Seattle Schools Community Forum

In his recent thread on the outlines of what ed reform is pushing for, Charlie included this in a comment as another facet: Standardized Curriculum - Reformers push the idea of standardized curricula, not only across classrooms within a school, but across schools within a district, across districts within a state, and, with the Common Core, across all states in the country. Standardized Curricula leads directly to standardized instruction - teachers essentially working off a script and pacing guide and being judged on their "fidelity of implementation". This boils down to every classroom in the country being on page 56 on the same day. This includes the ideas of vertical and horizontal articulation. Not only does this rob teachers of their autonomy and thereby de-professionalize teaching, but it is antithetical to differentiated instruction and therefore it worsens education for students. This is the first step towards delivering teaching through some process o...

Two thing prompted me to want to write this thread.  One was from the thread "This or That" about what readers think are important in the budget.  Here's what "Joanie" had to say (and I believe this person is a teacher): Sorry I didn't say it all in one post. Teachers' plates are getting fuller and fuller. I watch the board meetings fairly often and the teachers and parents who appear seem to be ignored most of the time. I agree with much of what I hear. Now Dr. Enfield is creating another way for teachers to communicate with parents: turning the school website into a potential blog site that will be monitored by teachers. Good Lord! That's not what we need. How much money has been spent on IT in the Distrist already. Put it at middle and high schools where kids can make more of it. Elementary schools do not need more IT. More bandaids for appearances. They need to change the paradigm. And, with all the money that has gone in...