Facts and Figures

The US Department of Education published a document (America's Educational Progress, 2008) outlining where each state and of course, our beloved city of DC is going in terms of academic achievement.

I went straight to DC data and found out that our chart, even though we are not YET where we should be, is going upwards. The SY 2007-08 data are not yet factored in. With all the Rhee Administration’s media publicity about our academic gains, I'm expecting a nice spike on next publication.

Despite the encouraging data, I was flabbergasted by this chart:

Last year, roughly 30% of our elementary teachers did not meet NCLB criteria for Highly Qualified Teachers and on the same note, a whopping 50% of our secondary teachers were not supposed to be in classrooms!

This made me ponder:

If some teachers can’t make NCLB criteria how can we expect them to make students meet NCLB AYP requirements?

It is mind boggling how this much teachers made it to the classrooms…

On Lying Leaders

I was on my routinary happy-go-lucky, blog-hopping mode when I stumbled a statement on dcedublog by newly appointed Acting Deputy Chancellor for Special Education Richard Nyankori:

"Sometimes it is willful on the part of some staff not to make it to meetings..."

Please note on the word WILLFUL while I take a mental note of the word BUL*SH*T.

Definitely someone is lying.

If ever anyone of you meet any of our central office leaders especially Nyankori, please recommend to them to visit schools. Like actually PHYSICALLY visit schools and OBSERVE. Maybe then, they can have an intelligent, well-informed, and first-hand data to back up their skewed statements.

And please pass my mental note to him as well.

(Thewashingtonteacher post on this one is a recommended MUST read.)