and assignments neatly organized in a make-up work crate...and I have a little more than two hours of prep a week in which to do all of that. With my afternoons taken up by meetings, I have no choice but to bring work home in the evenings and on the weekends to do in the time that I should be spending with my husband and my son.

I've been teaching for eight years, and let me tell you, this job is bullshit.

My letter to Diane Ravitch

Dear Dr. Ravitch,

I'm sure you get a lot of mail, but I felt like I had to reach out to you because you may be the only person (outside of my fellow teachers) who would understand my frustration. I'm an English teacher at an inner-city turnaround high school in Las Vegas, Nevada. Our school district is famous for being the worst in the country - so they say - and my school is one of the worst schools. Last year, 50% of the teachers were fired, but all of the administrators and counselors were retained. I decided to transfer to the school because one of my good friends, who is a great teacher, was taking a position there as well. I have been successful in the past, especially with at-risk students, and I thought I would be a good addition to the school.

It's one month into the school year, and already I can sense failure looming ahead. Our school contracted with Pearson to be our provider for SIP materials, and yet it took them a month to get our materials to us. We now have exactly four weeks to prepare our students for the state-mandated proficiency tests in reading, math, science and writing. Yes indeed, some genius who is clearly out of touch with the sheer magnitude of what it takes to successfully reform a school has concluded that it would only take us two months to get our students (many of whom are far below grade level, not to mention LEP) performing at or above grade level. Even though our state is measuring student growth instead of test scores, our school will be judged by test scores alone.

I feel like I've been conned. How can I be expected to dramatically change the abilities of my students in two months? I'm being asked to do the impossible. Furthermore, my school is a genuine case of the inmates running the asylum. Administration is soft on the students while heaping all of the expectations and blame on us.

Is there a solution, or should I just quit and get a job as a Wal-Mart greeter? At this point, that sounds like a far more rewarding career path.

She wrote back and asked if she could post my letter (without my name) on her website. When I responded, I made sure to add the following information:

Our deputy superintendent of curriculum and instruction, Pedro Martinez, is a pencil-pushing numbers guy with zero experience in the classroom. He's a product of Broad Superintendents Academy and was CFO of Chicago Public Schools under his mentor, Arne Duncan.

Might as well make it very clear who's running this madhouse and why their reforms will not work.

Why not?

I'm thinking of chronicling my experiences during my first year teaching in an inner-city turnaround school in the lowest-performing school district in the country. Thoughts?

Turnaround...or aimlessly spin

Two weeks into the school year, and so far...

• I still don't have any of the textbooks designated for my subject
• I have two co-op classes (I asked for no co-op classes) 
• I still haven't received the special materials I was trained to use and must implement
• I have students who already are halfway to failing due to excessive absences
• Meetings! Meetings! Meetings!
• I'm already counting the days until summer

This is so not worth the money.

SSNY

Come to find out that core teachers (English, math and science) only get a whopping 26 minutes over the next three days to spend in our rooms to prepare for the new year. Every other minute will be spent in meetings. Non-core teachers get two whole days.

My room also lacks functioning air conditioning. There is a control panel on the wall, but I have been assured that it's "just for show." I was in there last week, and it was 96 degrees before noon. I was told I should buy a fan, which translates to I'm going to have to nag the hell out of someone so I can get one of the facilities engineers in there to fix it.

Already not looking forward to the new school year.

If the NBA were run like public education...

I read last night that the NBA labor talks have broken down, resulting in a lockout. Two main points I see are that the owners say teams are losing too much money because they have to pay the players so much, and the players are saying the teams are losing money because of shoddy accounting and the recession. Basically, the owners are blaming the players, and the players are blaming the owners. Then there's the issue of the players union calling for an increase in the average player salary, from $5 million to $7 million, even while there are 22 teams that are losing money annually.

