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Just for clarification, didn’t the obsession with testing and the need for data actually arise out of the No Child Left Behind Act? In other words, educators are responding to federal legislation; this did not begin in New York City.

Parents had/have a right and a responsibility to be angry and to protest when they learn that the claims of improvement in their public education system — claims made by the Mayor and Chancellor and supported by the data they report are false.  Resetting the proficiency levels to account for the fact that the tests had become easier over time (or more familiar) revealed that there has been no net progress in NYC schools in the last five years and that the achievement gap has not narrowed, leaving black students at the bottom where they have always been.  Why shouldn’t parents and teachers be angry?

Those who want to ascribe blame to teachers should know that the teachers have had no options in what to teach, when to teach it, how long to teach it, or when to reteach it.  Teachers have been made to follow the prescribed schedule as though they are to be automatons for NYCDOE.  There’s no going back if the kids didn’t get it, no project based learning, no individualization, but simply a lock step curriculum which does not account for individual differences.  This approach hurts the brightest kids the most, and some of those kids wind up scoring at the bottom from the cumulative effects of shear boredom. 

Blaming parents is also counter productive.  Parents can do little more than send their children to school in the hope that something meaningful will happen there.  Some apply to a charter in the hope that students will be better behaved there.  Sure parents can work with their kids and supervise their homework, and some don’t, but that is of little consequence when the homework is nothing but drill and practice, isn’t corrected, and doesn’t accomplish much but keep kids from doing things that promote their own growth and development.  Parents aren’t the problem and can’t be the solution in public education besides standing up as they did and saying we’ve had enough of the lies and deception — we want a real educational program for our kids.

The school system is captive to politics, and long has been — forever.  Teachers and principals have never been asked what they need or what they think.  They’ve been told what to do, how to do it, when to do it and have been punished if they don’t follow those directions.  A mindless system directed by those at the top who know very little about child development, besides what they may have read in a book, is what we have in NYC where the only possible escape is a charter school.  Yet charters are subjected to the same mindless testing strategies which constrict their curriculums to such an extent that children can’t fully develop their potentialities.

For the School Board to be led from the room by the Chancellor is abject cowardice.  What harm would have resulted to children if the meeting agenda had been altered to give parents their needed opportunity to speak until they were finished speaking?  What harm would that have done to the Chancellor or the School Board?  This isn’t the first time the Chancellor has left the room before parents and teachers have had their chance to speak.  The problem in the NYCDOE is largely related to an absence of respect — respect for anyone connected with the system in a working capacity, and respect for the needs of each individual student is absent.  We are to respect the Mayor and the Chancellor — that’s the message and that’s it.

The problems related to improving student achievement aren’t simple and won’t be fixed by simplistic solutions like “mayoral control”, school grades, closing low performing schools, and opening a few more charters.  It really doesn’t matter that some folks like these ideas if it isn’t working.  There are solutions available, but they would involve the unthinkable for the current power structure in the City and State — and Nation.  They would involve changing the culture of the schools from the children up.  These solutions would require empowering children and their teachers to make more decisions about how their schools will function, and what they will be responsible for doing in their schools, and yes, parents would need to be a part of this culture change process.  The idea of ramming a schedule down the throats of students and teachers would be one of the first things to go in such a process.  The improvement of student behavior would be one of the first things to improve, and with it achievement.

Thank you, Chris.  I misunderstood.  The drop in scores were larger for Charters, but overall they outperformed district schools.