Comments on: City alters Regents grading, credit recovery policies after audit

By: joe

joe — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 20:49:00 +0000

How about a general one day strike by every teacher in NYC or even a strike per day per borough to express the general anger and frustration felt by all teachers and until DOE admits that the problems reside not with the teachers but in DOE’s outrageous policies that create a fantasy world in which poor parenting, student slothfulness and apathy do not matter.

By: joe

joe — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 20:36:00 +0000

I also read that teachers who failed a student must be consulted before that student is admitted to credit recovery. How will the principal or educational panel mentioned in the article contact teachers lost to attrition and what pressures will be brought to bear upon current teachers to allow a problematic student into credit recovery?

By: burned

burned — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 01:00:00 +0000

I’d stop giving homework and give out the answers to tests during the tests. I’d win in a landslide.

By: Pogue

Pogue — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:59:00 +0000

And well wishes to you.

By: Campy

Campy — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Pogue – I agree with you 100 percent. Of course, in a perfect world, we would try different things out and try to the best of abilities to keep a safe and vibrant classroom environment, but we don’t live in a perfect world. To try these different things out cost money, takes informing people, takes changing the status quo. It takes time, and time is what the business minded individuals who unfortunately
running this system hate. I have been teaching for 15 years in the public school system. Im sure you have real time in yourself. I teach at what many would say is a “good and quiet school.” The kids let the teacher work with them. It is a school many student teachers love to do their student teaching in for that reason, yet it is still a mess with many teachers having to fight student apathy, lack of homework, studying and whatnot. I often contemplate to myself that if these problems persist in my school, how must they be in schools graded C or D. I say that education will never be fixed in this country because I believe it. Yes, I do my part by creating that safe and vibrant environment in my classroom, by teaching the content in creative and passionate ways to sell the material,by NEVER refusing a child, by giving up lunch breaks to tutor, by creating different and exciting ways to assess, by sharing ideas that work with other teachers, by speaking the truth to students about what a future without an education will most likely mean – and you know what, I know it is appreciated by my students. But I am solely a man. There is too much against us where if one created a simple web diagram to show what is against us, the blackboard would not be adequate enough space. Here I’ll start us off: A country that values entertainment more than education and teachers, video games, student and parent apathy, addiction to texting, Ipods and music, poverty, single family homes, the idea that it is the school that is solely responsible to teach children, the allowing of social promotion, old and slow computers in the classroom, kids that don’t have computers at home, kids who enter high school reading and writing less than my seven year old does, kids who think studing means looking at the notes for five minutes, search engines that supply kids with answers so they don’t have to read the required text, kids who drink soda and eat Doritos for breakfast, kids who do not show up for required class exams or regents exams – the list can go on and on, AND I certainly do not think that this applies to all – certainly not, but it exsists, and it is seen a lot. How does one fix that? It cannot be done. I like you and thousands of others will continue the good fight. A teacher who recently retired bet me when she comes back to see me 15 years from now that I will not be teaching with the passion and urgence that she witnessed for my first 15 years. I KNOW I will prover her wrong. But really, how does one realistically fix the problems I listed above knowing that others can add even more to that web. Be well Pogue.

By: Flerplunk

Flerplunk — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:43:00 +0000

exactly.

By: guest

guest — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:35:00 +0000

That sounds like a good idea. A student vote instead of test scores would probably work better so that voting can be solely based on popularity and false promises.

By: BearoflittleBRain

BearoflittleBRain — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:29:00 +0000

Teachers should also have to run for reelection every four years. Students can vote.

By: guest

guest — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:49:00 +0000

If teachers should be evaluated by a mathematical formula passed down through the DOE based on student test scores then everyone should be evaluated on their job performances in the same way. The public should be given a test to evaluate politicians’ performance and if the politicians do not do well after two consecutive years they should be let go as well. That goes for all public employees paid with public money, cops, judges, any city and state agency employee. Many government, city/state employees earn far more money than teachers, so this might even be cost effective.
At this point if anyone pays many thousands of dollars to meet requirements in education to become a teacher they are complete idiots. The DOE won’t even be able to give out graduate degrees in education for free online soon when all truths become uncovered. Now that all of this teacher report card based on student test scores has been plastered all over the media, only a few months before testing, how will students react if a teacher calls their parents if they are not doing their homework? All they have to do is fail a test to retaliate against a teacher. We have been completely manipulated psychologically, and it has been so easy.

By: XXX

XXX — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:42:00 +0000

No surprise. When the mayor insists on higher graduation rates and threatens principals with closing their schools, this can be expected. Principals then shift the pressure on Assistant Principals of each Department who then threaten teachers with unsatisfactory ratings if their students do not perform. Sounds like a recipe for cheating to me. Now it will be the blame game. The mayor will blame the principals who will find a scapegoat. My guess, the assistant principals. They are expenable.

