educators

In April and May, I asked district administrators for the research and data that support their continued use of reform curricula. Despite several formal requests for public information and a friendly phone call, I’ve received no data and no research. I was told that supporting research was tossed with yesterday’s meatloaf. No, I was actually told it wasn’t kept on hand. (The meatloaf is still there.) I don’t know why the research wouldn’t be kept because administrators keep referring to it (as in “research shows” and “according to the research”). Instead, I was given the names of three organizations and two types of tests, and I was invited to the central office to look over their “great number of materials on the subject of effective instruction in mathematics.” Technically, this is not “data” or “research.” Technically, I think this is called “skating.”