Adequate Yearly Progress, by Roxanna Elden

On one level, this is a light and often funny novel about a group of teachers making it through the school year, the rivalries and bonds among them, what different lessons they all learn. On another level, it’s the most dystopian nightmare scenario I’ve ever read, since it’s apparently a relatively realistic portrayal of public-school teaching in some US states (it’s set in Texas). For someone whose teaching experience was in Canada and who hasn’t been in a public high school setting for many years, it’s kind of terrifying. The dystopian vibes come not so much from bad student behavior (though there’s plenty of that) but from intrusive, micro-managing administrations driven by frankly weird political initiatives to “improve” classroom teaching, forcing teachers to waste time writing meaningless objectives on the board and using their non-compliance in silly minutiae to fire teachers deemed problematic. It was really troubling to read and realize that that’s the reality for a lot of US teachers (along with the threat of school shootings, book banning, etc).

I found a glimpse into this teaching world so different from my own experience very interesting to read, and thought the characters were well-developed, with a depth that went beyond the initial race/class/gender stereotypes they could have easily fallen into.