Based on my experience as a teacher, I feel as qualified to make suggestions for the NBA as politicians with no educational experience have in making suggestions for public education. In order to avoid the season being cancelled, the NBA must do the following:

1. Get rid of players unions. They are evil. Their members are greedy. They are socialists and probably want your children to vote for Obama.
2. Institute an immediate pay cut for all players. They do what they do because they love basketball, not because it pays well. If they don't like it, then fire them and hire people who will play for lower salaries, even if they're not qualified.
3. Make them play more games. There are only 82 games during the regular season. How can they justify only working 82 days a year? They should be playing more than that!
4. Recruit people who want to play! Why are they wasting all this money to people who can play? All it takes is a five-week intensive training course in basketball to ensure that a player is the best!
5. Demand that teams win 100% of games they play. If the players want their full salaries, then they are responsible for making sure their team wins every game. No exceptions. Sorry, Timberwolves! Looks like it's another ramen noodle year for you!
6. Pay for performance. If you don't play well, tough luck. You don't get your "bonus" salary or endorsements. Note to LeBron James: This does not apply to games of knockout played against little kids at summer camp.
7. Allow the government to take over management of teams who aren't making money and/or winning games. Fire everyone and only allow 50% of them to be hired back. Make it their responsibility to win all the games and pull the team's finances out of the red. 

The way I see it, all of the rules that apply to public schools should apply to the NBA. If senseless rules are good enough for American education, they're good enough for professional basketball. I will happily entertain all offers of consulting positions with NBA teams. As you can see, I am more than qualified to tell you what you're doing wrong.

A small taste of final exam short answer hilarity...

One student responded to a question about why Anne Frank's diary is an important historical document with the following:

Because it helps us remember what happened centuries ago.


Exactly!

Do higher temperatures make you dumb(er)?

I'm on the countdown to Liquor Day - i.e. the last day of school. I know I'm not the only one who is so sick of these kids. Today, Dumb as a Sack of Hammers Kid broke his red gel pen and smeared the ink all inside the new textbook he was "reading." He then closed the book, got up and put it on another desk, picked up a different book, and went back to "reading." When I confronted him, he said the pen broke when he was writing in the book. He's not even smart enough to be a good liar. No doubt he'll end up as a state senator (R-NV) one day.

Yesterday, a different genius stabbed himself in the hand with his own pencil and had to go to the nurse. Not that it was serious enough to warrant medical attention. I just wanted to get him out of my sight for a few minutes, and I just had to take the opportunity to write on the health office pass that he needed a band-aid and a Darwin Award. And I did. I don't think the nurse got the joke, though.

At least I don't have the particular brand of moron student whose mom does his homework for him, and then forgets to have him rewrite it in his own writing before turning it in. But I guess that would be an improvement over the students I have, who see no point in doing homework, class work, or learning of any sort since either Harold Camping or the Mayans are to be believed and the world will end either on October 21 of this year or on December 21, 2012.

Is it summer yet?

Failure. It's the American Way of Life!

Ever wonder why Nevada ranks lowest in the country in all things academic? A lot of it has to do with the underfunding of education and the willingness of our state government to allow casinos and mining to rake in the cash while not paying their fair share of taxes. However, there is more to the failure than that.

Clark County School District, the fifth largest school district in the country, has made it ridiculously easy for students to fail high school before they even get to high school. How? By having such low standards that students can go through three years of middle school and get promoted to high school with having only passed a total of eleven core class semesters.

Pupils currently enrolled in sixth grade must complete one semester of mathematics, one semester of English or reading and one semester of science with passing grades for promotion to seventh grade.

Pupils currently enrolled in seventh grade must complete one semester of mathematics, one semester of English or reading, one semester of science, and one semester of social studies with passing grades for promotion to eighth grade.

Pupils currently enrolled in eighth grade must have completed three semesters of Math and three semesters of English or reading with passing grades during the seventh and eighth grade years for promotion to high school.

Students in CCSD middle schools take a total of six classes, with two semesters per year. In 6th and 7th grade, they take English and reading. In 8th grade, they just take English. Out of the 10 semesters of English and reading they take, they only need to pass four semesters to go into high school. And that's just one example.

