My Christmas Anti-Wish List
Dear Santa,
This is the time of year when we
write to you with our gift desires. What we want you to bring us. What we want
to find under the tree, wrapped in bright paper, dressed in bold ribbon, and
beautifully-crafted gift tags so everyone knows this package … is … for … ME.
Dear Santa,
I have no wish list for you. No
demands for gifts that magically show up between the hour I go to bed Christmas
Eve and the morning hour in which I wake up.
Dear Santa,
My list is for the things I want
you to take away:
1.
Invalid, unreliable standardized testing that
tortures children with the hours they must spend on a computer taking an
assessment that makes no sense to them. They have learned, but the test is just
too damn confusing.
2.
Collapsed curriculums because superintendents,
under-superintendents, district staff, administrators and teachers have given
up. “Give me the script and I’ll read the script.” Take the scripts away,
Santa. Surely you have room on the sleigh after you have emptied your bag of
gifts.
3.
High expectations. OMG, no one has suffered from
high expectations like you, Santa. Yet you deliver the right gift to the right
person. Can’t we trust teachers to do the right thing by their students without
the bludgeoning of ridiculous buzzwords and catch phrases?
4.
Test prep masquerading as lessons. Achieve 3000
anyone? iReady? Or my favorite, please Santa, take away all the
#Pearsoncrappyproducts.
5.
PARCC. SBAC. And all the derivatives that are
nothing more than the Emperor dressed up in new clothes, especially you, SAGE
test rented by Florida.
6.
Charter school rules that tilt the playing field
until we, public school employees and children alike, slide into the sewer.
7.
Naked greed, as in Manny Diaz’s bill to strip
school boards of any authority over charters in their district. But Manny is
connected to a charter chain. Isn’t he reacting to Palm Beach County’s
challenge to charter schools in the courts? Oh, Santa, maybe you could take
Manny back to the North Pole and isolate him in one of your workshops. Ten
years of making Legos sets might fix his lack of ethics. Or maybe not. I’d hate
to see a new line of Legos Charter Schools. All you need is the plastic bricks
and you too can rip off taxpayer dollars.
8.
VAM measures for teacher evaluations, which
everyone, including expert statisticians and research foundations, agree do not
capture any significant metric for teacher performance.
9.
School grading formulas. Stupid idea, really,
when you think about it. Best practices and research say to have multiple
measures, but then the JEB Bush ‘this-is-my-mark-in-history’ moment says one
narrow test, flawed and badly constructed, tells all. Take it away, Santa.
10.
Common Core. How did we let the worms that eat
the apple construct the apple and convince us it was good to eat? This
monstrosity makes Eve in the Garden look good in comparison.
11.
At least Eve was deceived. Adam knew better and
sinned anyway. Santa, could you take away the Gates Foundation? The Walton
Foundation? The Koch Brothers? And just for kicks, Eva Moscowitz, too.
12.
Finally, Santa, as in the 12 Days of Christmas,
it is my twelfth wish and I am allowed no more. Can you take away the real
cause of educational failure? Poverty, violence, and the mess our children must
live in. Take away their trauma.
Please,
Santa. Is it too much to ask for?
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