She’s not gonna stop ’til she f’s it all up

Everyone thought she was the golden child.  She was young and “from these parts”.  Starry eyed she begin her administrative career.  She knew the community.  Hell, she was part of it.  She knew the movers and the shakers. Her plans were big.  She knew that if she cultivated the friendship of the parents and the students and kept trying new innovations she could make her mark.  The best way to do this was to always tell everyone what they wanted to hear.  That would work. Most of us in education are way too busy to really analyze who said what.  Come on, it was in the best interest of the kids.  We’re all one big happy family, right?

She started with an awe inspiring freshman academy.  She got one year of funding to pay the teachers more.  Why you ask?  Because those teachers had to work their asses off.  The children became no longer responsible for their own grades.  It was up to the teachers.  Teachers gave up half their lunches to tutor those who were failing.  They made up additional assignments to get the students to pass. She bragged in meetings about how teachers would chase students out to their cars to hand them assignments…in high school.   Yes, that’s right.  You heard it here.  In high school. 

When it came to discipline, she would always give that kid another chance.  It would make our numbers of infractions more acceptable.  Less kids in disciplinary actions=safer school.  Give the kid a coke and send him back to class.  One student in particular had been in ISS the year before pretty much every other week.  When I asked why he was still with us (yes, he was known by everyone to be in the drug user category) the reply was that he actually could graduate on time, so we needed him to help us  meet AYP.  You gave another kid some weed that caused him to have convulsions?  Well, you didn’t kill anyone, and your mom and dad are nice people….so you can go to alternative school, no out of school suspension for you.  A weed pipe? That should just be a day or two in alternative school.  We don’t want to be on the dangerous school list!

Back to  the academy…this institution led to a general malaise among students.  Teachers were now required to make sure the kids passed.  You’ve been in ISS 32 times?  It’s ok, your teacher will make sure you get to make up all your work.  A student told me, it’s not my fault I failed, it’s you teachers.  You are the ones responsible.

Did you get in trouble today at school? Do I know your mom or dad?  If you are a poor ethnic kid, forget it.  You’ll get what you deserve.  But if your mom is on the  junior league, your kid is on my kid’s soccer team, or I went to school with your parents, you’ll be fine.

And then idea after idea kept pooring from the golden child’s head.  First….she must be first…and excel….”must make a name for myself…”

Wait, she had it–let’s adjust the class standing.  Let’s not give points to kids for trying harder classes.  If you take every lower level class you can, you actually could outrank a kid who took all ap or honors classes. 

And another great idea: let’s offer advanced science classes to freshmen.  No one else is doing it.   We’re not prepared, but let’s do it.  We just won’t tell them that it will affect their class standing.  And the next year we’ll dump them into the hardest advanced class ever with an inexperienced teacher.  Great idea.  Everyone is on the road to success.

And then let’s call everyone college prep.  But what we’ll do is we’ll put all the lower level kids into a separate class from the average and above average student.  We’ll call it the same thing, but we’ll bend the truth and code it so only we know which class is which.  The kids and the state will never figure it out.

And let’s have the teachers who are friends with students on facebook, who are always in trouble for some infraction, who waste class time playing practical jokes on each other go on field trips with students because they are popular.  It’s ok if they lose a few students at a museum.  Being well liked is the most important thing here…it’s about the kids…right?

And well, you’ve seen the previous post about the gifted money certification….

She’s really not going to stop until she f’s it all up…..