Until the school district stops pandering to parents and the uneducated, loud masses that make up Clark County and sets the standards higher, we will continue to have students failing and dropping out at an alarming rate. And why shouldn't they? They have already been taught, by the age of 11, that failure is not only acceptable, but rewarded.

Really?

My students were reading out loud today, which is always a train wreck since they mispronounce common words at an alarming rate and really don't care because, after all, "reading is dumb."

I thought I've heard it all and could no longer be amazed. I was wrong. One of my students mispronounced "God." Seriously. Another student had to correct him.

Like Shakespeare says...

The Holocaust. Now with MOAR SAD!

Before we start reading the drama version of Anne Frank's life and diary, I figured I'd give my students some background on history and the Holocaust. I chose the film "I'm Still Here: Real Diaries of Young People who Lived During the Holocaust," and I started showing it in class today.

I really think that quite a few of them missed the point. I make that determination based on the following statements from students.

• The Holocaust is sadder than I thought.
• I almost cried.
• Why do we have to learn about sad stuff?
• Teaching about Nazis makes people be racist.

And the most profound comment award goes to...

• That kind of sucks.

I actually found myself getting madder and more disgusted with my students as the day wore on and I showed the video to all of my classes. Yes, there were kids who showed a great deal of empathy and who were deeply moved by the video, but the loud majority of them see no point in trying to understand why a democratically-elected leader could take control in times of financial crisis and turn other people into scapegoats to the point where they are systematically slaughtered.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

If the wisdom of Whitney Houston is to be believed and children are our future, then God help us all.

[redacted] to be you!

So we got this e-mail from an administrator today in which we were reminded that students listen to us (yeah, right!) and even though we're mighty sick of them, we should be mindful not only of what we say to them, but also of what we say to each other in private conversations that they might overhear.

And why is this?

Because apparently a teacher said to a student, "Sucks to be you."

No, I'm not kidding.

I can't imagine trying to come up with an alternate response that would be acceptable to say to a student in the event that he/she forgets to bring a pencil/some paper/homework to class again but manages to remember his/her cellphone.

When I lived in the South, if a kid told me he/she needed a pencil, I could always respond with "You need Jesus." Last time I said "Oh God!" in frustration in class, some 15-year-old-and-still-in-8th grade atheist told me I was violating his civil rights by talking about God.

All I can say is, thank [redacted] that it's almost summer.

Nothing like it...

Ah, the joys of Spring Break. The only thing nicer than being away from my students for a week? SUMMER! After dealing with craziness, pre-teen pregnancy, students who don't speak English, and the sheer mass of students who have been told that they don't need to pass my class to go on to high school, I am so ready for school to be over.

Boy, was I stupid to think I could go from high school to middle school and get those kids ready for 9th grade. I had no idea when I made my decision that there is no incentive for 8th grade students to pass English. All they need are three credits in English and/or reading between 7th and 8th grade, and they take a combined total of six credits between 7th and 8th. They can fail half of their classes and still go to high school. Or they can fail all of their classes and still go to high school if they're too old to stay in middle school. I have students who are moving up just based on that.

Now with the talk of teacher pay based on test scores, you can bet that I am looking for greener (i.e. more literate) pastures for next year. So far I've applied at a private school and have sent my info to a "turn-around" high school. Now the waiting begins...

One thing is certain: After my husband graduates with his math degree with a concentration in actuarial sciences and statistics - no way would he become a math teacher! - I am turning my back on public education for good. If this year has taught me anything, it's that education is a losing battle in this state, and quite possibly in this country. I've been teaching since January 2004, and I've yet to be proven wrong.

Dear Parent,

If you don't care, neither will I.

You see, I've been trying to get you to talk to me about my concerns for your child. I've done everything I could in the last four months, short of drive to your house and knock on your door.

After three parent-teacher conferences that you've scheduled and then have pulled a no-show every single time, I realize that you expect me to raise your child for you.

Well guess what. That's not my job. And be happy it isn't.

If I raised your kid for you, he'd be on the psychiatric meds and receiving the mental health services he desperately needs.

