This book is so timely with the new school year starting up again. It is rare for me to laugh out loud with a book, but I laughed often! The characters are so real and relatable; I know these people. I recommend this book to teachers, anyone who loves a teacher, and anyone who went to high school! I loved this book.

An enjoyable read that captures all the nuances of the education system. I taught second grade for many years, and while this novel is set in a high school, a lot of the occurrences are spot on!

Thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I went into this book with pretty low expectations. I thought it would be like the rest of the education-inspired literature. In other words, a little entertaining, but mostly faux-uplifting with a lot of unreasonable things going on. Instead, I found a book that is actually funny and written by someone who clearly knows the education world. It does exaggerate the types of people you find in a school, but the general characters are all there. The exaggerations seem more to make a point about different approaches to modern education. Are you the crabbed old teacher who doesn't care? The nice, but ineffective? The overconfident and young? All are present along with the general knowledge that most teachers are decent, care, and work hard in a world overburdened by interests that have no idea how teaching works. If you are a teacher who has been annoyed by the ever-changing world of things to post on the board while prepping for various tests and dealing with a lot of interruptions, you will find this book amazing. Some things felt a little shoehorned to make it more of a story than a straight up commentary (I didn't care for the love interest portions for instance) but on the whole, an entertaining book.

I taught middle school and high school English for two years after college. I happened to become a statistic by leaving teaching early, although the reason I did was primarily because of a move out of state that would have meant I would have a *third* first year of teaching. I feared I would burn out with all the prep work required, particularly given the atmosphere of the public school environment was so different from what I had trained for and taught in previously. I worked in a relatively small district that boasted two highly ranked liberal arts colleges in town, with invested parents who were firmly behind teachers, and most students had some self-motivation to succeed. Then I moved to a larger city where the graduation rate was much lower and there were metal detectors in the schools. For my own mental preservation and in acknowledgment I would likely be over my head and unsuccessful, I stepped away.

I still have a fondness for stories that focus on teachers, so when I heard of the premise of Adequate Yearly Progress, I picked up the book. Each chapter is told from the points of view of several teachers and administrators. Brae Hill Valley High School is located in the inner city and is receiving special focus from the new superintendent, who sends in a young consultant with more power than he deserves due to his limited classroom experience.

We get glimpses into the lives of the educators inside and out of the classroom. The cast of characters includes the coach more focused on winning football games, the earnest woman from Teach Corps who is convinced she knows better than seasoned teachers how to motivate and succeed, the English teacher who is a spoken-word poet outside of the classroom but struggles to be effective when her teenage students read more at an elementary level, the rigid math teacher who maintains a thin grasp on sanity with her plastic-sleeved binders, and the acronym-loving administrators who want numbers to improve but insist on less than helpful means that actually stand in the way of progress.

I was entertained by the book, seeing aspects of myself in different characters from my short time teaching and being able to resonate with struggles in the book. There's no one hero, as everyone is flawed, but that led to a genuine story and you find yourself rooting for (and against) specific characters. It feels tongue-in-cheek at points with the various caricatures, but that may be what helped me enjoy the story. And there are embedded truths that lead to genuine reflection on how there is a huge disparity in public schools in our country, based on socioeconomic status:

"Rich kids could mess up and still go on to college. They could commit crimes and still go on to become CEOs. They could cheat on their taxes, or defraud sick people, or run banks into the ground, and leave others to clean up their messes. Hell, they could even become president.

"Meanwhile, one screw-up could transform a kid like Gerard Brown or O'Neal Rigby from a superstar into a big guy with a criminal record who did menial jobs and made authority figures nervous."

(I was given a digital ARC from NetGalley and Rivet Street Books in exchange for my honest review.)

I loved this novel! This story is told through alternating perspectives of different teachers in the same high-needs school district. The teachers' professional and personal lives allows the reader to really see them in various lights. Reading this felt the same way as watching a workplace sitcom (i.e. The Office, 30 Rock, Parks & Rec). As a future teacher, I definitely appreciated all of the references to today's educational landscape but I would recommend this book to ANYONE. Very enjoyable read with lots of humor and emotion.

