Re: [arn-l Digest] Vol. 3 No. 198 Messages: 9

[ABurke5054@aol.com]

This says a lot, doesn't it, about what it takes to change even the  simplest 
things in public education.  An unexamined process with dubious  pedigree is 
in place for a decade.  Someone does something different.   Three years later 
teachers notice.  More time to get the Board  involved, more meetings, and 
finally a policy change .  And what  was the earth-shaking result? A change in 
the way you score kids  writing assignments.  Imagine what it will take to 
tackle the really big  issues; for example, the fact that the average 
African-American 12th  grader achieves at the level of the average White eighth grader.  
And  people wonder why we have NCLB?  It can only be a conspiracy by the  
Business Roundtable.
 
Art
 
In a message dated 7/29/2006 8:40:05 AM Pacific Standard Time,  
shays@ccwebster.net writes:

...After  about three years at the site, other teachers began to notice that  
something different was going on in my classroom and with  my students.  At 
about the same time, we were able to convince the  Board  to carve out some 
time from the extra minutes we were  teaching each  day to give us three hours of 
no student time every two  weeks.   Within three months, we had a new 
school-wide writing  rubric that all  
teachers had a hand in creating (and a new  district-wide writing  
assessment), and almost all the teachers began  using it not only for  assessment 
purposes, but also for instructional  goals.