Los Angeles Math Coaches

The best thing that has happened for me as a classroom teacher with a math coach, is that the math coach mostly leaves me alone. He's a nice young man, but he's an idiot. I doubt *very much* that he was a math major. He just wants to work his way up to being an administrator.

His solution to any and all math is Marilyn Burns because that's all he's learned from district trainings. He doesn't know our standards. He doesn't know our framework. He knows little about different math curriculums. I said recently that I was sure that we would be getting EM when the LAUSD adopts a new math program. (I am a pessimist.) He didn't have a clue what EM was, but that will not stop him from saying what a wonderful program it is when the district does adopt it.

We had a third grade level meeting about math in the coaches' (two literacy and one math) office. I raised a question about a standard at our grade level, and asked to see the math standards book. He didn't have one. Then I asked for the framework. He didn't have one. Like I said -- nice young man, but not incredibly bright, a future LAUSD principal.

PLEASE, before you all think that coaches are a good idea, think again.
-- Anonymous in the LAUSD