I said that the kids have to 

read for pleasure

if you want the writing scores 

to improve

 

somehow that didn’t sit well with 

data, targets, 

spreadsheets, and minutes

with the group

 

It was as if I was demanding 

that they were fed 

chocolate for breakfast

or allowed to play freely 

 

we’re a poor school 

and long ago

they cleaned out 

all the hippies

 

so we went back to the minutes

back to the focus of the meeting

and came up with several questions

they could answer on an exit slip 

 

that was the supposed 

focus of the meeting

and they liked that except 

they felt it wasn’t rigorous enough

 

and apparently the exit slip 

has morphed into a paragraph response

I said kids can’t write their way 

into fluency if the inspiration’s gone

 

and I wish 

I was joking

and this was poetry

but it’s not