Professional Development BINGO…
There are few things worse in education than sitting through a useless, all-day professional development session.
Yesterday’s installment? Multilingual education.
Now, to be clear, that’s not a bad topic. It’s an important one. The problem is, we already had four separate PDs on it last year. At this point, it’s not professional development, it’s professional déjà vu. I didn’t learn a single new thing. The only thing that happened was that some outside agency cashed a nice district check.
And that’s kind of the game, isn’t it?
Almost every PD I’ve attended follows the same script: bring in consultants to teach teachers how to talk to kids…as if we don’t do that all day. As if many of us don’t also have kids of our own. As if the building isn’t already full of experienced teachers, deans, and counselors who actually know our students.
But no—let’s keep feeding the consultant industry at CPS’s trough.
The real highlight, though, is always the lingo.
So for the next PD, I’m making BINGO cards for my friends. First one to BINGO wins a beer.
Squares will include:
- “Equity”
- “Seen and heard.”
- Free space “Bio break” (just say break…we can all decide if we need to use the bathroom or not)
- “Collaboration”
- “Oppression”
- “Community”
- “Thank you for sharing.”
- “Let’s unpack that.”
- “Difficult conversations”
It’s mind-numbing.
And don’t get me started on “studies show…”
Which studies? Where? Conducted by whom? Can I read them? Or are we just supposed to nod along because someone said “research-based” in a confident tone?
At some point, “studies show” just becomes an appeal to authority with a PowerPoint slide.
This mindset is how we ended up teaching reading the wrong way for years. A study showed that certain strategies helped some students with reading disabilities, and instead of using that as a targeted intervention, the system said, “Great—let’s do that for everyone.”
And now we’ve got generations of kids who struggle to decode words, don’t recognize prefixes and suffixes, and are left guessing based on context clues, like it’s a game of educational charades.
But hey, studies showed. (fantastic podcast on that issue)
The bigger issue, though, is this: I’m not sure I’m a good fit for education anymore.
I’d put it at about 70% that this is my last year.
It feels like CPS cares more about social-emotional checkboxes and graduation rates than about actually producing educated people. There’s little accountability for students to do the work—just a growing list of reasons why they can’t. Standards get lowered, expectations get softened, discipline becomes optional, and the solution is always…more spending.
More programs. More consultants. More initiatives.
Worse results.
At some point, you have to ask whether this is about education, or if it’s just a very expensive jobs program wrapped in good intentions.
Enrollment keeps dropping. Families are voting with their feet.
And the system’s response?
Demand May 1st off so students can join the union in protesting for more funding. Really.