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Tuesday, November 29, 2005
ONE DAY'S WORK: Yorba Middle School OUSD's FOCUS ON RESULTS "Instructional Walkthrough"
As part of the $2 million Focus on Results program in Orange Unified, teams of high paid six- figure administrators and teachers from other schools who leave their classrooms to substitutes (which the district pays for) visit every classroom in a chosen school for about five minutes. In this “Instructional Walkthrough” the team has been “trained” to check bulletin boards for student work and look for other “evidence” that instruction is happening in their brief five minute visit. Below is the final product of this full day of “labor” at taxpayers’ expense from the six figure bureaucrats and teachers who are not in their own classrooms. The list below is the complete piece of work from 12 people visiting Yorba Middle School on Wednesday October 12th. These results were then copied and given to about 8 people at a Yorba Department Chairs meeting (now called the Instructional Leadership Team), and read out loud by the Principal with no discussion. The “work” was never passed out to the rest of the school's teachers for any discussion. Below is the entire one day’s work product (Note: the typo in the last one “without and explanation” is original to the work):
Positive Feedback
1. Student writing evidence in almost all classes.
2. Graphic organizers evident in vast majority of classrooms.
3. Cornell Note-taking in Science and Algebra
4. Half the classes had summary writing.
5. In every class students were aware of the purpose of the lesson.
6. 100% engagement of the students and teachers
7. Structure of lessons
Obvious purpose
Critical Thinking
8. Evidence of summaries in all classrooms.
9. Daily agenda in most classes.
10. Evidence of some type of note-taking in all classes.
I Wonder…?
1. How consistently is the language program being used?
2. Are graphic organizers being used more than witnessed?
3. Why was there no student work in some classrooms?
4. When will students take ownership of Cornell notes?
5. Are rubrics being used?
6. Why were standards posted just as numbers, without and explanation?
Positive Feedback
1. Student writing evidence in almost all classes.
2. Graphic organizers evident in vast majority of classrooms.
3. Cornell Note-taking in Science and Algebra
4. Half the classes had summary writing.
5. In every class students were aware of the purpose of the lesson.
6. 100% engagement of the students and teachers
7. Structure of lessons
Obvious purpose
Critical Thinking
8. Evidence of summaries in all classrooms.
9. Daily agenda in most classes.
10. Evidence of some type of note-taking in all classes.
I Wonder…?
1. How consistently is the language program being used?
2. Are graphic organizers being used more than witnessed?
3. Why was there no student work in some classrooms?
4. When will students take ownership of Cornell notes?
5. Are rubrics being used?
6. Why were standards posted just as numbers, without and explanation?
