If It Will Feed Nothing Else, It Will Feed My Revenge (or The Final Post About My Past Teacher Life, I Promise)

I had not planned on writing another post about the difficulties at my previous school.  With that behind me, I plan to enjoy my new, drama-free school.  I like teaching again, which is a relief.  However, we recently got some news that made me want to point, laugh, and say, “Told you so!”

Now, I’m not one to put too much stock in standardized test scores, in fact I hate standardized tests with every fiber of my being.  But after a year or so of being told that our 2nd grade program was a failure, our test scores for 2011/12 turned out to be quite good. 

In language arts, 83% of our kids were proficient – up from 69% the year before.  For a Title I school, that proficiency level is outstanding.  In math, 93% of our kids were proficient, up from 81%.  Our math scores were the highest in our district, even higher than the six English only/higher income schools.

The thing about the whole year, we knew that what we were doing was working.  Each year we turned out kids who were better readers than the previous year.  We researched and tweaked our program based on our students’ needs.  But to constantly be told differently was so disheartening and frustrating.  When we brought up the concerns with administration, it was met with anger and vindictiveness.  For our kids to have earned those test scores is such a validation of what we were fighting for all year long. 

After the year we had, the 2nd grade team at my previous school was obliterated due to our requests for transfers.  We have all moved on now, taking those high test scores with us.  I know that revenge is a sign of weakness and narrow mindedness blah blah blah…in this case it’s so very sweet.