If I raised your kid for you, he wouldn't have that crappy attitude and overinflated sense of self-worth that you have instilled in him.

If I raised your kid for you, I wouldn't be getting calls from the dean's office about how he endangered the lives of his classmates during a hard lockdown by pounding on the walls.

If I raised your kid for you, you could darn well guarantee that I would have put my foot up his ass long before now.

None of this "my son is a good boy" crap. Jeffrey Dahmer's mom said the same thing. They're all good boys until they bring a gun to school and shoot the place up.

I'm tired of the blame game. I'm tired of parents taking zero responsibility for their kids and for foisting all of the blame onto teachers.

You had the kids. Raise them your own damn self, and do it right.

Because believe me, if you can't take care of them, prison will be doing it for you soon enough. And you will not deserve nor receive any of my pity, sympathy or care then.

Boobies. The great motivator.

One of my students was wearing a non-dress code "I ♥ Boobies" bracelet in class on Friday. I'd already told him that the bracelet was verboten, so I confiscated it this time. Now, this is a pretty good kid I'm talking about. He does his work, he's pleasant in class, and I don't wish his mother had smothered him as an infant.

He kept asking me to let him have his bracelet back, so I made a deal. We're in a poetry unit, so I figured it wouldn't hurt him to put his knowledge to work. I told him that if he wrote an elegy for his bracelet, and if it contained one approximate rhyme along with some exact rhymes, I would give him back his bracelet upon my determining his elegy was Boobie-bracelet worthy. If it wasn't worthy, I would give it to the teacher in the room next to mine.

The student turned up first thing this morning and handed me a folded piece of paper. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present Elegy for Boobies.

I can't believe you took my booby bracelet,
Cause now I'm having a fit.
My bracelet was green.
There wasn't even any red.
And yet to me my bracelet was still dead.
Actually I'm glad it wasn't taken by a dean,
Plus I'm starting to get thirsty,
So gimme a cup of tiger blood,
Cause I can't take much more of this crud.
Now I'm starting to get tisky,
So please gimme back my booby bracelet, 
Cause I can't let you walk away with it.
So please don't give it to the teacher,
Cause she'll stand over there saying
"Neener neener neener,"
And all my sadness will turn into jealousy
And those boobies will be nothing but a memory,
Because it was destiny
For you to give it back to me
So I can stand over there grinning
And be like Charlie Sheen. "Epic Winning, Winning!!"

Not exactly Thomas Gray, but not bad for an 8th grade kid. Yeah, he got his bracelet back.

But I made him wait until the end of the school day.

Good parenting. You're doing it wrong.

For all the people who think that teaching is the easiest job in the world, I have a question for you. Would you find it acceptable that, during the course of an average work day, a 13-year-old nickel-and-dime thug got into your face and cussed you out in front of your co-workers and clients, all because you told him to turn off the iPod that he wasn't supposed to be listening to in the first place? If your answer is yes, then you're welcome to work for me from now until the end of the school year. In turn, I will happily take whatever job it is that you do. I don't care if you're slinging fries at McDonald's. I'd still get treated with more courtesy and respect than I do in the average school day.

When did it become acceptable for kids to run their mouths like they do? I was waiting outside my son's middle school last week, and some jackass jaywalked right in front of two motorcycle cops. When one of the cops told the kid to walk in the crosswalk, the kid lipped off to him. Seriously? The cops pulled in to the parking lot, and one of them told that kid off. The thing that amazed me is that the kid's grandpa was right there, and he didn't get out of his car and take his belt to the kid, or at the very least rapped him in the mouth.

I'm sorry, but I don't think I should have to give respect to a kid first in order to be treated with the respect that should naturally be shown to adults and/or teachers. I respect my friends, my family, my equals, people I admire...not semi-literate juvenile delinquents. If you're 13 and reading at a 3rd grade level, I have no respect for you or your parents. I have pity for you, which is a lot different than respect.

That's not cheating on the test. Not at all.

