Saturday coffee.

It was just me and the baristas at Peet’s this morning.

Anne is with the kids and grand kids in Brooklyn for the weekend.

It’s a guy’s weekend at home. Just me and Ulysses.

The temperature is hovering around 12 degrees with a wind chill below zero. I’ll bundle up and take Uly out for a walk later, but I don’t think even he will want to stay out too long.

My in box has been filled this morning with the story out of Philadelphia. It’s all about too much clutter in a classroom. Jeez. You should see my art room. Talk about clutter.

It is a heart-breaking story for any elementary school teacher to read.

I live in West Philadelphia, across the street from Lea. This school educates impoverished students and is in the so-called “empowerment” category due to its relatively low proficiency scores on tests. As such, it is required to use a very specific scripted curriculum and it gets additional resources. Among these “resources” are the monthly walkthroughs.

Lea sits in a neighborhood near the University of Pennsylvania and has a vibrant and active community of parents and neighbors interested in helping it improve. In 2008, I joined with a number of others to contribute to a DonorsChoose.org proposal for a reading area in a Lea classroom. The reading area was designed to create a fun and comfortable place that would encourage students to read. (Despite what happened in this case, contributing to proposals on DonorsChoose.org is a great way to help improve our schools!)

The reading area has been a hit. As I write this, I am looking at photos of kids enjoying this space and the grateful letters they sent me.

For over three years I have heard from students who used this resource. I can assure you that these kids were excited when they got to use that space, which really translated to them being excited to read.

Then a month or two ago, one of the District walkthrough teams described the area as “clutter.” Other comments from the team included quite a few strange things like “too many words [!] on the word wall,” and “13 class rules.” There was no comment as to why these were problems.

After that visit, my wife implemented the changes that were essentially neutral, and resisted those that she considered damaging to the learning environment. In the case of the reading area, she chose to ignore the comment since she knew it was much more valuable than “clutter.”

Then, on Tuesday morning, January 17, before the kids got in, she sent me a picture message. It was the corner of her room with the reading area, except all the furniture was gone.

The last thing this walkthrough team was interested in was whether the students used and enjoyed this area, or what removing it would mean. When asked afterwards, they declined to explain their reasoning.

Now, these 8- and 9-year-olds do not understand why their special spot is gone and why they have to read at their desks. They think they are being punished, and they have no idea why. Moreover, relationships among the staff at Lea have been seriously damaged.

Of course, since Lea is an Empowerment School, skilled teachers like my wife are effectively handcuffed to the scripted curriculum. They are not free to use their knowledge and expertise, because the District says that it is better for them to act like automatons and follow the script. The walkthrough process only adds insult to injury. Besides denying them the freedom to apply their teaching skills, they are also taking away teachers’ classroom resources.

How exactly is this supposed to help the students learn? Instead of investing in walkthroughs, the District should be investing in opportunities for teacher peer review, knowledge sharing, and high-quality professional development. There are more than 100 of these Empowerment Schools now. How much do these walkthroughs cost?

It just makes you want to scream.