Tuesday, Jun. 15, 2004
Reading scores up, posted at 12:10 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Good news this morning, and even more reason to fight and claw to keep this job: My school did awesome this year on its standardized tests for Reading. It's all over the front page of the Sun. Our kids' scores jumped over 9% from last year. I taught half of those kids last year as 9th graders, and came into work today with a copy of the article in my mailboxes and a big congratulations along with it.I did a bit of resume updating last night, and it's pretty damn impressive, if I say so myself. Three years of teaching in a high achieving urban school environment. Curriculum development. School Improvement Team. Coaching, Advising, International Baccalaureate trained, mentor. I've thought a lot about where my next stop in my career might be. I could probably get a job in Cass Tech in Detroit, another innovative urban school but closer to home. I could go international and teach at an American School abroad. I could try my hand at something like Benton Harbor Public Schools, one of the worst school districts in the nation but also one of those most in need of good teacher.
But, I don't want to leave. I'm ejoying myself too much and these kids inspire me to be a better teacher everyday. It's not perfect, but the stars aligned just perfectly enough for me to get this job, work hard at it, and eventually become pretty good at it. Being head baseball coach is fun as hell. I don't want to lose any of that.
Something that happened yesterday evening made me more positive about keeping the job, and I hope to take that paperwork over today and secure my spot. I might just shove those test scores down Linda Bitch's throat as well.