By: David Bloomfield

David Bloomfield — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:09:00 +0000

Credit Recovery tweaks aren’t good enough since NONE go to the substance of what the credit recovery plan demands. “Targeted” is just another term for some limited make-work assignment that doesn’t begin to help the student really master the material (Failed English? Write a book report or fill in this worksheet.) and online programs are notoriously easy. The DOE helped craft the lax State regulations, now hides behind them. See http://bit.ly/z44m2Y and http://bit.ly/xqTxd3
-David Bloomfield

By: burned

burned — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:41:00 +0000

How about a union that defends and protects teachers? Isn’t that what a union is supposed to do? That’s what most teachers want. Just sayin’

By: burned

burned — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:39:00 +0000

This report shows the effect of threatening to close schools based on their four-year graduation rates. All these abuses are aimed at raising or maintaining the school’s four year grad rate, in order to keep it intact and open. It’s less and less about education and more and more about graduation.

By: Pogue

Pogue — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 05:19:00 +0000

I disagree. You try things. You see what the problems are and you, at first, attempt to keep a safe and vibrant learning environment. If there are kids who have trouble in that environment you then create alternative opportunities for them.

I can’t tell you how many kids come from other areas of this country and can’t believe how much one can get away with in the city schools without consequences.

All you have to do is ask any good student what is needed to make their school better. They’ll say more diverse classes and clubs, and a quieter, more respectful academic atmosphere.

I went to city schools also. And, I had my share of problems as a teen, but there were consequences and there were more opportunities for learning different things.

You see what works and you see what doesn’t, and you continue to try to help ALL in the city system. And, you don’t do it at the expense of those, like you and I, who’ve stuck with these kids through many years.

“Bad teachers” “Best teachers” “Most important factor of a child’s success is a teacher” that’s all bull and created as part of a shock doctrine.

We do our best one day at a time, and tests really don’t measure that.

People are trying to budget cut and profit off education. It’s a nationwide problem, that sooner or later, one way or another, the citizens will need to cure.

By: I noticed that...

I noticed that... — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 04:46:00 +0000

The DoE created this mess. The DoE made it easy for principals to inflate and inflate those passing grades and the graduation rate. The DoE allowed this when the Mayor was running for office in 2005 and pushed it hard in 2009. Now that the Mayor4Life cannot buy another term and the DoE has an ugly mess in their Tweed offices, it’s time to do the right thing. It’s the DoE’s fault that principals, who wanted to keep their jobs because they’re probably “ineffective” in the classroom, harassed, threatened, terminated, u-rated teachers for not having a high passing rate. Teachers were abused because the DoE allowed principals to take advantage of the lax credit accumulation guidelines that forced students to get a diploma when they were so severely ill-prepared for the real world. The DoE under the guidance of the Mayor have caused the 11-year setback for all the children raised under Bloomberg’s failed policies.

By: Campy

Campy — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 03:11:00 +0000

As if there was a lateness policy, attendance policy and real discipline policy before the mayor – I attended a large public high school in Queens in the late 80 early 90′s and had my share of “rock heads” come to class stoned and witnessed the chinese fight the puerto ricans in the halls many times. How many gangsters of decades past have walked the halls of the public schools? No one will solve the

education crisis. No one – NO ONE! It has been with us for decades in different shades and forms and it will continue to be with us for years to come. It is a knot the size of your living room whose numerous ends extend onto different ends of your walls creating a maze a schizoprhenic like John Nash or Chief Bromden would appreciate. There is nothing we as educators can do but continue to teach with passion and concern – it’s either that or hope, ironically, to one day we wake up to a dysponian novel’s idea, and see the children perfectly united and thinking as ONE. That will never happen because this is the real world and not one of fantasy. I wish I had the answer, but I don’t. Reading this post about the regents altering credit recovery and regents grading just makes me think: Here’s another thing. When is this all going to stop? I should have become a firefighter.

By: Pogue

Pogue — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 02:45:00 +0000

No lateness policy.
No attendance policy.
No real discipline plans.

Bloomberg and the DOE can act shocked, surprised, and “let’s get to the bottom of this” all they want. They simply don’t have the courage nor intelligence to create a real academic/diverse educational plan for the children of NYC.

11 years of failure.

End mayoral control.

By: S T

S T — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 02:26:00 +0000

I wonder: how many teachers were harassed and given biased classroom observations after they exercised educational integrity and spoke up about bogus credit recovery programs?
Teachers must make a new caucus to set school policy and union policy on a path w/ integrity and democracy. JOIN teachers March 10 in State of the Union, Part II to chart a new path in the teachers union.