Here’s a parable making the rounds on the InterTooobz (scroll down for video). How can you NOT think about Gilbert Public Schools and the Assistant Superintendents and their pals, especially given how we all see them act in public?
If you start with a cage containing five monkeys and inside the cage, hang a banana on a string from the top and then you place a set of stairs under the banana, before long a monkey will go to the stairs and climb toward the banana.
As soon as he touches the stairs, you spray all the other monkeys with cold water.
After a while another monkey makes an attempt with same result… all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.
Now, put the cold water away. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one.
The new monkey sees the banana and attempts to climb the stairs. To his shock, all of the other monkeys beat the crap out of him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys, replacing it with a new one.
The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment…… with enthusiasm, because he is now part of the “team”.
Then, replace a third original monkey with a new one, followed by the fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.
Now, the monkeys that are beating him up have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs. Neither do they know why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
Finally, having replaced all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys will have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, not one of the monkeys will try to climb the stairway for the banana.
Why, you ask? Because in their minds…that is the way it has always been!
This, my friends, is how GPS operates… and this is why, from time to time: ALL of the monkeys need to be REPLACED AT THE SAME TIME.
The object of Keyboard’s affection gets a pass, since Dr. Jack Keegan wasn’t part of the GOBs that created the problems now confronting Gilbert Public Schools. Pssst …. polish that halo, Jack, it’s showing some wear and tear!
[Keyboard: Because I say so, that’s why!]
Here’s an old story and YouTube video that applies to Gilbert Public Schools and their implementation of Common Core (or any other new program). This is how many districts went about designing new teacher evaluation systems and how the Education Department went about training the trainers. You know this is how it was done in GPS, right? (waving hi to Tooty Andrew!)
The scripted curriculum given to local trainers by the Education Department begins with a bizarre video of smiling mechanics wearing unopened parachutes, building an unfinished plane in flight. It is labeled a ‘funny video’ on YouTube. Not a school leader in the room laughed. Likening a system that is now driving professional evaluations and student testing to what could have been an episode of the Three Stooges did not amuse. I felt sad. Leaders of integrity and courage do not let unfinished planes with students and teachers aboard off the ground. (Scroll below the video for more.)
The question and answer session went like this:
“How can we evaluate teachers when we do not have test results before they leave for the summer?” We do not know.
“What do we say to parents when we are compelled to put a teacher publically rated ‘ineffective’, fairly or unfairly, back into the classroom for their second year?” That was labeled a ‘rhetorical question.’
“How will they determine the scores, based on test scores, of teachers who go on maternity, or of special education and reading teachers?” Reply: Dosage formulas. They will determine the ‘dosage’ (yes, the trainers told us, that is their term) of the teacher that a student got.
Take a second look at that YouTube video; the passengers don’t have parachutes — the only ones who do are those who enthusiastically build the plane.
Gilbert Public Schools: Monkey see, monkey do, because that’s how it’s always been done around here. (Also known as, “The Gilbert Way.”) Build a plane in the air? Why not? Andrew Szczepaniak can toot and tell us how awesome he and Robyn Conrad are. One hundred years of tradition unhampered by progress.