Crushed

So my school gets its FCAT scores today. They stink. No surprise there, unfortunately. The strongest correlation between standardized test scores and some other factor is income. The higher the income of the student population, the higher the scores. The lower the income, the lower the scores. Since our school is located in one of the poorest ZIP codes in Central Florida, you get the picture.

This past year, I have been busting my ass doing exactly what the State of Florida says is the ticket out of the F-rated school basement. My fellow teachers and I have been doing it so well, the State has been sending other schools to us to see how to implement their vaunted program. We’re whipped. Our faculty looks like extras from Shaun of the Dead. We gave until we bled, figuratively, and all for nothing.

I know my kids learned. I know they progressed. I also know that the morons populating this state who let numbers do their thinking for them (read: legislators and pundits) will pass judgment on me and my fellow teachers because of the numbers. These numbers have far more to do with lack of preparation and home support than they do with teaching, but I’ll be taking the hit for it. My professional reputation will suffer because I choose to do the hardest work in teaching: inner city high school. I just want to scream.

I wish screaming would do any good. I wish legislators would listen to teachers instead of well-heeled constituents. I wish the quiet racism that pervades our society, the kind that looks at a “failing” grade at an impoverished, inner-city school and nods knowingly because surely black kids can’t do any better, would evaporate. I wish someone would admit that American kids should be celebrated for their individual gifts and not ramrodded toward college because we’re in some ridiculous competition with every other country on the planet for educational superiority (according to those blasted numbers again). I wish someone would shake some sense into the brothers Bush. I wish…

Hell, there’s no use wishing. Guess I’ll go beat my head against a wall. It’ll be about as productive.