Teacher: Mar Vista Middle Was Set Up for Failure

Mar Vista High School teacher and former Mar Vista Middle School instructor Thomas Ultican called district plans to restructure the middle school an injustice that typically befalls schools in impoverished areas with minority populations in a post on his blog and Daily Kos.

Ultican's thoughts were also shared with members of the Sweetwater Education Association teachers union in a recent newsletter.

For failing to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) standards for 10 years, Mar Vista Middle School will go through a restructure process in the coming months in which half the school's teachers will leave and half the teachers will stay as Mar Vista Middle becomes a program or theme school, the district told IB Patch.

Despite bright spots in test scores and award-winning programs, the Bush administration No Child Left Behind Act declared Mar Vista Middle School a failure from the start, he said.

"How is it possible to convince people that MVM is a wonderful highly effective educational institution when a federal law is written that makes even significant growth in performance look like failure?" he asked.

"My personal reasoned conclusion solidified by practical experience is that standardized testing is odious. It clearly narrows curriculum and promotes soporific lessons that develop mimesis, not creativity or the ability to think," he said.

The school did improve but the definition of success was narrow and evasive, Ultican said.

"MVM was facing a triple whammy: High poverty rates, a high percentage of disabled students and almost half of the students were language learners," he said.

The school will be restructured for failing to meet AYP standards, though the school had to meet more than 20 specific criteria at times to be considered successful.

At a March 11 Sweetwater School Board meeting where district leadership decided to go forward with closing the school, parents who took part in a group to determine whether the school should restructure blamed teachers.

In a letter to the principal and the district, teachers said they didn't dismantle an award-winning music program or after school program, support for high performance students or other efforts that help a school be successful.

Ultican said he found dedicated teachers at Mar Vista Middle School during his years at the school in the 2000s but cuts and decisions by administrative staff and the district did not always support positive growth or academic achievement.