Is there anything more enjoyable/memorable/inspirational than having a bunch of admins in business wear cruise through your room in the middle of class wielding checklists?

They gaze at the walls, your demeanor, the students in their desks, and so on, with a keen, knowing, eye. They glean insights – lost to all but the most well-trained of checklist-checking bureaucrats – and discern how ably you are educating to the essence of Socrates’s finest philosophies by the way you’ve written your daily agenda clearly on the board.

And then, in their most ironic move of all, each of the educators that these people will eventually salute during the state accreditation process when they turn in their checklist to other checklist checkers (because every campus needs to hold someone on the staff up as a paragon of professionalism on campus) will be someone who…

Does all sorts of thing that never appeared on any checklists.

I mean if they want teachers to conduct themselves in a manner that aligns with the checklists then that’s what they should put on the checklist to check. But no. It’s the person that strays from the checklist. The person that re-invents the checklist. The person that builds a better checklist that gets all the spotlight during these moments when they need to hold up a leading campus light.

And yet, if anyone dares to let the checklist bearers know that they intend to stray from the checklist, re-invent the checklist or attempt to build a better checklist before they actually do it, they get met with a “Ha-rrumph!”

They want you to do what’s on the checklists but those that are exemplary in our field are those that do the things that are not on the checklists.

But then again, those that do not do the things that are on the checklists are also the pariahs in our field.

Ah, the paradoxical tango of the checklist and the checklist checkers.

So here’s a fear I have about national standards. I think it’s going to create too much of a checklist system.

For example, I will be given a national standard to teach. I will teach it.

Then there will be a test. Scouring over the data from this test will be on a checklist of “tasks to do” for my school site administrators.

This data will be collected because collecting this data will be on a checklist for school site administrators. Then they will send it on.

Which, of course, will be on a checklist that someone sends to the district. Then they will send it on.

Which, of course, will be on a checklist that someone sends to the county. Then they will send it on.

Which, of course, will be on a checklist that someone sends to the state. Then they will send it on.

Which, of course, will be on a checklist that someone sends to the federal government. Then they will send it on.

Which, of course, will be on a checklist that someone checks at the level of the federal government.

And then, the federal government will look at all this data. And they will provide feedback on their ascertained checklist. Then they will send it on… which, of course, will be on a checklist.

Then they will send it on to the state. Which, of course, will be on a checklist.

Then they will send it on to the county. Which, of course, will be on a checklist.

Then they will send it on to the district. Which, of course, will be on a checklist.

Then they will send it on to the school site administrator. Which, of course, will be on a checklist.

Then they will send it back to me, the teacher. Which, of course, will be on a checklist that they expect me to check.

And what will that check actually tell me?

Something preposterously obvious that I am sure I could have already informed anyone along the chain of checklists if ever they had bothered to 1) ask me or 2) trust my professionalism.

Is this the new world?
Is this the current one?
Is it just me or are American schools becoming more and more dystopian?

The Checklist System, A Banquet of Preposterous Beauty