Bellevue, Washington, the 5th largest city in the state, is home to a nationally recognized school district. Its three high schools rank among the best in the state. From his arrival in 1996, Superintendent Mike Riley of the Bellevue School District had been a man with a mission. His focus was district curriculum and his goal was to standardize it. He succeeded admirably as evidenced by Bellevue’s improvement on standardized test scores. Parents were pleased. The town was booming. Mike Riley was living a public relations dream.
Then he and his top-down curriculum revisions went too far. At the beginning of the 2007 school year, teacher contract negotiations stalled over salary and curriculum issues. Though Supt. Riley had left his Bellevue post the previous November, his mandated, standardized daily lesson plans became THE bone of contention.
Every teacher of a core curriculum class in the district had to teach the same scripted lesson on the same day in exactly the same way. The Bellevue Education Association voted to strike, postponing the scheduled opening of the 2007 school year. On August 31, 2007 I sent the following letter to the president of the teachers’ association:
FAS
Dear Bellevue Education Association Teachers,
I feel for the teachers in the Bellevue School District, I really do. If you don’t strike now over your district’s mandatory scripted lesson plans, you might as well kiss your classroom autonomy goodbye. The job you agree to return to will never be the same. Welcome to the brave new world of education assembly lines and the mindless pursuit of guaranteed higher test scores.
I’ve seen it all before from the inside. Five years ago my school went assembly line to deal with WASL panic. The “Line” worked great at covering new teachers’ inexperience and proved the ultimate in CYA public relations. It did take a while to weed out independent-minded veterans, who left for other schools that still valued experience and expertise. Lo and behold, this past year (the first with everyone on board) WASL scores dropped 3%! Oops! What now, efficiency experts?
Someone please explain how mass production techniques work with individual minds trying to connect with other individual minds? Since when has uniformity been more important than excellence in independent thought? Surely we Americans still value independent thought, don’t we? Bellevue teachers, don’t let your district demean you and your students this way.
Give in now and you can forget about teaching as a profession. Your calling will become just another position on “The Line.” Forget, too, all your hard-earned money spent on post-grad hours for salary advancement. What good are your years of classroom experience and professional/personal growth? Nothing in your past counts now. You’re just a cog. You’ve allowed the moron who dreamed up one-size-fits-all lesson plans to make an Orwellian nightmare come true.
Teachers in Bellevue, you have a history of education success on your side. Fight for the excellence you’ve already demonstrated. Never settle for uniformity because district hacks value it. If the district wins on this issue, they’ll get their uniform education, but it will be uniformly mediocre. The best of you will leave. I did after 36 years. I’d rather be out of work than become a mindless, spineless, assembly-line lackey.
Teachers, here’s a teaching moment you can’t afford to miss. Teach the Bellevue School District the lesson it MUST learn. Strike hard. Strike now.
Respectfully yours,
Fred A. Strine
P.S. The strike lasted nine days. On September 14, 2007, teachers in the Bellevue School District signed a new contract that gave them a 5% cost of living increase over three years. They also won the right to modify daily lesson plans without prior district approval.
No comments:
Post a Comment