I suspect the principal will consider this response non-cordial.

He is quite welcome to his opinion.

At our team meeting we stressed that Christopher “does not know what
he does not know.” Knowing what you know and don’t know is a 
metacognitive skill children this age do not possess. 

Since then some of Christopher’s teachers have made adjustments 
in their teaching that have improved Christopher’s learning of the 
material they are covering in their class. A few have engaged in 
formative assessment—assessment for learning—in order to 
discover what their students know.

You have added some pretests to your teaching, but your 
post-tests are summative in nature. Students collect their Bs, Cs, 
Ds, and Fs, and you move on.

Your colleague was wrong to put the burden of knowing what 
he knows and doesn’t know on Chris. 

You are wrong not to retest him. 

It should be clearly documented in Christopher’s files that he 
does not know what he knows and doesn’t know. If you ask him 
whether he is ready to take a test, he will say yes, because he 
will think he’s ready. 

I will add that we are still waiting, 3 weeks later, to hear from 
you concerning your punitive 20-point deduction on Christopher’s 
one and only successful mathematics assignment of the year. 
We find it unacceptable that an Irvington school teacher would 
ignore an email from a parent. You will find a copy of that email 
below.

Ed and I are both teachers. A good teacher doesn’t ‘cover’ 
material, grade the students, and then move on. 

A good teacher makes sure students have learned the material, 
sparks interest and enthusiasm, and makes it 
possible for students to succeed. A good teacher creates a culture
of success.

Catherine Johnson

copy:

Deanna-----we haven’t heard back from you about Christopher’s 
grade on the blueprint project. 

I’ve never complained about his grades in your class. Every time 
he’s gotten a bad grade—and he’s had many, many bad grades—
we’ve worked harder. 

And now this. This project was his one and only success in math 
this year. He spent four hours working on it. Ed had to supervise; 
he couldn’t do it alone. But he did all the work, and he figured out 
how to do all the work with guidance. 

We’re working so hard to keep his motivation up. This is the 
age when boys check out. Some of his friends already are checked 
out (these are kids who moved from Phase 4 to Phase 3).  

Before I started working with him he was completely turned off 
to math. I got him liking it again. 

He’s very discouraged now. 

We really need some help here.

Catherine