speaking of central planning

My regional superintendent (or some similar title) came to talk to our math dept. before school in September. We learned:

1- If we just use the mandatory workshop model* to differentiate instruction* during our heterogeniously grouped,* block scheduled* classes, nothing can go wrong.

2- We should just stick to the mandated "pacing guide" and stop worrying about teaching similar things in the same unit.

3- This is her second career - before hand she was an economist studying Soviet Russia.
"So, you like central planning..." we all thought...

* subtext: use buzzwords to transform chaos into order when talking to regional supervisors.

Last week I saw here again at a region-wide conference. This time she was fielding questions from a bunch of frustrated teachers who are sick of being given a new Answer full of mandated whatnot and no follow-through every year or two. Just keep differentiating instruction and it will be OK. But she cleary knows it aint so and is just not at liberty to say so.

"Who made the decision about which textbook to use city-wide?" (implication: it had more to do with politics than with education)
"The chancellor." (she wanted it to sound important)
"But he's not even an educator!" (plan backfires)
"Well, it was the deputy vice-chancelor for instruction along with..." (hide behind big words)

I imagine it won't take more than one or two more such meetings for me to stop being amused and start bringing a novel.