Observations From a Summer of Torment

The following words/phrases should be banned:
1. "Piggybacking on what ____________ said..." Or even worse: "Not to piggyback on what _____ said". Where did this piggybacking thing come from? Does anybody else anywhere say that and do you shoot them hateful glances when they do?
2. best practices (If they're really the best then why are the schools that are so devoted to them failing miserably?)
3. team-building ( Did you know that a successful work environment begins by making your employees humiliate themselves by dancing around a room in their socks while flapping their elbows and doing mime performances of picking wedgies? We will have to check back this spring to see if this team actually produced results for children or just more demoralization)
4. break out session (This sounds more appropriate for early 1960's adventures at Alcatraz than for inner-city education)
5. value added education (???????????): because education in itself is of no value, and it is also immediately quantifiable at the same time.
6. professional learning community (where being professional means "piggybacking", and doing a lot of work without compensation-we all consider lawyers and doctors professionals. Do we have any expectation that an attorney will go out on his own time pro-bono and work on our case during his evenings and weekends? The biggest failure of the unions has been their inability to insure teachers are compensated for their labors.)
7. Culture of excellence
8. Data driven (Funny, I thought we were supposed to be leaving no child behind, but all that matters is finding someway to turn a child into an integer that can be inputed into an Excel spreadsheet, which can then be used to churn out a graph to be pasted into PowerPoint to show we are data driven. Tests, tests, and more tests. Exactly when does one teach?

It's funny that at the places I've worked where students are actually achieving you don't hear or see any of this crap. Where students are failing the answer is always to bring in consultants and buzzwords and find new ways to fail.