Emily, Sue, and I have definitely ended up on a “road less traveled” with this project, and I could not be happier. Our “lesson implementation” certainly had a large audience; we were overjoyed when DPI sent out our survey in its very own email (did you see it? did you see it??). Over 3,700 teachers responded, with over 2,800 useable survey responses.

Therefore, the implementation went better than we could have dreamed. I remember us last summer, fighting tooth and nail to get the survey taken seriously, and we succeeded: it was taken seriously by both DPI and teachers across the state. Not only that, but it is a solid instrument; as we were going through it last night, we realized that every single question showed data that told a story. We will be able to use this story to make solid conclusions about what teachers want from DPI and the state testing program.

Right now we are in the midst of the heavy lifting—using the data analysis to develop a presentation for DPI. Each of us has spent hours pouring over every single word teachers across the state have written us.

p.s.—and this blog is private to Kenan Fellows, right???—DPI just sent out a survey to all NC teachers…..and I think ours is totally more awesome 😀 To be fair, we did spend all summer on it…