Every MTSS meeting says the system works. Every caseload says otherwise. New post on why the gap between the two isn’t a compliance failure, it’s a design one. open.substack.com/pub/christop...
Christopher Dodge
@cdodge33.bsky.social
Doctoral Researcher | Literacy Equity & Systems Redesign | Educator Preparation | Former Principal | Writer of Breaking the Blueprint
Should a school's "AI-proof" policy be allowed to override an accommodation that's already legally guaranteed in a student's IEP? Where should that line sit?
If a teacher cannot implement an accommodation without additional support, whose responsibility is it to provide that support — and how did we design a system where that question has no clear answer?
Caring changes the goal text. It does not change the infrastructure around the goal.
The IEP's annual goal section was built for compliance review, not instructional accountability. Those are different machines.
No amount of good teaching inside the wrong frame is going to correct it.
New research reviewed 10 years of Science of Reading scholarship. The structural dimensions of equity — race, redistribution, justice — were nearly absent. The communities most affected by SoR mandates were the least studied. What does that choice produce in your building?
Educational reforms gain political traction when they serve the interests of dominant groups while only appearing to benefit marginalized communities (Bell, 1980). The Science of Reading movement gained momentum from advocacy by predominantly White, middle-class parents of children with dyslexia.
If every educator in your building worked only what the schedule actually allocates — no extra time, no unscheduled labor — what would stop working first?
We continue to confuse professional ethic with a structural dependency the system cannot survive without. When the formal shell of compliance is automated, what remains of the student experience?
We continue to confuse professional ethic with a structural dependency the system cannot survive without.
If preparation programs built in one course that taught new teachers to analyze the systems they were entering (the incentive structures, the data flows, the meeting designs), what would those graduates do differently in year one? And would the schools they entered know what to do with them?
Reteaching isn’t in the pacing guide. Neither is understanding. The data comes back exactly how you knew it would. You bring it to the meeting. The pacing guide kept moving. The pacing guide was built to move content, not move kids. When those two things conflict, the guide wins. Every time.
We Train Teachers to Operate the System. Not Question It. open.substack.com/pub/christop...
We Train Teachers to Operate the System. Not Question It.
Breaking the Blueprint — Essay 7
open.substack.com
You were trained to serve the system. You thought you were trained to serve kids. Some thoughts on systems and educator prep drops on Tuesday.
