Gilford Superintendent of Schools Dr. Paul DeMinico and HS Principal Mr. Ken Wiswell joined the MTNP crew today. While we were supposed to talk about NCLB AND the "International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme", it turned out to be just the former (we’ve promised to do it again!).
Anyways, the talk centered around accountability, standardized testing (pro and con), and competition in the educational arena and in the "rest" of the world. Frankly, I did say that the educational established tries to down play the need for competition at the same time that the world is ramping it up more.
Well, here’s another case of trying to paper over the bad news – gee, another stab at redefining failure? From Joanne Jacobs (who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite educational bloggers, emphasis mine):
There will be no “underperforming” schools in Massachusetts, if education officials get their way.
To soothe the bruised egos of educators and children in lackluster schools, Massachusetts officials are now pushing for kinder, gentler euphemisms for failure.
Instead of calling these schools “underperforming,” the Board of Education is considering labeling them as “Commonwealth priority,” to avoid poisoning teacher and student morale.
Schools in the direst straits, now known as “chronically underperforming,” would get the more urgent but still vague label of “priority one.”
They must think their administrators, teachers and students aren’t very bright.
After all, we cannot harm their easily bruised sense of self-esteem, even if their results are of no esteem at all.
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