We had CRTs for the past week. Days 1 and 2 were math, days 3 and 4 were reading, and day 5 was science. One student (the one I mentioned before as being dumb as a sack of hammers) called me over at one point during his science test. When I got to his desk, he covered his testing materials and asked me, "What do rabbits eat?" I said, "I can't answer that." He responded, "It's not for the test. I was just wondering."

If I didn't care about my job enough to not want to get written up for testing irregularities, I would have told him that rabbits eat squid.

All the glamour...all the time...

I'm going on to day four with laryngitis. I couldn't talk at all on Friday, but I went to work anyhow since we were preparing for CRTs, which start tomorrow. I will be proctoring all week in my classroom. That includes reading the state-mandated testing directions. Considering my voice is barely audible, this should be interesting.

To make things even better, there is a kid testing in my room who is as dumb as a sack of hammers. How do I know this? Because I have the misfortune of having him in my class. I had to take his highlighter away last week because he was using it to color all over himself, the desk, his review materials, the bookcase behind him, and the carpet under his desk. Then he had the audacity to tell me, "It wasn't me!" I fully expect to see him on America's Dumbest Criminals one day.

Pray for me, Gentle Reader. This is going to be a long shite week.

Hordle ordle durr

Last week I gave a quiz on 20 essential literary terms. Prior to this, I gave my students a worksheet with the terms and had them write the definitions. Mind you, these are essential terms, not random things I want them to know for my own amusement. I told them last week that they could study their terms and their quizzes (so they'd know which ones they missed), and they could retake the quiz today for a higher grade. 

I didn't just have some kids who did worse on this quiz than the previous quiz. I had kids who just memorized the order of the correct answers on the previous quiz, erroneously thinking that I would give them the exact same quiz this time too. 

Man, you should have been in my classroom to see the looks of absolute surprise when they discovered that I'm not a total idiot and I changed the order of the literary terms and the definitions. It's safe to say that many pants were shat. Then there was this brilliant exchange:

Student *working on her CRT prep packet*: What's theme?

Me: What do you mean, what's theme? 

Student: What does it mean?

Me: It's on your lit terms, and it was on both quizzes.

Student: It was?

Me: Don't talk to me.

You know what this calls for, don't you?

Racing toward the bottom

Nevada's nincompoop governor has figured out how to fix education in this state. His three-prong attack is thus: 1) Eliminate teacher seniority (we don't have tenure), which would allow them to lay off the teachers who make the most money; 2) follow Jeb Bush's model and end social promotion, while giving schools a letter grade; and 3) amend the state constitution to allow taxpayer dollars to be spent on private school vouchers.

Once again, the politicians dance around the real issues here. Teacher salaries are not bankrupting the state. I've been teaching since January 2004, I have a BA in English and an MS in education - which is required under NCLB for me to be highly qualified in my core subject - and I gross $45,146 a year. There are secretaries in the school district who make far more than I do. In fact, there are custodians for the city bus service who make more than I do. If public employee salaries are such a huge problem, the state needs to really start at the top and trim away there.

The real problem is total and complete lack of accountability for parents and students. I teach 8th grade English, and in order for students to be promoted to high school, they only have to pass three total semesters of English and/or reading during 7th and 8th grade. They take four semesters in 7th grade - two of English, two of reading - and two semesters of English in 8th grade. If a student passes three semesters in 7th grade, he/she can sit in my class all year long, do absolutely NOTHING, and still be promoted to high school. My students have to take state-mandated tests, but they don't need to pass those either. In fact, nothing about 8th grade sends the message that this is important.

And parents? I have parents who won't answer the phone, won't call back, won't come in for parent conferences - or better yet, will make appointments and then be a no-show, won't check grades, won't sign progress reports...and these parents are the majority. I have students who are habitually truant, who are on probation, who are teen mothers, who can't speak English. None of this is because of my teaching ability, but all of it affects their school performance and thus will be used to judge me as a teacher. My own son, who is also in 8th grade, reads at 12th grade level and outperforms most of his peers on state tests, and that's not just because he has good teachers but because I do my job as a parent.

