GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Re this from the anonymous teacher in the article –“How about this? How about you have a kid who finally comes to school because he finally learned how to read?”

40% of kids have trouble learning to read, according to the NICHD.  Until the NYC DOE, NYSED and USDOE address that reality, and that kids who can’t read are found at every grade level, we will continue to have 40-60% four-year graduation rates.  

OOps that question was meant for the HS article, sorry!

About this story, I have yet another point. Transferring these kids to a GED program is not equivalent to one that prepares them to receive a regular HS diploma. Though the DOE likes to conflate these two options, they are very different.

The majority of students do not qualify for the GED program & either can try to transfer to Community schools or transfer schools. Most students have a hard time getting into the transfer schools due to not meeting credit requirements And principals at transfer schools have the ability to decide what students they accept. Most students as a result will be placed at Community schools where they are overage for their grade. They are not welcome at Community schools for the most part… This is dumping of kids for sure And DOE and District 79 dont have to answer to anyone for this gross negligence.

It’s a shame that the DOE again wants to shut down a program aimed at some of our most vulnerable students. However, on the bright side ,(according to the article) the DOE is not calling Community Prep a “failing” school, full of incompetant teachers who have “failed” their students and therefore deserve to be cast out of their jobs. Instead, they (the DOE) has laid out the problems and challenges of this specific student body and has as much as said that it is not cost-effective to keep a school (or “program”) going when only 40% of the students take full advantage of it. This is very different from the rhetoric that the DOE throws around for other schools that it wants to close, supposedly for their low graduation rates. In those cases, the schools, their teachers, and their administration are held culpable, with no attention paid to the make-up of the student body or the skills they lacked when they entered. Large, comprehensive high schools such as mine (Christopher Columbus H.S. in the Bronx) regularly receive students from juvenile detention centers, as well as large numbers of ELL and special ed students. Furthermore, we also receive MANY students from other, English speaking countries, where the students have had limited or interrupted schooling and thus arrive in NYC schools reading and writing at third or fourth grade levels. So many of these student need extra time to make up for their deficits. So many of them have serious home or personal problems (including pregnancy) which keep them out of school for months, even years at a time, yet we, the teachers and the administration, are still responsible for those students’ poor attendance and graduation rates. Furthermore, vast numbers of our students who are NOT special ed, (or who have never been tested or diagnosed) enter our high schools without the reading, writing, or math skills necessary to succeed at more advanced work. These students would all profit from instruction in basic skills- taught by instructors experienced in teaching adults or older adolescents. I myself am a well-trained and highly experienced teacher of high school English, but I do not know how to teach beginning reading to adults. However, the DOE’s attitude is “kill the messenger.” The only thing that Tweed wants to know is whether these (non-reading,non-writing) students have passed their Regents and graduated with their cohorts—-and, if not, heads must roll! The DOE should either provide the necessary services, perhaps monitoring whether or not the student actually take advantage of them, or decide that many of these students are too expensive, unwieldy, or perhaps even too rebellious, to educate, and come up with a better plan. My vote would be to go back to tracking, in which the student himself decides whether he or she would like to take an academic (college prep) track, a commercial (career prep) track, or a general track (without Regents exams) which would allow the most unmotivated or deficient students to graduate in a reasonable time and get on with their lives. In all this talk about “choice”, that is a choice that students should be encouraged to make. Keep the G.E.D. and YABC programs, and remember that the community colleges are open to all. Late bloomers still have the opportunity to go to college or enter career training, even ten years after they graduate from high school. In fact, it might be an even better time, after they have matured, settled down, and learned enough English through daily living. The whole point is that the DOE should be looking at the students as human beings, not as a potential set of statistics which can be bandied about for politicians and educational entrepreneurs.

Having dealt with Community Prep and their students, I can tell you that they are the most vulnerable students and many of them will not find a school. They are making an adjustment from a detention center to school and many are coming in with few credits. YABC will not take a student unless they have been in high school for four years and have a minimum of 17 credits. GED Plus will not take them unless they are 17 1/2 years old.

What is incredulous is that Cami Anderson, the Superintendent of D79, is getting away with eliminating programs that serve the most vulnerable students due to statistics. It is the same reason why she did away with the pregnancy programs, CEC and the other programs that served students which the system has rejected. The closing of Community Prep High School is an outrage.

