64%...

Wednesday August 2. 2006

This afternoon the teachers at my school had a meeting...Initially I assumed this meeting would be similar to the other orientation meetings we've been having all week. In theory it was, and I listened to more talking about school policies and student achievement while trying not to focus on all the other things I needed to be doing. That is until I was forced alert like a deer in headlights...64%...the percentage of mastery that my school's third graders achieved. My principal was announcing the test scores from the previous school year, and skimmed across this value as though it was little more than a comma. Yet to me, this value spells out a clear educational gap, a gap that I'm here to fill. Although math has never particularly been my strong suit, even I could gauge that this value was far from the 100% it should have totaled. It was somewhat staggering to have a statistical value placed upon these kids...and to simultaneously realize that I am responsible for their educational growth over the next school year. Such overwhelming thoughts were only temporary though...If anything, 64% now seems like a great number. This value clearly demonstrates that these kids are not at their full potential academically...and as long as I have anything to say about it, they're not going anywhere but up.