Legislative Coweta County Teacher in Open Letter to Superintendent Richard Woods:
‘Please protect my instructional time. I want to teach my students.’
I
n a compelling open letter to Georgia State School Superintendent Richard Woods, Susan Barber, a teacher at Northgate High School in Coweta County, tells how standardized testing has affected students and teachers in her school. She asks Dear Superintendent Woods, Welcome to your new job. I cannot imagine being in this position at this time, but you have stepped up to take the lead in Georgia’s education system. I was highly encouraged to read your letter to Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, explaining your concerns with today’s standardized testing crisis. While you have studied and spoken with
that Georgia policymakers find ways to give teachers more instructional time and reduce pressure to “teach to a test.” Barber’s letter, posted in February on her blog, “Teach With Class,” was published by The Washington Post and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
multiple teachers and administrators, I would like to share how standardized testing affects my students, my school and me. I have been teaching in Georgia at Northgate High School for the past seven years primarily instructing juniors and seniors from remedial classes to AP. I love students, and I love teaching. I want to be a teacher who is “part of the solution and not part of the problem,” which is
harder and harder to do in education today. While I have little control over decisions on a large-scale, my mind is continually thinking on and dreaming of ways to make my classroom, and our system, better. I believe the greatest and most under tapped resource in Georgia’s education system today is Georgia teachers, but the good teachers are starting to leave. I have three degrees, two at the gradu-
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