Hey Michael,

Those are pretty harsh words.  Have you ever met Cami Anderson?  I’m curious to know what exactly makes it “obvious that by axing programs for the most vulnerable, Anderson is doing what she was hired to do.”  Is it possible that she is an extremely hardworking and well-intentioned person that is doing things she believes are in the best interest of our most vulnerable kids?  Or can you and your close family member reject that possibility as obviously wrong?

Ms. Forte states in the article that there are “better options that exist.” What are these options? The ones listed don’t sound comparable to what these students have right now– GED and larger community schools where they are just another child in a sea of many. Also, the article states that the school has only placed five students. How many students attend Community Prep? I am assuming that there are more than five students that attend the school. So are these “better options” working?

Where are the advocates on this? Does anyone know if they are involved?

And yes, I’m looking in the mirror and speaking to myself too, I’ve done the same thing on this site, go ahead and sue me!

The LYFE programs are problematic because teen parents sometimes cannot find one that has an opening near their school, so they have to consider transferring or deal with the travel difficulties of commuting to/from school and the LYFE center each day. This can be time-consuming and especially hard on a young mother who still has homework to do while taking care of her child.

Even if a teen has some other day care arrangement and does not need the LYFE centers, nothing can make up for the support of other students dealing with the same problems and trained social workers who can assist you in the process. This is what the schools for parenting students offered and this is what Community Prep offered for students returning from detention. This kind of support has ramifications beyond the classroom. It’s unfortunate that the only statistics that matter are whether students are passing their exams.

Ken,

My initial comment on this issue explicitly referred to the dismantling of a program for pregnant teens in District 79. Is that not a policy matter? That I then mentioned the hypocritical contrast between this action and the rhetoric of Ms. Anderson is something that I felt was relevant. That I also mentioned the distrust and dislike felt toward her by people in the district was also something relevant to the issue at hand. And that I see her as part of a cohort of people coming from similar backgrounds and implemeneing similar disastrous policies, is something I also felt to be relevant.

You and I disagree on almost all matters related to this site, so it’s no surprise that we disagree about referring to students in the public schools. While I wouldn’t be surprised if I am in the minority on this issue, I nevertheless feel strongly that people who are actively destabilizing the public schools, did not send their own children to the public schools, and prior to recent years demonstrated no interest whatsoever – read Bloomberg’s autobiography: nothing about the schools – in them, are being duplicitous by talking about “our” kids. Perhaps I should frame it this way: I am convinced that when these folks are among themselves and talking about “we” and “us,” public school children and their parents are not included in that group, and that their actions demonstrate this. Some of “our” kids are favored more than others. For them to thus talk about “our” kids is one of the many deceptions they employ.

KS,

We’ve had this skirmish before, but I’ll repeat a point I’ve made previously. In what remains of our democracy, oligarchs and plutocrats of course have the right to express their opinions. But please don’t suggest that they are just “plain folks” who are participating as lone individuals in democratic debate. As the US Supreme Court has ruled, money is speech, and these people have been able to set the terms of debate and buy policy. That’s a far cry from simply voting on election day. So I’m not going to stand by and let you paint me as the one who won’t let those poor, unfairly demonized billionaires exercise their democratic rights. As I recall, it’s under mayoral control that the right of parents to have some say in their children’s education has been taken away. As for the civility issue: I think of myself as a courteous and respectful person, and I think both those qualities are important. However, civility and politeness can also be tools of social control, and I feel no obligation to provide undue respect to people who are hypocrtites and integrity-challenged: that’s a job for the mainstream media. And frankly, I am angry that an immense, multi-decade media campaign has vilified teachers and blamed them for problems that are not of their making and out of their control. We are routinely blamed for the problems our students face, despite our limited capacity to influence them. The Secretary of Education has blamed us for the lack of economic competitiveness of the USA, despite the obvious fact that we have no say whatsoever over the investment decisons that drive the economy. At the moment, it is teachers and other public workers, not Wall Street, who are being blamed for the financial crises facing states and localities, and attacks on our pensions are being proposed as the solution. How polite should we be in speaking about those whose actions, in stark contrast to their empty words, constitute a direct attack upon us?

Watch where she is in 3 years. This entire decision was a tragic and unnecessary shake up designed to bring attention to her future political goals. “watch me Mr. Bloomberg, I’m doing $omething”.