I understand that I may appear to be one-sided, but trust me I’m not. There are some teachers who are in need of improvement themselves. I just feel instead of bashing them, help them. Teachers can not do it alone. Parents can not do it alone. Administrators can not do it alone. However, we need to stop blaming each other and get to the root of the problem. Losing teachers isnt the answer. Overcrowding the classrooms isnt the answer. We need to support our teachers so that they could do their job. I believe teachers are unappreciated by practically everyone.

WE ALL NEED TO LOOK AT OURSELVES….PARENTS, TEACHERS, PRINCIPAL, BOARD OF EDUCATION MEMBER..ALL OF US. I responded the way I did because I’m tired of hearing people bashing teachers. I’m simplying saying we need to look at parents as well.

Truth be told, we also need to pay close attention to those who are making decisions about our children yet their children attend a private school which doesnt have the struggles our schools have. Parents, teachers, all of us need to come together and decide about whats best for our students. Its interesting even with this discussion right now (and Im guilty as well)…..no one that I’ve read responded from a students point of view. Students have alot on their plates as well. They also have a right to voice their opinion about the quality of the education they receive. It’s their future.

Personally, I believe children are expected to learn way too much in a short amount of time. We need to go back to teaching for comprehension at a reasonable pace verses teaching to meet a quota. Schools need to be an institution where children ‘want to’ attend verses ‘have to’ attend. In short, WE need to look at the whole picture and stop fixing bits and pieces. Lets stop talking about the problem and fix it.

WAKE UP PEOPLE! The problem with the school system are the parents. I understand parents work long hours and have bills to pay. That should have been thought about prior to deciding to become a parent. I’m not trying to belittle anyone. I’m looking at the facts.

You close the school and restructure it………………….no improvement
You change the administration and teachers……………no improvement
You add more funds and programs……………………….no improvement

The school system has tried everything except hold parents accountable for their childs behavior and performance. There are many parents who do not check to make sure their childs homework is done every night. There are parents who do not make appointments to go up to the school or call their childs teacher to check on the performance of their child. There are many parents who do not participate or inquire about the PTA. Some parents only visit their school when its parent teacher conference, their child is at risk of suspension or when their child is mistreated. My point, schools lack good parental support.

CHILDREN NEED THEIR PARENTS….NOT TEACHERS

A teacher is with a child for atleast one year. After that, they move to another teacher. They have the same parent their entire life.

PARENTS BE ADULTS. STOP BLAMING THE SCHOOL SYSTEM BECAUSE WE ARE NOT TAKING CARE OF OUR RESPONSIBILITY. REMEMBER, YOU ARE YOUR CHILDS TEACHER.

School should be seen as a place of employment for a child….they EARN a grade they way adults EARN a paycheck. As parents, we should not tolerate our children disrespecting us. Therefore, we should not allow them to disrespect anyone else. Yes, we are the protectors of our children. However, we also have to be ‘discipliners’ as well.

Again, I do not mean to offend anyone with what I’ve said. I’m just tired of excuses. We are losing our children. When are we going to get them back?

They will more segregation, overcrowding and upheaval in NYC public schools, especially those in Queens county.

While many people in the eschelons of power know that a “failing school” has more to do with under served populations and specific segments of society, they use the public “anger” at “failing schools” to push their agenda, to privatize and profiteer at the expense of naive tax payers who do not clearly “see” what is happening.

STEPH, in an age of gutlessness of lack of integrity, no politician worth his/her “hide” would dare point at their constituencies to declare that “they” are not educating their little Einsteins and geniuses.

Let’s fix the system, hold student and parent responsible!

And luckily for the staffs they have the law behind them so they can’t be simply terminated without the proper hearings. So guess what…..more for the ATR pool. And there is no way the two incompetents, Mike and Joel, will ever get the ability to terminate those in the ATR pool if they can’t find a job after a year or whatever. If I were a teacher, and they did this to me, I would simjply smile and sit in the ATR pool until the day I am eligible to retire and sing the Dolly Parton song to them…you know the song that goes, “Take this job and shove it.”

It;s one big joke.

Where is the UFT in all this?  Will they just say something lame to the teachers like, “Don’t worry, you still have jobs…”

And what about these kids?  Does the state realize that teachers have very strong bonds with these students and that replacing the teachers will create chaos in their lives and in the buildings?  Look at what happened when they did that in Chicago!!!

Fire all the teachers at those schools.

Hire the McTeachers who teach at charter schools for a couple fo years before they get burned out and move on.

Saves on salary, saves on pensions.

Does it create a better education system?

They’ve been doing this in Chicago, Arne and Obushma’s hometwon for a while now, and the system just gets worse and worse.

Some schools that are being closed this year have been “re-engineered” twice before (i.e., staff and administrations have been rreplaced.)

Yet nothing changes at the schools – they still have low test scores and low graduation rates.

The fault of the schools and the teachers in them?

Or are deeper socio-economic problems to blame?

You can keep closing schools and firing teachers and blaming the education system for all the ills of the children in these schools, but eventually, after you close a school down half a dozen times and re-open it with new teachers and staff and STILL nothing changes, maybe people will see that there is more happening here than “bad schools.”

Oh, and where do they plan to dump the “at-risk” students from the schools they are closing? In other large high schools? Guess what will happen to the test scores and grad rates in those schools too.

A never-ending cycle that is designed to destroy public education, destroy the teachers unions and open up all the yummy yummy public education money to for-profit private school organizations.

Heckuva job, Arne! Heckuva job, Barack! Heckuva job, Paterson!

And Tisch/Steiner announce this list with pride, noting that the wonderful process they’ll be following in assisting these flunker schools is the process outlined in NYSED’s RttT application. Of course, given the rigor that Flunkin Duncan is requiring in RttT applications, there’s got to be a section in the application entitled “What We Did Wrong.” The problem is that Tisch/Steiner refuse to make the RttT application public, and so … we’ll never know just how incompetent they’ve been.

All this list shows is how much money NYSED and the Regents can waste. And since these schools have been on flunker lists for years, and NYSED’s extra money and services did zero good in terms of substantively improving them, NYSED will be making more money available so they can keep on doing … the wrong thing.

Race to the Flop.

Dee Alpert