Comments on: Judge ends year’s turnaround saga with a fast, firm “no” to city

By: burned

burned — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 22:43:00 +0000

Alas, in Bklyn at least, there are still enough large schools that DOE is salivating to ruin by overcrowding and underfunding: to name a few: Madison, Midwood, Murrow, N. Utrecht, Lincoln, Ft. Ham, Telec., … In Queens as well. DOE cannot wait to assault them as they assaulted, for ex. Dewey. The inconvenient truth is: this assault will not put an end to itself. We must take the initiative.

By: Turnaround Teacher

Turnaround Teacher — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 21:16:00 +0000

We can still get a grade. The quality review is separate. The progress report is based on data alone.

By: outtahere

outtahere — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 20:30:00 +0000

They can’t give us grades for the year because we didn’t have qualities reviews. These schools cannot get a progress report grade this year.

By: outtahere

outtahere — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 20:29:00 +0000

Yeah and it’s worse for Flushing since our former Principal was caught with methamphetamines. I can imagine what morale will be like at our school. We don’t know who the Principal of our school is going to be but I’m so glad Hudson is gone. He should have never been principal.

By: burned

burned — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 18:40:00 +0000

Now is the time the UFT must launch a real battle to end all school closings. Writing in the Sunday News is an okay start, but it won’t save these schools. My psychic ability predicts: UFT won’t do what must be done unless the teachers from these schools kick UFT’s butt hard and repeatedly.

By: Turnaround Observer

Turnaround Observer — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 17:49:00 +0000

Following the decision by Judge Lobis Dennis Walcott said “Our goal is to make sure we provide a high-quality education for the
30,000 students who attend these schools. Unfortunately, that may not
happen.”

Can he only provide a high-quality education by removing half the school’s staff? Perhaps the DOE can provide extra funds so that more teachers (really, really effective ones!) can be hired to reduce class size and perhaps co-teach with the “ineffective” teachers. This would minimize the impact of the arbitrator’s decision by allowing the principals to hire at least some of the teachers they think will make a difference.

By: Guest

Guest — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 16:23:00 +0000

Hopefully, the union, teachers, and principals at these schools will concentrate on teaching and learning, and focus on the students more than anything else.

By: Mhow1954

Mhow1954 — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:43:00 +0000

Type your comment here. In research, if you want to generalize, you randomize to preclude bias. If every school is allowed to randomly select students from the same pool then we will better be able to have teacher effect. It is a shame, the playing field is not level. It is a shame.

By: BK

BK — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:19:00 +0000

If you are an educator do you feel that at least 50 percent of teachers are bad? Wonder which side of the 50 percent you would really fall under. Considering your writing, i would say you cannot be a good one.

By: BK

BK — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:17:00 +0000

Interesting angle. Haven’t thought about that. Where would those incoming “troubled” freshmen go if they cannot go to the 24 schools?

By: Mhow1954

Mhow1954 — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 15:17:00 +0000

It is still not over. These 24 schools will suffer from resource neglect and Bloomberg will still get his pound of flesh. These schools are programmed for failure for the following reasons:
1. They are labeled as failing schools;
2. They have a large percentage of at risk students – warehouse and dumbing ground are appropriate labels;
3. The teachers in these schools are at best coping and most also suffer psychologically. This is serious and needs investigating.
4. Most principals try to be dishonest to save their jobs but it is clumsy because the students are at risk and they can be caught easily if the DOE wants to investigate.
5. Most of these schools are labeled as IMPACT thus safety and security takes precedence over academics.

By: turnaround

turnaround — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:04:00 +0000

I work in one of those schools too. And Bloomberg has never visited our school, nor have any of his bloombergian chancelors. I doubt that you, Guest, have visited all of the schools either. So I will just speak for the school where I work. John Dewey High School should never have been slated for closure. Yes we need support, which we had not gotten until this year with the SIG monies under the Restart Model.

If students reallly matter to Bloomberg, if he had to actually be accountable to anyone, if those “public” hearings and the PEP were not mere formalities to carry out Bloomberg’s school closing agenda, Dewey would have been pulled from that farce of an unproven “Turnaround” list immediately.

