Re: No Child Left Glued to the Table

["PRISCILLA GUTIERREZ" <pgutpgut@msn.com>]

Joe, what do you do if you are a principal and your district tells you that 
your teachers MUST follow the script exactly, and that they cannot use any 
materials other than the Reading First "scientific" materials or you will 
lose funding?

The example from Buffalo is just one of many.  In Long Beach, CA, districts 
were forced by the state department of ed to adopt Open Court, and then were 
forced to accept Open Court monitors who roamed the halls to ensure everyone 
was on the same page at the same time.

At Downer Elementary in CA, teachers had to accept the surprise visits from 
CTB McGraw Hill reps who are the publishers of Open  Court, who were there 
to ensure that teachers were only using Open Court and were strictly 
adhering to the script.  Teachers who complained were involuntarily 
transferred out of the school and are now barred from entering Downer since 
they've been labeled as adversive.

In another school which will go unnamed, teachers are forced to agree to a 
gag order.  They are not allowed to talk to anyone outside the classroom 
(e.g. the media) and if they complain about the narrow restrictive nature of 
scripted programs, they are labeled troublemakers.  And in yet another 
school where a colleague works, when she questioned the research behind 
DIBELS testing, she was silenced by the staff and administration who told 
her it was rude for her to challenge the wisdom of adopting the test.  She 
was subsequently involuntarily transferred as well for trying to advocate 
for her students - her attempts to show what best practice was based on 
scads of research and 20 years of experience was rewarded with a 24 hour 
notice to vacate her classroom...





Priscilla Gutierrez
Outreach Specialist
New Mexico School for the Deaf

....change is inevitable, growth is optional...





> From: "Joseph Bottini" <jpbottini@adelphia.net>
> Reply-To: arn-l@interversity.org
> To: <arn-l@interversity.org>
> Subject: Re: [arn-l] No Child Left Glued to the Table
> Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:37:01 -0500
>
> Art:
>
>
>
> You are way off base on this one.
>
> The point is rigid scrip for instruction leaves little room for teacher
> decision-making, as too what is deemed an emergency.
>
> My 5 year old granddaughter should expect to have the teacher's attention 
> if
> she is "all glued" due to an accident as described.
>
>
>
> The Principal needs to take Common Sense 101 over again, I think.
>
>
>
> Joe Bo
>
>
>
>   _____
>
> From: arn-l-owner@interversity.org [mailto:arn-l-owner@interversity.org] On
> Behalf Of aburke5054@aol.com
> Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2007 11:01 AM
> To: arn-l@interversity.org
> Subject: Re: [arn-l] No Child Left Glued to the Table
>
>
>
> This silliness has nothing to do with scientific reading instruction
> (whatever that is) and everything to do with the poor judgment of people
> working in the schools.   When schools can't cope with little kids handling
> bottles of glue, blaming NCLB is quite a stretch.
>
> Art
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgutpgut@msn.com
> To: arn-l@interversity.org; LiteracyForAll@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 7:37 AM
> Subject: [arn-l] No Child Left Glued to the Table
>
> Susan Ohanian posted this on her announcements today, and it is one more
> painful example of scientific reading instruction run amok. Highly 
> qualified
> teachers under Reading First mandates mean following the script, even if it
> makes no sense to do so...
>
> "We are being instructed that during SMALL GROUP INSTRUCTION, teachers are
> NOT to interact with other students. Now last year kindergarten teachers
> tried to explain how difficult it was to keep 5-year-olds quietly busy with
> only Harcourt materials while we teachers worked with a small group.
>
> Let's say you have 24 children, with 7 in a group. This means 17 kids are
> sitting for up to 40 minutes. . . quietly and NOT DISTURBING THE TEACHER.
>
> The principal was observing one of the kindergarten teachers during small
> group time and a little 5-year-old with special needs using glue had the
> horrific experience of the top coming off of the bottle. Understandably,
> that child went up to the teacher--THE ADULT IN CHARGE. Also
> understandably--and professionally--the teacher got up to help this child.
>
> That evening, the teacher got an email from the principal telling her SHE 
> IS
> NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES TO ENGAGE WITH OTHER STUDENTS during small 
> group
> instruction (unless there is a real emergency)!
>
> Here was a 5-year-old, covered in glue. What was he/she to do--get STUCK TO
> THE TABLE waiting for 20 minutes until the teacher finished with that one
> group?
>
> GROWN-UPS, EDUCATED PEOPLE, ARE LOSING THEIR MINDS HERE IN BUFFALO, and we
> are supposed to condone this form of child abuse! "
>
> - teacher
> Buffalo School System
> 2007-01-10
>
>
>
> Priscilla Gutierrez
> Outreach Specialist
> New Mexico School for the Deaf
>
> ....change is inevitable, growth is optional...
>
>
>   _____
>
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>
>
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