The Blind Leading the Sighted

Many of my friends are teachers. And an even larger majority of them are those who have worked in a Program Improvement school.

They are some of the best people I know.

They have been through the refiner's fire of PI schools with gritted teeth and sweat on their brow as they have pushed through the mandated commercial curriculums, raced to keep up with unrealistic pacing calendars designed to "help" them get ALL the standards taught before the state test, dared students to achieve far beyond their capabilities ( and with NCLB mandates forcing out Art, Music, PE, Science and Social Studies...far beyond their motivation levels), posted standards on walls, which students didn't give a second glance at ( even when the teacher read them), and gave assessments until they were blue in the face.

Who knows their struggles? Only those who have taught at a PI school and stayed, and those who have taught at a PI school...and left.

Principals think they can empathize. After all, they are on campus every day, walking through classes, evaluating lessons, scanning and collecting lesson plans, putting together teacher inservices, going to meetings to learn of all those things they must tell their teachers to do, and then writing out the lists and giving the lectures so their teachers will do them, etc.

But do they really understand?

No.

A teacher friend shared this story. Her sister is a teacher at a Program Improvement school. As she had to leave campus for a morning appointment. She prepared for a substitute, leaving standards based and fidelity-to-the-base-program lesson plans and classwork. She even tried to make the volume of the work and depth of the lessons which needed to be covered easier, so as to not overwhelm the "guest teacher."

Well, the substitute never showed up. The principal had to take over the class.

When my friend's sister returned to the campus, she found the principal hovering over the desk with a look of deep concern on his face. These were his words, " I never knew. I ask my teachers to do this everyday, and I never knew."

Enough said.