[MOSAIC] time to check in

[Lisa Glos]

I think that the irony is sometimes they work against this, hopefully unintentionally.  Our "area office" was in today and gave a fourth grade teacher at my school the comment that they liked what they saw, but wished that she had "taught deeper".  She replied that the program the city bought for us does not allow the teachers to teach deeper, so we do our best. 

She did leave out the fact that she only does the bare minimum of the program on normal days so she can do the deeper teaching, and kept fidelity to the manual today since they were coming in to observe.

Lisa

 If they wanted us to do quality teaching, why buy and mandate a program that skims the surface?

--
Lisa Glos 
K/Baltimore, MD 
waverlyk at comcast.net 

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Horvath, Kathy" <horvath at northbrook28.net> 

> Wow!!! 
> 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: mosaic-bounces at literacyworkshop.org 
> [mailto:mosaic-bounces at literacyworkshop.org] On Behalf Of Carrie Cahill 
> Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 2:44 PM 
> To: mosaic at literacyworkshop.org 
> Subject: [MOSAIC] time to check in 
> 
> I, too, am inspired when Ginger posts her thoughts and experiences with 
> her students. I wish everyone posted more of these types of messages! 
> I will say, in response to Laura's interaction with her Supt., that 
> Superintendents are faced with the stark reality of test scores and 
> reporting to the public. I believe (at least in my case/ my district) 
> that Supt.'s would LOVE to not have that burden to deal with - but laws 
> and bureaucracy make it so! Unfortunately communities are judging 
> schools based on numbers --- test scores. I work in a district where 
> one of our schools in judged in just this way through the media, school 
> report card, and in all of our interactions with ISBE. It's unfair. 
> This school is incredible and none of that is noted. It's like paddling 
> upstream! Parents do come to our schools on a regular basis and they 
> SEE the great things our teachers are doing with their children - it's 
> the community at-large (state) that doesn't know or care about those 
> things. There really has to be a balance between the time we devote to 
> testing -and how we report to the community - and the time we spend 
> nurturing professional development and the great work we do for kids. 
> Laura - I DO believe administrators can do both! It might mean that we 
> end up spending more late nights in our offices - but we can still be 
> in classrooms to see that spark in the students' eyes when they've made 
> a connection or just read a great book - and we can have meaningful 
> conversations with teachers about how to make those events happen on a 
> regular basis and not just "happy coincidences" as Ellin Keene puts it!! 
> The thing is we might not get all of our paperwork done that day. 
> Hopefully we're all lucky enough to have bosses who understand that 
> balance. I just think it's totally unrealistic to say that 
> Superintendents should not be overly concerned with test scores....they 
> are a reality and they're here to stay! I hope you don't get out of 
> administration because of it - it's the exact place we need to be if we 
> are ever going to make systemic change. 
> 
> 
> 
> Carrie 
> 
> 
> 
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> 29/1/2007 
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