Taylor Mali 'Speak with Conviction'. - ppt download

Taylor Mali 'Speak with Conviction'. - ppt download

Open Letter to America's Regional Educational Laboratories

Having lived in Maine for 40-ish years and taught there for 14, I knew about our status as a laboratory state for the digital revolution--thank you, sort of, Sen. Angus King. I did not know that my most recent school district in New Mexico was a lab school, too. 

Deming Public Schools show up on a list of research stakeholders ostensibly trying to narrow the ever-growing achievement gap. I knew DPS got lots of federal money and did lots of testing. I'm beginning to draw some Venn diagrams.


Dear Ms. Cavazos:

What does Deming, New Mexico's participation in the Regional Education Lab garner the district? Please be specific. Please compare it to demonstrated results like many more teachers, lower student-loads, fewer children per classroom, and writing across the curriculum.

I am I longtime high school English teacher in my first year at Deming High and have recently been asked to collect data from a deeply flawed Pearson exam I was forced to administer to my students a few weeks ago. Early this past week, I questioned the destination and purpose of the data. My reticence, born of long years using digital learning, has been termed insubordination, and yesterday I received a reduction in force letter, claiming a loss of enrollment next year.

When Deming High School Principal Janean Garney asked me last summer why I wanted to teach in Southwestern New Mexico. I told her I wanted to escape the digital laboratories of Maine's MLTI program and she agreed that I would find her school "so far behind, it's ahead." I had failed to do my own research, so I believed her.

She told the truth about the school and the area being digitally hamstrung. Compared to copper-wired Maine, Southwestern New Mexico is indeed a broadband desert. As a teacher whose first year in the classroom was 1992, I embraced the initial wave of Maine's laptop program. Since then, I have watched the results of the technological reforms and witnessed students' steady loss of literacy and focus. 

My overall pleasure at moving to Deming and teaching here took several hits nearly as soon as I arrived. The 120-student class load Ms. Garney promised on Skype morphed into 160 students every day in six 52-minute periods. Poor school and community wifi makes the local digital revolution a stutter-step affair and exacerbates achievement gaps between the poorest, many of whom who live in Palomas, Mexico, and the white rancher families on this side of the border who can afford satellites or brutal phone bills. In fact, I write you from my rented home 3.5 miles from the center of town using my phone as a hotspot because there are no other non-satellite options. 

A high school sophomore syllabus using novels, short stories, and current-events pieces that I had used in some form for 15 years, evaporated the first week of school when my department head told me we had been switched to Pearson's computerized curriculum. I told Principal Garney that I would be pleased to explore the curriculum and bring it into my plans as soon as technical flaws stopped interrupting classes on a daily basis. Within a few weeks she advised our department that use of the Pearson computerized curriculum was not a choice. She commanded us to use it every day.

When I described a litany of technical flaws to a Pearson tech while explaining that this was not my first digital rodeo, he shook his head and said, "Maine? Wow! They're at the sharp end of the spear." I wondered exactly what he imagined Pearson was impaling with that metaphorical weapon.

These technological problems continue to this day at DHS, whether borne of the Lenovo ThinkPads, the Pearson software, or the Infinite Campus student tracking program--all brand new this year. 

LAUSD has successfully sued Apple for contractual failures connected to this beta-version Pearson curriculum. As far as I know the suit against Pearson and Lenovo remains unsettled.

Research by public radio's Latino USA reveals that Pearson targets high poverty, low graduation, densely English language-learner districts in order to test their unfinished programs and earn a fine profit in the bargain. If American citizens unwittingly support this program under the guise of achievement gap research, I suggest we stop. Any teacher--especially one who is further ahead in the digital research path--could have advised Deming High School against taking on three new systems simultaneously. 

My students would benefit far more from smaller classes, teachers with more prep time, and more concentration on writing across the curriculum. These are the only things that have ever proved successful in the face of abject poverty.