So you read Jay Mathews's article or checked out FIRE's repository, but you wonder what's missing. I'm telling the story, and Stanford is citing confidentiality, so naturally I'm telling what's favorable to me.

Jay doesn't work like that. I sent him tons of information (most of which is on this site). He asked questions about motivation, looked for holes in the story, and sent the article off to everyone mentioned in the story for confirmation. I had mentioned that one teacher-blogger was a "cooperating teacher" when it turned out he was just a recommended math teacher, Jay asked me to confirm. I went back through my records and found the earliest mention of him, and indeed, I'd written that the blogger's school was a Stanford associate school (although Rachel did ask what would happen if I'd been assigned to him as a cooperating teacher, which is where the confusion arose).

FIRE has been following this case for over a year. Adam Kissel always asked me to document everything to be sure the organization had all the correct documentation.

Adam (and other FIRE staff) and Jay have read reams of documetation, if email came in reams. You can see all the data here.

But what's missing? Here's a list of events missing from the story--because they never happened.

1. What's missing is any email notification or account of a verbal notification of any problems with my behavior prior to 11/17/2008. No formal or informal request for me to come to class on time.

2. What's missing is any contact with an instructor outside of class time, in which they told me that I was a monumental disaster as a student and all my classmates were complaining.

   It's fairly common knowledge in STEP that at least three other students had exactly that conversation (I've spoken to one of them myself), although they never got a concerns letter. When Rachel called me in on 11/17/2008 to tell me that "people were complaining" about me, that was the first I'd heard of it. I still don't know how many people, although as I've said, Rachel would have used the word "many" if more than ten were complaining. So where were the instructors? Where were the specifics? I never got any.

3. What's missing is any mention of altercations with instructors or students. That's because there weren't any of note. But I'll put that in another essay.

4. What's missing is any mention of the specific failures of my classroom management plan. The instructor rejected it for its views, which "contradict STEP philosophy, but it also [contradict] the course content and the California Standards for theTeaching Profession (CSTP')." Rachel did not satisfactorily provide reasons why my plan violated CSTP--and given that my plan was rejected for its opinions, why not put it in writing?
   

   As I said in my grievance, any instructor focused on quality rather than opinion would have told me that my first classroom management plan was terrible, spending more time on what I wouldn't do than what I would. Why not just give me a B- and scare me into redoing it? FIRE thinks my plan caused many of the subsequent problems. That thought hadn't occurred to me, but it could be that my plan offended Rachel so badly that she wanted me gone. Certainly, she was worried about brand management.
   This would also explain why my required resubmit was treated so differently (see grievance link for details).

5. What's missing is any mention of a complaint from my supervisor. I'm missing any request to turn in my reflections within 48 hours--in fact, I have very few requests for my reflections until a month after they were due.

6. What's missing is any explanation of why I was held to a different standard on observations and reflections than my classmates--and why I was never given a written or verbal notification of that different standard.

7. What's missing is a clear explanation of what specific information teachers are not allowed to reveal. Again, the best I got was "potential violations of ethics codes". Why not an explicit description of what can and can't be said? If they want to treat violations like Potter Stewart knows pornography, that's fine--but then why a reprimand for a "violation" that they can't even define?
   

Here's what has been said on the record about my teaching:

1. Supervisor Fall Quarterly Assessment--this is the assessment that flunked me on professionalism because my reflections were late. Note the comments about my actual teaching. And this guy is the lowest rater in the program.
2. Cooperating Teacher Fall Quarterly Assessment
3. Supervisor Winter Quarter Assessment--with my new supervisor
4. Supervisor Spring Quarter Assessment
5. Letter of Recommendation: Supervisor
6. Letter of Recommendation: Cooperating Teacher
7. Letter of Recommendation: Outside Teaching Reference.