When last we left the intrepid trio of members of the curriculum committee (Alberto, Anna, and Jamie), they were attending a meeting of the committee. They had a few minutes at the end of the meeting to report their findings. In the context of earlier parts of the meeting, it seemed clear, at least to Jamie, that they were swimming against the stream. Most of the meeting had been consumed by bickering about socio-political perspectives. People on the committee and others from the community argued about the meaning of committee decisions. “Does this recommendation mean that my child’s religion will be disrespected?” “Hey, doesn’t my child have a much of a right to wear flag shirt as another kid has a right to wear one of those…those little beanies?”

After Jamie had recoverd from her slump at the end of the meeeting and almost all the other committee members had left, Alberto, Anna, and Jamie began to walk out. At about the same time, Mrs. Sheriff, the chair of the committee joined them to walk out of the meeting.

Mrs. Sheriff intiated a conversatoin: “Well, you seem to be pursuing your goals adequately. I’m sorry that the context for your efforts is, uhm, low…uhm, less than ideal.”

Anna, who had worked with Mrs. Sheriff for years, seized the opportunity and spoke directly to her: “Georgia, we’re talking about the same debate we remember from 30 or 40 years ago.” Anna took a very deep breath and exhaled.

“We want,” Anna continued, “To get our kids up to speed.”

Alberto broke in, like an echo, saying, “Not just our kids, but our kids.” He emphasized the second “our.”

“Well, yes, Al. Of course.” Jamie said. “But, how do we do it? Do we know that programs like XYZ get our kids reading? And, Alberto, I’m thinking about the dixtrict’s black and brown kids, especially boys. Those are the kids I see in my cases. Does XYZ work for them?”

Anna said, “There is no one-size program.”

After a moment, as everyone seemed to contemplate Anna’s observation, Jamie spoke. “True enough…maybe, Anna. But I don’t know. That’s the thing. I don’t know. I have my own ideas, but maybe I’m confusing…misleading myself. Maybe the same approach that works really well for the kids from The Heights also works really well for the kids from West Side. Or vice versa. The thing is, I don’t have anything to go on except my gut instrinct.”

Alberto started to reply almost immediately. “You know, I hear from some of my friends who say they want the same thing that the rich kids get,” he said. “But, you’re right, Jamie. We don’t have anything more than our opinions to guide us.”

Ever the diplomat, Anna started to say, “The perfect shouldn’t get in the way of….”

But Jamie overtook her before she could finish. “That’s right, Al, my pal,” she said. “That’s why we started on this snipe hunt, and I’m not ready to give up on it. I want to know, dammit…oops, sorry…I want to know if some literacy methods give kids better chances of becoming…well, being literate. And I want to know if some work better than others and I want to know where XYZ is in that.”

Mrs. Sherriff, who had been listening intently, spoke. “I agree, Ms. Ireland. However, as Ms. Fields noted before, we here have been having this debate for years.” As everyone listened, she continued. “It never seems to move ahead. Some people bring some research. Other people bring other research. They butt heads like Rocky Mountain Sheep, and everyone goes home happy they had a chance to make their snippy points, but no one can point to improvements a few years later. Now, I must leave, but thank you all for your efforts.”

“Thank you for your help,” Anna quickly responded.

“Yes, thanks!” Alberto and Jamie nearly simultaneously replied.

“Good night,” Alberto added.

And then the three remaining people stood in a triangle for a few moments, looking at their shoes and the pavement. Jamie broke the brief silence.

“We’re getting nowhere, dammit.” She continued, “We’re still at square one…or the ground floor...or whatever. We don’t have any idea if XYZ is good, other than what that saleswoman told us. And I didn’t trust her, honestly.”

“Me either,” Alberto added.

“There have to be people who know about this, this…this ‘stuff,’” Jamie continued emphasizing the last word, as if she really wanted to say some other word. “There must be at least a couple of people on the planet who know stuff.”

“True,” Anna said.

Alberto spoke next, saying, “You know, I have a different problem.” He paused. “I do not want to take away from what we are trying to learn about XYZ and curriculums, but I also want to see this problem from my business view. You know,” he said, “If I make a change in my business, advertising more, having staff work with customers a new way, like that, I want to know if it makes a difference. Does it help my bottom line?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jamie responded right away. “We do that with our kids. We call it ‘progress monitoring.’ We should use the same idea but with not just one or two special ed kids. We should use it with all the kids in Monterrey. Oh, man, I can see it! We just graph all the kids’ ORFs and make an average of them for each grade level and at each school….”

“ORFs?” Alberto said. “What is ORF?”

“Oh, sorry, Al.” Jamie breathed deeply and slowed down. “ORF means ‘oral reading fluency.’ You just have kids read from their book for a minute and you count how many words they read correctly and incorrectly. So, you get ‘words per minute,’ and if that’s going up, you know they are learning.”

“Oh…sort of like ‘sales per day?’” Alberto asked.

“Yes,” Anna chimed in. “ORF is very popular in special education.”

“OK,” Alberto replied after a momentary contemplation. “Now we have two questions: FirstDoes XYZ really work and can we monitor progress for all the kids in Monterrey. I will think about this. Talk with you soon,” he said as he waved and walked away.

“Good night.” Anna said.

“Hasta la vista, Al,” Jamie said.