@NetGalley #partner

Thank you to #NetGalley for the review copy of #AdequateYearlyProgress. All opinions are my own.

Adequate Yearly Progress follows the teachers throughout the year at one school. It tells their stories, their struggles, and some of their personal lives.

I liked the stories of each of the teachers. The problem was, there wasn't a lot of flow to the book. The stories didn't blend from one to the next. It was choppy and disconnected. But it was written as if it should have been a continuous story.

As a teacher, I do think the book touched on some of the issues we face, like unfair expectations and interruptions to our teaching.

Overall, I'd say 3/5 stars. It was good, but not groundbreaking.

Late in Adequate Yearly Progress, many of the main characters end up at a wedding reception and find that they are assigned to a “teachers table”. The explanation is that there is a “teacher table” at every wedding, because everyone knows multiple teachers, and those teachers always want to have conversations in which no one else has any interest. I have found that to be too true. Teachers easily have a rapport with each other because we have similar experiences. We find things funny or tragic or annoying that others don’t relate to.

For that reason, I thought that Roxanna Elden’s new novel Adequate Yearly Progress would only relate to teachers and school administrators while all others would be hopelessly lost in education references and inside jokes. I was wrong. While I do believe that a teacher would get the greatest enjoyment out of this book because it would so closely match some of his or her experiences, anyone could pick up Adequate Yearly Progress and laugh through it all the same.

Elden’s new fiction book (her nonfiction See Me After Class is already a staple in schools everywhere) follows several teachers in what is meant to be a Dallas high school (although the city remains anonymous) called Brae Hill Valley High School. It is truly a humorous book, described by the publisher as The Office but set in a school. I don’t think that’s the most apt description of the humor, but more on that later. The perspective shifts each chapter, which keeps the story fresh and also keeps you waiting to see how a storyline will continue. These perspectives include a science teacher, English teacher, math teacher, and a social studies teacher, and the principal of BHVHS. The plot revolves around a big-time educational author (who of course has never stepped foot in a real classroom since he was a student) becoming superintendent of the school district and making many, many changes in the work lives of these educators.

Adequate Yearly Progress was a joy to read as a teacher because it is just so true. I found parts of myself in each of the teachers, and the problems with which they are faced not only resonated with me but were legitimately funny most of the time. While most of the characters are not humorous themselves (unlike The Office) the writing creates humor out of situations. For instance, the names of pretty much everything are meant to reflect on and make fun of different facets of the educational system. The new superintendent Nick Wallabee brings in a consulting firm named TransformationalChangeEducationalConsulting (no spaces). The district department in charge of overseeing the documentation of… well pretty much everything, is called the Office for Oversight of Binders and Evidence of Implementation (OBEI). The terrible teacher in the school is even named Mr. Comodio. Yes, like a toilet. That was probably the funniest series of things in the book, along with the running joke of the number of things they require the teachers to write on the board every single day and the last-minute nature with which teachers are given to implement new things. (So true y’all.)

If I had serious problems with Adequate Yearly Progress, it was that I couldn’t always tell what was exaggeration for effect and what was meant to be the observed reality of the school system. For one, I’ve never seen a school district tell teachers what curriculum standard to teach every day, which is one of the first changes made in the book. I’m not even sure who would have time to do that for each course, since different courses have different curriculum standards. Maybe that happens somewhere, or maybe that was an overt exaggeration. Also, it seems like Roxanna Elden did not run the book by anyone from Texas in the publishing process. There are no glaring problems, I would say, but there are details that do not match up to this story being set in Texas, such as a reference to the school year being divided into “9 weeks” or quarters instead of it being divided into six divisions of “six weeks”. This would have been an additional factor to work in, as progress reports come out every three weeks and add another stress to teachers.

Overall, I thought Adequate Yearly Progress was extremely enjoyable and worthy of the advance praise it has received. Teacher or not, I recommend it.

