Back to School

Christmas Vacation is over, and weather permitting, it's back to work tomorrow. My classroom will be missing some students. Three students have been re-assigned, and one who ran into some legal problems might finally be court-ordered to get the help he needs.

I had a good vacation. I slept most of today, however. It felt good.. I am looking forward to going back to work. I love my students. I love most of the challenges of my job. I don't like some aspects.

There is a new plan to tie teacher tenure to student success and student attendance. I think this is awful. One of my students misses, on average 80 school days year. I don't' have working phone numbers for half of my students. Some have even said their parents have told them if they do well in school their disability check could get cut off, so they need to fail some classes. A colleague of mine had arranged for one of her students to get the cochlear implant--for free-- and the parent dragged her feet because she thought that if her daughter got the implant and could hear, that she would no longer qualify for disability. (She is a hearing parent and her daughter was the only deaf student in the district) This is a battle that is beyond teachers!

I don't think it is a bad thing to judge teachers on how students perform on tests. I do think it is absurd, if students are performing significantly below grade-level when they enter, say a 7th grade class, to be able to pass the 8th grade entry class at the end of the year. Some of my students came to my 7th grade special ed class with 3rd grade skills. They are expected to take the 7th grade state test--and my performance could be evaluated based on how well they do on that test. If my students come in at 3rd grade skills; have good attendance and have received good grades and leave me still only able to perform at the 3rd grade level, then I am not doing my job. If, as I suspect, one student has gone from 2nd grade reading to 4th grade reading, and 3rd grade math to 5th grade math--hasn't that child made great learning strides? Wouldn't a test that shows that be a better assessment of student progress than seeing if somehow he can now pass the 7th grade skills test?

Just a thought.
Happy New Year