Rusty Harris in his editorial said that teachers demolished Joyce Bales, "costly but effective reading program." http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/harris/harris-vista-teacher-union-stakes-out-big-win/article_6b4453cc-5ca9-508e-b897-8eb35b889d57.html?mode=story He is referring to the Linda Mood-Bell program that Joyce Bales mandated for every school site in the school district.
(http://www.lindamoodbell.com/)No one argues that it was not effective for the small number of students cherry picked by LMB staff to be helped. The problem was there are equally effective reading programs recommended by the State of California that are far cheaper that helped all students.
More importantly it was not the teachers who were upset at this waste, so much as the parents who previous to Joyce Bales had LOCAL SITE DISCRETION to choose and purchase for their own kids the program they wanted through funds provided to the state mandated School Site Council (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=edc&group=52001-53000&file=52850-52863)
The parents at several school campuses opposed Joyce Bales grab of SSC money for her LMB program. They spoke against Bales plan at school board meetings and pursued legal challenges. However the parents lost at the school board meetings and in their other challenges. So the parents did what all disgruntled folks do in a democracy. They organized and elected two new members of the board who were more parent friendly (former PTA officers Jaka and Chunka) and re-elected another (Herrera).
The new majority decided SSC's could once again use their site money and make their own local site decision instead of having a district wide decision rammed down their throats.
NOTE: No other school district in California besides VUSD under Dr. Bales used LMB as their primary reading supplement. There are over one thousand school districts in the state.
Also note: LMB is NOT on the California Approved List of Intensive Interventions for reading.http://www.vusd.k12.ca.us/Departments/BusinessServices/BAC%20Meetings/BAC%20Minutes%202-12-09.pdf
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment