Need help interpreting educator jargon

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Can anyone tell me what Goal 2.8 means?
“Expand system to ensure vertical articulation in all curricular areas K-12”</p>

<h2>It’s part of this larger set of goals enunciated by our District:</h2>

<p>REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT
2009-2010 SCHOOL YEAR PRIORITIES</p>

<p>GOAL AREA I: Improve the Culture and Climate of the District</p>

<p>Objective 1.1: Implement behavioral support program/system K-12 in response to student discipline data</p>

<p>Objective 1.2: Continue to expand recognition of achievements and successes of students and staff</p>

<p>Objective 1.3: Continue to expand comprehensive employee wellness program </p>

<p>Objective 1.4: Expand team building opportunities for district leadership team</p>

<p>Objective 1.5: Expand Sister School initiative in alignment with district Strategic Plan</p>

<p>Objective 1.6: Implement Speakers’ Bureau initiative in alignment with district Strategic Plan</p>

<p>Objective 1.7: Further develop focus on improving and ensuring efficiency of all district operations</p>

<p>Objective 1.8: Review all business procedures to ensure accountability, efficacy and efficiency</p>

<p>Objective 1.9: Complete a Business Manual for use by all administrators</p>

<p>Objective 1.10: Implement training in AEDs and other emergency equipment and procedures in all schools</p>

<p>Objective 1.11: Expand functions of district safety committee and establish building-based Safety Committees</p>

<p>Objective 1.12: Implement aspiring, educational leader program</p>

<p>GOAL AREA II: Positively Affect Teaching and Learning in the District</p>

<p>Objective 2.1: Expand comprehensive K-12 Professional Development Plan with specific focus on hosting reading and mathematics summits</p>

<p>Objective 2.2: Expand District Assessment Plan K-12</p>

<p>Objective 2.3: Maintain comprehensive building-based Instructional Improvement Plans to inform necessary changes to instruction</p>

<p>Objective 2.4: Maintain specific plans for improvement to address student performance on ****** Mastery Testing, ***** Academic Performance Testing and other standardized assessment measures</p>

<p>Objective 2.5: Maintain comprehensive In-School Suspension program</p>

<p>Objective 2.6: Create opportunities for curriculum and instruction articulation Kindergarten through Grade 12</p>

<p>Objective 2.7: Embed the Understanding by Design Model and the 21st Century Skills Model into Curricular Revision Process</p>

<p>Objective 2.8: Expand system to ensure vertical articulation in all curricular areas K-12</p>

<p>Objective 2.9: Finalize and implement Scientific Research-Based Interventions processes in all schools</p>

<p>Objective 2.10: Implement a new instructional schedule at ******* High School</p>

<p>Objective 2.11: Secure and direct American Resource Recovery Act grant funds to planned uses</p>

<p>Objective 2.12: Ensure consistent, frequent use of classroom “Walk Through’s”, informal observations and formal observations as techniques to support teaching and learning</p>

<p>GOAL AREA III: Integrate the Use of Technology in All Functions of the School District</p>

<p>Objective 3.1: Purchase, acquire and install technology in all schools in accordance with
technology acquisition plan and District Technology Plan</p>

<p>Objective 3.2: Implement automated facilities management program (SchoolDude, Microsoft Project)</p>

<p>Objective 3.3: Maintain revised district and school websites and ensure use of websites by all teaching staff</p>

<p>Objective 3.4: Implement infrastructure upgrades at ****** and ******</p>

<p>Objective 3.5: Implement use of electronic student portfolios</p>

<p>Objective 3.6: Maintain electronic grading and progress reporting system at all schools</p>

<p>Objective 3.7: Implement use of software to support Scientific Research-Based Interventions processesin all schools</p>

<p>Objective 3.8: Implement use of IPod lab for World Language instruction at ****** High School</p>

<p>Objective 3.9: Implement automated time management system for various staff unit.</p>

<p>GOAL AREA IV: Implement Meaningful Communication Strategies</p>

<p>Objective 4.1: Establish and maintain a Superintendent’s Advisory Panel</p>

<p>Objective 4.2: Maintain district calendar of events using a single software</p>

<p>Objective 4.3: Revise and maintain high quality school and school district publications</p>

<p>Objective 4.4: Implement use of opinion surveys from parents and staff at all schools</p>

2

<p>Articulation is used in our district to talk about the transition from one grade to the next, or from elementary to middle school, middle to high school. </p>

<p>So, I think they might be trying to say that they want to look at the curriculum for each grade level, and make sure that necessary skills are taught at each level to prepare for the next, and that there isn’t unwanted duplication. </p>

<p>I’m guessing that that is already done in most curricular areas, but they want to expand it to include every area of the curriculum.</p>

3

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<p>Vertical articulation of curriculum means how the curriculum moves from grade to grade.</p>

<p>There is also horizontal curriculum articulation. That typically means how curriculum is used across multiple subject domains within the same grade.</p>

4

<p>“Incomprehensible jargon is the hallmark of a profession.”</p>

<p>—Kingman Brewster, Jr.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/[/url]”>http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>When my vertical articulation expanded, the elastic broke.</p>

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<p>That is some list! I was so naiive about educator jargon when our kids began Kindergarten, I actually thought the report card anecdote “is beginning to show gradual improvement in X” was something to celebrate. </p>

<p>The following year, I’d see a newer, better term: “steady improvement.” This made me realize: he’d been slacking the previous year, but it was too late to frown at him.</p>

7

<p>Vertical Articulation… </p>

<p>If I didn’t know better, I would think it had something to do with standing up and speaking in front of the class.</p>

<p>Pretty funny MidwestMom…</p>

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<p>I’m an educator and I HATE the jargon and acronyms. It’s all comes from administration trying to prove its worth, and it is foisted upon us poor teachers. We spent 3 days being asked to reinvent the wheel and rewrite lesson plans in certain formats; wasted time when we could be planning and preparing and working together to get ready. The newest stupid jargon word I heard this year is the term “unpacking” to mean “sharing and reviewing information”… as in, “when you come to committee meeting be prepared to “unpack” your student.”</p>

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<p>Increase size of desks so giraffes are not discriminated against.</p>

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<p>It looks like they might have used this handy educational jargon creator. (Education jargon is one means of keeping parents in the dark, IMHO.) [Educational</a> Jargon Generator](<a href=“http://www.sciencegeek.net/lingo.html]Educational”>http://www.sciencegeek.net/lingo.html)</p>

<p>I noticed that within this long list there was no clear expression of a goal to raise student academic achievement levels, which I would consider a core objective for almost any school. Instead, you get stuff like this:</p>

<p>*Continue to expand recognition of achievements and successes of students and staff *</p>

<p>and</p>

<p>Maintain specific plans for improvement to address student performance on ****** Mastery Testing, ***** Academic Performance Testing and other standardized assessment measures</p>

<p>At the end of the year, this school could actually have declining academic performance levels, but if they had expanded “recognition of achievements” and maintained “plans for improvement to address student performance”, they would consider themselves a success since all their goals were met. Of course, that would mean merit raises all around.</p>

<p>This is how a typical public school works – it’s mainly about the “inputs” with little focus on the “outputs”.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, only 23% of high school graduates in this country are ready for college, according to the latest ACT report. I can’t help but see a correlation here.</p>

<p>NewHope, I’m not picking on your school and it could very well be doing a great job. Unfortunately, too many other schools are failing our children.</p>

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<p>The jargon drives me NUTS too! Did anyone ever hear of a “cohort”? I first heard of this five years ago or so…never heard the term used before. How about “rubric”…another education thing that cropped up in the recent past.</p>

12

<p>Thanks everyone for your insights. I have one child left in “the system” and I’ve learned through earlier experiences that every student needs an advocate. So I try to keep up with what the school district (says it) is trying to do.</p>

<p>I think I’ll go unpack a cohort, and ply my vertical elasticity into a curricular rubric. Hmmm, “Maintain comprehensive building-based Instructional Improvement Plans to inform necessary changes to instruction.” I don’t think I need to be concerned about that, do I?</p>

13

<p>I can find humor in almost anything, but sadly, I can’t laugh at this. It is so very discouraging to know that millions of children are being led by people who write or speak this way. It makes me depressed, honestly.</p>

