Thirteen campuses in Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado and Yolo counties won California Distinguished Schools honors for 2013, the state Department of Education announced Thursday.
The local middle and high schools are among 218 public campuses statewide recognized for their innovative approaches and academic achievement.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
California Distinguished Schools
I've taught at two of the schools on this list:
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3 comments:
Darren,
What do you think of these ratings? Are they legit? I don't know the standards involved so I depend on you to tell me.
I would type in all caps but I don't think you'd hear me. My son loved Toad.
Take care.
We already rank schools based on test scores, graduation rates, etc. This probably isn't too much more than that, with "how nicely did they fill out the paperwork" thrown in for good measure.
Doesn't mean these *aren't* good schools, but on the other hand, *not* having this award is not indicative of being a *bad* school.
Here's how you become a distinguished school... you have someone fill out a form, giving examples of how great the school is. Then, if you have wowed whoever reads these things enough, they come to your school to do a very perfunctory observation (e.g., 5 minutes in a random assortment of classrooms.) If you don't appear to be blatantly lying, you win. It is an absolutely meaningless award. I've worked with Darren at one of these schools, and it is certainly worthy of being distinguished or better. But the idea that we spend tax payer's money on 'awards' that are basically participant trophies is ridiculous. And Darren, your response is only a less cynical version of mine ...which is odd, because you don't usually take the side of government largesse...
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