Yesterday, I posted about Jay Mathews at The Washington Post including our high school in his list of top high schools in the United States — Washington Post Ranks Our High School Among Top Ten Percent In U.S.
This was our principal’s reaction:
Source: shareasimage.com via Larry on Pinterest
Larry,
So much said about the “reform” of our schools in this one simple quote.
I’ve always been of the mind (and so many practicing teachers intuitively know this), you can’t measure in any narrow, quantitative way – the effect of a school/teacher or educational system. it’s more art than science and we need more support of teachers and schools and less ranking. Better funding, better leadership and more freedom for teachers to teach in the classroom. The numbers are just a distraction. Education is anywhere, anyplace these days.
David
How great is it to work for a principal who is not scared shoeless (I kept it clean) by the numbers game? I came by looking for your take on the NYT ed op today by David Kirp on the failure of integration. I have an admittedly small anecdotal perspective. The high school I attended which was successfully integrated and academically successful in the 1970’s ( and long before that) is being closed, replaced by 5 small non-integrated high schools. I was looking for an actual reference, but inside sources told me at one time 11 AP courses were offered at the school. Today, only one is between the five different schools. http://www.queenstribune.com/deadline/Deadline_010611_JamaicaHS.html (not the exact info but close)
Enjoy your field trip