Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Here is a link to the report on how the Atlanta city schools fared on this year's "adequate yearly progress". Our high school happened to make it this year. Yippee! Anyway, I've always wondered if there is any statistical validity to comparing one group of students (last year's class) to another (this year's class). Wouldn't it give you a more meaningful indication of progress to compoare the results of a given group from year to year? I'll have to ask one of our math teachers what they think of that? 9:18:11 PM    comment []

Why do teachers become so possessive of stuff that is not theirs? This year, due to a major restructuring of our school, the majority of teachers were moved to different rooms, me included. Despite the fact that we were explicitly told not to move computers from the rooms, and that there are three computers in every single classroom,  the teacher who previously had my new room insists on taking "her" three computers with her to her new classroom, showing no concern for whether I would be left with any computers in my new classroom. And yes, there are three perfectly good computers in her neew room as well. She will not be allowed to remove those three computers unless they are replaced with three other computers. The reason she wants to take "hers" is that, of the three, two are of the newer model that were installed last year to be used as teacher workstations, whereas most rooms only have one newer model (running windows XP) with two older ones (W98). So, does this not seem a little petty? Perhaps her attachment to the computers is natural and understandable, but are we not grown-ups here? Next hing I konw she'll be taking the teacher's desk, the blackboards, the gum on the walls...Well, it's certainly not as strange as in a previous year when I was moved and the teacher who previously occupied the new room refused to give up the key to the room. And in that case I had a colleague tell me that the fact that I had dutifully turned in the keys to my old room at the end of the previous year was "bad teaching." 9:08:38 PM    comment []