As long as public schools have to accept everyone who enrolls and put them at grade level according to age, rather than ability, public schools will continue to fail. Think about it. Private schools are successful because they do not have to follow a government model, and therefore they can demand higher standards from their students. They can administer admissions exams, hold students and parents accountable for learning, and kick out students who fail to perform. They do not have to accept students who don't speak English, who are on probation, who are teen moms, or who require special education services.

If the governor really wants to change education, he needs to change the way schools are run. Perhaps it's time to rethink the idea that every student should go to college, or even that every student should go to a comprehensive high school. The idea that education is a right should go hand-in-hand with the knowledge that education is a responsibility. Not a responsibility just for teachers or schools, but for all people involved. Take some responsibility, add a dose of reality, and maybe we'll stop lagging behind third-world nations in education.

You can't play the race card without a full deck.

I'm going to start keeping track of how often my students call me racist. Today I was talking to a Filipino student about how much we like Jollibee, and another student loudly turned that in to a declaration that I hate Mexican food and am racist against Mexicans. Never mind that Mexican isn't a race. And neither is food, for that matter.

I love the narrow-mindedness of ethnic groups who think that their country is the best, their group is the best, and anyone who isn't them is racist. If (insert country here) was so awesome, why are you here? I've met people from all over the world, and never once has a single one of them said to me, "We came to America because it sucks and it offered far less opportunities than our own country did."

I'm somewhat of a unabashed patriot. I love my country, and I'm damn glad I was born here. I'm fortunate to live in a country that, despite all its problems and failings, is still better than most of the other countries on this planet. I'm always amazed by people who willingly come here and then bitch about how much they hate it. Look, the door swings both ways, pal. There are thousands of people all over the world who would give anything to be here. If you're not happy here, leave and make room for someone who actually wants to be here.

Oh, and please learn the difference between race, ethnicity and nationality, because you sound ignorant otherwise.

And you wonder why our schools are in trouble? Really?

There was an article in the local rag today about a special ed teacher at Mojave High who failed to report to police that two students bought a semiautomatic handgun to school. According to the article, the students had it out in class, and one passed it to another.

But that's not nearly as interesting as some of the comments on the newspaper's website about the whole incident. Here are some of my personal favorites:

Metro wants you to snitch on your neighbor, student, co-worker anyone. This is community training. This is conditioning to get people comfortable with the idea of reporting on their neighbors; a concept repugnant to most free societies, but one very common to police states.

Why are so many calling out for this teacher to be stoned in public when there is NO VICTIM? Where is the victim(s) in this incident? If we are not careful we are apt to allow our local police to become as militarized as California's. Nations behind the old Iron Curtain had less a police state than we do now. Where do we draw the line, people?

Perhaps the teacher and the students believe that the Constitution of the United States preempt the nanny playground rules? Infringed? Who is sworn to uphold the constitution and laws of the United States of America? How much longer will citizens tolerate this arrogant behavior from our public servants enforcing illegal gun laws?

This is all *so* unnecessary. Abolish public education. Nobody cares which private school students are carrying or concealing. Nobody cares what private school teachers see or when they see it. Except maybe socialist busybodies in the Legislature and the unemployed, public school bureaucrats, union members, and contractors looking for their chance to get back on the dole.

Four different comments from four different people. Gun in school? Good thing. Teacher not telling on students with gun? Good thing. Teacher getting in trouble for not telling? Worst thing ever. This is but a small sample of the anti-teacher, anti-school, anti-education mentality common in Las Vegas. It's enough to make me feel like I'm treading water in a sea of dullards and lackwits who think I'm their personal flotation device.

Blog. I has it.

Friends have suggested that I start a blog. I tend to rant and/or rave with increasing frequency on Facebook, and I suspect their eager recommendation for me to blog lies more in their desire not to be subjected to my bitchiness unless they are ready and willing to read it. Actually, this just gives me one more way to unleash my vitriol upon the world. And here it is.

Sorry, world...but you brought this upon yourself.