Meanwhile, Behind the Scenes
Buried in 60,000 pages...
As part of my review, I submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for our school district. Somewhere in the 60,000 pages of emails I received, I found one that stopped me in my tracks.
It was tucked away, easy to miss, but it said more about the system than anyone intended.
Do you know what I didn’t find? Not a single email to our school committee. Not one from our administration questioning whether our literacy curriculum is actually effective for all kids. And nothing to parents letting them know that this curriculum might not be working for their children.
What I did find was an email from Lucy Calkins, sent to our district in 2020 (our struggle began in 2023, a full three years later), warning her contacts that a critical report on her program was about to be released. She wrote that it was “long, detailed, and not pretty” and advised recipients not to amplify it if it stayed under the radar.
That alone says everything about where the focus has been. Protecting reputations, not improving outcomes.
When you realize that, it’s hard not to ask: who is really looking out for our kids?
Sad to say the attention to the needs of kids like ours is minimal at best. To cross the road over to F&P, back in 2021, in a FB group devoted to F&P, the moderator warned a poster for commenting on SOR and dyslexia saying "It's also very sad that we've turned the entire education system upside down for 20% of the kids...." Just in case one needs a fuller understanding of the animosity that exists towards us and our children.