In the end, at the terminus of the school year…we realized that the system was purely data hungry. Research had gone from being helpful, a tool…to an entity to be worshipped. More details, more schedules, more numbers, more charts…it was a sacrificial system…a blood lust with minimal return, forever morphing.
Everyone scrambled to print, share, produce, file. Then the sated lull…only to have the stream fill up again with requests. Brand new, all agog with the novelty of it all, we stood with bright eyes, waiting as if we had never traversed this path before. Then…silence.
After awhile, we divided amongst ourselves…those choosing to fight to change the system went one way. Those choosing to work outside the system…under the radar, through the side door, hand held heavy on the delete button; we went another way. But could those blasted test scores ever inch upward?
Raising the test scores…that was the never ending hymn, sung out wherever we were forced to listen…
690 Saint Paul 