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<p>I do not agree with this statement AT ALL. Every profession has its jargon. I have attempted to read my husband’s engineering journals and my son’s music info. It is FULL of jargon. When I talk to my doctor, I feel like he’s talking a foreign language…and his printed material isn’t much better. Does that mean that all of the engineers, doctors and musicians in the world are incompetent as mantori-suzuki’s post implies teachers are?</p>

<p>I do agree that information given to the general public should be understandable to the general public. However, that list of “stuff” for school goals is a very standard one that anyone in education would be able to explain easily. Sorry…the writer isn’t incompetent…the writer just didn’t write to address all audiences.</p>

<p>OH…and as a member of the educaton profession, I have ALSO been criticized when I’ve written articles in plain English. Folks have said “aren’t you familiar with the technical terms. Oh too bad you aren’t…you must not be up to date on the.” It goes both ways.</p>

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<p>Okay, my “millions of children” statement was wrong. I have encountered few teachers who speak or write that way in normal conversation or in the classroom.</p>

<p>But I still think it’s sad that anyone, for any reason, feels it’s necessary to use obfuscating language. There is nothing so mystical about teaching (or law, or engineering, or…) that it can’t be explained in plain English. Certain technical terms are naturally going to be unfamiliar to the lay person, but for entire paragraphs to consist of nothing but jargon indicates a lack of clear thinking and communication ability on the part of the writer…</p>

<p>OR</p>

<p>…it indicates that both writer and audience are under the impression that their work can not be grasped by the uninitiated. It indicates intellectual arrogance. This is particularly ironic considering that the job of a teacher is to make complex ideas understandable to children. And although I haven’t encountered many teachers who actually speak in this ridiculous way when dealing with those outside their profession, I have encountered plenty (especially administrators) who speak down to parents and students alike, as though our tiny brains couldn’t possibly comprehend the vastness of their knowledge of how to teach. Overuse of incomprehensible jargon in any profession is a reflection of this arrogance.</p>

16

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<p>If what you wrote was wrong, then the criticism was justified. If it merely lacked fashionable buzzwords, then the criticism was worthless.</p>

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<p>vertacle articulation refers to consistency. If the curriculum flows naturally and builds upon itself year after year then students will be able to connect to previous years lessons (in theory) and comprehension will improve</p>

<p>m-suzuki, every profession is riddled with jargon and buzz words, the document in the OP should have been rewritten to inhance parental comprehension but I imagine it’s original intended audience was someone in the education field who would have been familiar with the language. To assume educators would be idiotic enough to use this sort of language in the classroom is insulting. </p>

<p>As a high school history teacher it has been my crusade to make curriculum more comprehensible and accessible to students and I resent being painted with the same brush as the educators you have experienced. And BTW pompous speech/writing between adults is not neccessarily an indication that a person uses the same language in dealing with children. Again, it is about audience. Most of us deserve more credit.</p>

<p>I am sorry that you have encountered a few educators whom you believe used language inappropriate for their audience but your generalization shows a bigotry and insensetivity that offends. BTW nice back-peddle but I do believe that in your heart you do believe that “millions” of children are being taught in the way you describe.</p>

18

<p>There are many professionals living in my town. The schools are very well funded. And while the District would like to keep the academically precocious, it is disinclined to actually do anything to accomplish this. Fully a quarter of graduating 8th Graders attend private academic HS’s as 9th Graders, despite the ridiculous expense (typically $15K - 40K annually).</p>

<p>Obviously no school wants to lose its best students. And certainly no school system wants to admit “the best students in our District study elsewhere.” Perhaps that provides some rationale why obfuscation has been raised to an art form by the Administrators. </p>

<p>PS, The District still has some wonderful teachers, many of whom were hired during the “golden period” when the District was one of the best in the state, and very few HS students attended private schools.</p>

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<p>Where did <em>I</em> say my information was criticized for being wrong? My information was accurate. I was criticized for not using professional jargon. Others in my profession felt that <em>I</em> sounded unprofessional using regular old plain English.</p>

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<p>NewHope- trust me, this language came from administrators, not teachers in our state. Google “Data driven instruction” “CMT” and "CAPT"and you’ll see what I mean :wink: It’s why so so many have fled to the private schools despite the economic hit that so many people in our state have taken.</p>