planning goals and learning outcomes

Our school has a mission statement that I believe relates to the aims and objectives. They are as follows: The purpose of our community is to ensure tradition, culture and a quality education for all children. Although I think this mission statement would be a great one for our school, I also don't believe it is being followed. A colleague and I were just talking about this a few days ago while we were discussing the new curriculum. She pointed out that although we have this mission statement, it is in contradiction to the curriculum we have adopted. I totally agreed with her. Last week (when we had our district in-service) was a good time to gather with other teachers from all over the district to voice our concerns. Not only did I hear other teachers who said that they also had mixed feelings towards the curriculum but I also heard other other teacher who said they were using it and it was working.  I just couldn't imagine how her students were succeeding. This weekend I found myself thinking reflectively about the curriculum. I found myself thinking that the Saxon math is turning out to be not so bad BUT I still don't like the Rigby!!!!! I have told myself that I am willing to be open-minded and look into using at least one unit on my students to see how they respond. If they like it, I may look into supplementing it. One teacher (a veteran teacher) kept explaining that we are supposed to make it relevant for our students. I responded by saying, " I UNDERSTAND THAT!!!" As an educator who believes in relevant curriculum, I still plan on having that critical eye when it comes to teaching our students.