Adequate Yearly Progress releases on August 1, but it is already available for shipment on Amazon? Get it there.

Adequate Yearly Progress by Roxanna Elden
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#teacherlife #prettyrealistic #iswearimlivingthis
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In Adequate Yearly Progress, teachers at Brae Hill High School deal with the changes that come with a new superintendent and a new school year.
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As a teacher, I don’t think I’ve ever read a more realistic portrayal of teaching. The teachers created by Roxanna Elden are teachers represented in every public school.
I was hooked from the start but was hoping for a little more in the ending. Overall a great read before heading back to the classroom.


My review will be posted tomorrow on Instagram.

This book is required reading for anyone who does or has worked in the education sector. It is laugh out loud funny. So much of this resonates as teachers explore the ever-changing nature of a reformer coming in with a new agenda.

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

If you have ever worked in any business that always has some new program or idea that will improve, grow, better the situation/business, you will surely relate to this book. Even if you have not, you will engage with the story and the characters.
The trials of four teachers and a principal at Brae Hill Valley High School are told as the new and improved year progresses and impacts each of them. I liked that Ms. Elden included the characters’ lives outside the high school which gives them depth and connects them to their reactions to the newly instituted changes.
Having survived the same type of new program will improve productivity drudgery, I found myself cheering some teachers and cringing at others and at many situations described. I can totally get this book!

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read Adequate Yearly Progress in exchange for an honest review. The book is a perfect story for any teacher or school administrator. Set in a school district in Texas that has a difficult time with student achievement, the book follows Lena, Maybelline, Hernan and Kaytee as they navigate through a new school year with a big-time new superintendent who brings changes to the district that may or may not be an improvement. The wit and humor of the story lie in the fact that, of course, the teachers know the best way to get their students respond, but they have to fight "upper management" and the impossible standards and ideals in order to get the job done. Anyone who has ever worked in a school in any capacity will enjoy the daily grind of the characters trying to maintain their personal lives while juggling the responsibilities of teaching jobs that are an uphill battle.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for a copy of the book. As always, an honest review.

Adequate Yearly Progress accurately captures what I would imagine it's like to work in an inner city high school. The story starts out a few days before the beginning of the school year. There's a new superintendent who is ready to make some changes. Maybe with the students' best interests at heart, but definitely with an enormous lack of experience in the school setting. It sets up what's bound to be an eventful school year.

The chapters are told from different teachers points of view. This choice keeps the book fresh, interesting, and moving along quickly. The reader also gets a well rounded perspective of all the happenings within the high school. We mainly follow Lena, Hernan, Maybelline and the football coach. I like that the characters are diverse regarding gender, age, race, and life experiences. The story is a discussion about life in and out of the classroom. I really appreciated when the story would show the rich complex inner lives of the teachers. A great combination of serious and funny. I also liked the inclusion of one teacher's blog posts. I found it fun, modern, and added an additional perspective.

Most of the book was amazing; there were a few aspects that I didn't enjoy as much. A few of the teachers bothered me, personality wise. It's in keeping with a realistic perspective of a school, but they could still really annoy me at times. Also, the ending of the school year seemed a little rushed. However the teachers' personal lives were well paced.

Overall I really enjoyed getting to know the teachers in Adequate Yearly Progress. A humorous, realistic perspective of teaching with all of its challenges and wonderful moments. Definitely give this a read when it's released!

*My rating is actually 4.5 stars, but since there aren't half stars here, I always round up.

This is a great read.
As a teacher, I found this book super relatable. Each of the characters reminds me of someone (or several someones!) I’ve worked with. There are a plethora of little details that filled my teacher’s heart. However, this is not just a book for teachers. The is real relationship drama that happens to all people- and everyone has an annoying coworker.
Honestly, I cannot day enough about how much I enjoyed reading AYP.

A funny, realistic portrayal of teaching. Great characters who deepened along with the plot. Highly recommend.