Reply #: Hopefully the district will be cleaning up its act.

[Starry Messenger]

The demanded changes may not come to much if things like this are still going to occur--

http://www.projo.com/news/content/central_falls_meeting.1_03-24-10_DPHSMAF_v14.3b316d7.html

Jorge A. Torres, another math teacher, told the trustees that the start of the 2008-2009 school year was so chaotic, school administrators completely forgot to hire a math teacher for students learning English.

“It took them a month to hire an ESL math teacher,” Torres said. “That year, we were all over the place ... We are trying our best on our own. Even with all this, the math scores have gone up for the past three years. I know it doesn’t sound like much, going from 4 percent to 7 percent. But we are willing to work. We need your support.”

Cheryl Aucoin, a reading specialist, described similar problems with the literacy program.

For 12 years, Aucoin said, she has watched reading programs come and go. Some of the most successful ones were cut when the district ran into financial difficulty or when a new administrative team decided they wanted to try something new, she said.

“We talk about being a data-driven high school,” Aucoin said. “But many of these programs were not in place long enough to cull data needed to calculate their success or the lack thereof.”

The teachers often perform the actions voluntarily that the district demanded for low-wages and mandatory time. They rightly pointed out that the school, district and community needs to do its part as well. Even against all obstacles, the scores were actually rising last year. It's going to take more than just the teachers to create the kind of ambitious gains looked for by the PTB.