Are you aware that the data the DOE kept using was from 2008? Our current graduation rate and college readiness rate is HIGHER than the city average. A Dewery student was one of eight students citywide to win a NY Times Scholarshop. Dewey students, staff and communtiy spoke out loud and clear against closing our school. Our Robotics team placed 2nd, beating Stuy, SI Tech, Bk Tech, etc. Our HOSA Team took home many first, second and third place awards at the state championship and on and on…

Now though on to the scarey future as Bloomberg will most likey continue his unproven, tunnel visioned onward march to educational destruction.

By: Mary Conway-Spiegel

Mary Conway-Spiegel — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 13:30:00 +0000

What about the fact that in many/most of the 24 schools students are enrolling needing remediation? When schools are filled with/warehouse level 1′s/2′s at what point does that factor into the conversation?
What would this situation look like if it was mandatory (and enforced) that all schools enroll equal amounts of students, levels 1-4?

By: guest

guest — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 12:34:00 +0000

Not saying you’re wrong but here’s the problem…..they have run out of places to warehouse the kids these “wonderful” new small schools don’t take. It’s been the domino theory at work in Brooklyn for decades, in Manhattan, in the Bronx now they’re hitting Queens. Close a large school, open these boutique schools, loet them choose their students and ship the undesirables off to the remaining large schools to quickly force those schools to decay. Wherelse is left to send these kids? Of course, once Bloombert is out of office, perhaps we can begin putting the school system back together again with real educational leadership not the pseudo Principals foisted on kids out of the Leadership Academy.

By: Youdontneedtoknow

Youdontneedtoknow — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 12:09:00 +0000

I’m going to use my psychic abilities to predict the future for these 24 schools. Here goes:

1 – October Progress Report Release shows D’s and F’s
2 – November Engagement Hearings for school communities
3 – December: The “fight” begins to save those schools
4 – February – the panel “votes” to close all 24 schools
5 – Mayor gives press statement showing that this is the “right” thing to do for “the kids”

By: TeachmyclassMrMayor

TeachmyclassMrMayor — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 11:19:00 +0000

Guest, there is good and bad teaching in every building. Yes, even in Townsend Harris, Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and the mayor’s beloved Staten Island schools. A lot of it just gets covered up by the availabilty of a larger number of resources.

By: guest

guest — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 07:37:00 +0000

Fine…..if there are bad taeachers, there are procedures for dealing with them. Do not paint everybody with the same brush. Ask why the Principals haven’t properly documnted a case for those few “bad” teachers.

The vast vast majority of teachers are at the very least competent. Most are far more.

By: guest

guest — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 07:34:00 +0000

Nobody really wants bad, pathetic teachers in the classroom. But there are procedures for dismissing them. The problem lies more with the incompetent Principals churned out by the Leadership Academy who don’t understand their job and are unable both to properly evaluate a teacher and work with the teacher to give him or her a chance to improve. That is their job; their prime job. Period. If despite the help a properly trained Principal gives to a teacher, the Principal can show at a 3020A hearing that the teacher is indeed ineffective, the teacher will be terminated. But you simply cannot have what we have had with this round of 18D hearings for teachers who have spent 15 years doing a fine job in the classroom.

And yes, it is the job of any union to see all i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed when a teacher is in the process of being terminated. But that’s not protecting a bad teacher. That’s seeing to it that the teacher is given a fair hearing, something that is and has always been part of our American system. Everybody is entitled to defend himself. The reson the rubber tooms existed, the reason there are poor teachers who don’t seem to be dismissed, and there really in the scheme of things aren’t all that many of them, is perhaps there really isn’t a case to be made and the teacher is being unfairly charged. Did you ever stop to think this happens all the time?

By: Kuoyt

Kuoyt — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 05:36:00 +0000

I highly doubt you are an educator.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 04:54:00 +0000

How many of ‘the schools’ do you have firsthand knowledge about re teaching? And how?
Is it really the teaching per se or is it school policies, lack of consequences for student misbehavior, etc.?
How would you suggest we ‘fix’ these schools, as simply bringing in new staff has NOT been working!?!