The simple things in life are the things that seem to be the most satisfying. On my weekly drudgery to the grocery store, I found a treasure… Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr. Pepper. (Trademark Dr. Pepper Co) Now before I begin to sound like a soft drink advertisement let me explain. I hate going to the grocery store because we have taken something simple, like food and made it so complicated. I yearn to be a child again and walk in my grandfathers (both of them) gardens. All you had to do is pick it and eat it… well Mom made me wash it first! Why do we need an entire aisle of sugary breakfast cereals? Using cola as an example, when I was a kid you could get any sort of fizzy drink you wanted for fewer-than six letters (well one of them had a prefix)! Today you have Diet, Caffeine Free, Vanilla, Chocolate, Cherry anything you want. Seems even grocery companies are in a quest for the best!
Public schools are not immune to this disorder. Now that we measure demographic data, discipline data, testing data (both the summative and formative varieties), lest I forget sporting events and extra-curricular band and choir competitions… I could go on and on. How many times have you passed a car with a bumper sticker, “My child is a honor student at Know-It-All Elementary School?” We want to be the best… and we want our children to be the best. I know parents who spend all their free time on the road running their children to every sporting/musical/community organization available. Long past is the era of family discussions and quite mediation. Even the Bible mentions running the good race, somehow I feel that the Apostle Paul was referring to the “journey” and not the finish line.
Royal is no exception. Our teachers have set aside Thursday mornings to pour over all sorts of data to see where the kids mastered the standards, and where they have missed the mark. As we move education into the realm of science it is the job of school administration to focus this effort and stay on the “quest for the best.” To me, this means focusing 3000 teenagers on the importance of state standardized testing. Now I know we are in the same boat as every other school in America, we must achieve 100% proficiency by 2013! Being trained in Texas the birthplace of NCLB, I can not recall a single reference to every school must be 100% in ten years. I am unsure what happened between Austin and Washington DC, but now a whole bunch of us are now sweating bullets every year when new API scores are released.
Now that I have dissected our schools data in every possible way, I came to the conclusion that we needed Testing Centers. In these Testing Centers we would show videos to help students understand “how” to take tests… we would give them copies of their scores from the last two years so they could set goals for this year and discuss the general importance of testing… I was on a quest for the best! Of course things never go the way you intend…
Our diligent video production teacher had double checked and made sure that she had all classrooms prepared for the reading comprehension video, however, we didn’t count on the sub that called at the last minute asking where the TV was located? Now this was indeed a problem, being that you actually need a television to view the video. I scratched my head and asked the question why didn’t that teacher ask me the same question the day before? I sent a campus supervisor on a "quest" to actually find the TV. Shortly after the dreaded call came that it was no where to be found. Seeing that I only a few minutes before viewing, I did what all good administrators do, I punted! I called our dynamo Web Design teacher and requested the Campus Sup to escort the sub and kids to his classroom to watch the video. Despite the phone calls with questions that I had previously answered in the staff meeting all went well.
If the devil is truly in the details, now I know why I am not a detail person! Thank heavens for Debbie, who constantly yanks me back down to reality when I go on one of my “vision quests.” Striving for the best is one thing, mobilizing 3000 teenagers and 100 plus staff members is quite another.
The moral of this story... we should all teach our children (ourselves) to do our best… however we should also understand that perfection is simply not an option.
