I worked at Paideia Magnet School for 6 years. We had a wonderful school, worked many long hard hours as a team to make certain that our program met the needs of our students (K-8). The county decided that they needed to make improvements to all the schools and imposed a program called "Core Curriculum" on all schools. Everyone had to teach specific skills during a specific time period, countywide. The theory was that students moving from school to school were experiencing too much difficulty adjusting because there were so many different types of programs in the schools and they differed so greatly that they students who moved around a lot during a school year due to economic factors were falling farther and farther behind.
What the county did essentially was kill our program. We were supposed to be exempt and allowed to develop our program according the Paideia philosophy. We had written our own curriculum that was imbedded with enriched learning experiences. The dedication and effort that went into making this a vital, exciting educational atmosphere that took many years to build, was killed overnight!
True, economic hardships that cause lower socio-economic students to change schools more frequently than families who are not struggling financially, may be harder because there is not a "uniform" curriculum, but I feel that what they did in order to make it more equitable for these students was lower the bar. Instead of rewarding our initiative and allowing our school to continue with our demonstrated success, it was decided that this change needed to be made to "improve" our schools county wide.
My experience tells me to be careful when you stray too far from the norm. Because you might find out all of your hard work was for nothing!
Posted as a reply to:
Regulation by Nelson Smith 2 
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