Comments on: State names 123 city schools to improve or close by 2015

By: Sherellsingh

Sherellsingh — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 21:47:00 +0000

Brooklyn Collegiate should be one of the schools on the chopping block. This is a horrible school and the teachers are the most uncaring teachers that I have ever seen. please do not send your kids there you will regret it for life.

By: Public Consensus

Public Consensus — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:07:00 +0000

So you think you are doing “fine”. It’s all relative, depending on your standard, your expectation, and where you are coming from.

By: Public Consensus

Public Consensus — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:02:00 +0000

I agree with you 5000%.

By: Guest

Guest — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 07:54:00 +0000

The whole situation is a joke. I just quit the city system because my principal was writing us up if we didn’t pass 80% of our students. It’s the principal’s fault for going along with Bloomberg’s games. We were graduating kids who couldn’t function in a 12th grade setting-forget about college. Leave the teachers alone- get rid of the corrupt principals who have destroyed their schools

By: TeachBK

TeachBK — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 21:12:00 +0000

Not only are teachers “allowed” to work as many extra hours as they choose to help struggling students, they are mandated by the union contract to spend almost 40 minutes a day doing so at no additional pay. The union doesn’t prevent a single teacher from doing whatever he or she believes will help kids. It prevents school administrators from *requiring* unpaid labor.

By: Rodney Nightingale

Rodney Nightingale — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 19:49:00 +0000

Corruption has been rampart from kickbacks to custodian, gifts to administrators from suppliers to nepotism on school boards and fixing elections. Those who don’t study history will repeat it. I’m a second generation teacher and product of NYC schools. Proud of it too, but it’s mostly been corrupt. The question is why did students do better under the old regime. Somebody in the press should investigate….maybe a Pulitzer in the offering.

By: Listen

Listen — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 10:51:00 +0000

Let’s face it: EVERY public high school in NYC is crap, yes, including Stuyvesant.

We all know corruption reigns everywhere, so be it. I graduated from some of the cities worst schools and I’m doing fine, you know why? Because many people think just because they graduated from a specialized school, that they’re the next Bill Gates.

I would never send my kids to ANY public school in NYC under the banner and evil control of the NYCDOE fulfilling one agenda that they have been accomplishing for decades now.

It’s an eternal downfall. No one really cares about the education, or for our kids. That’s why we’re so behind as a nation. It’s all about money and control, isn’t it? For shame.

By: Unfair

Unfair — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 01:40:00 +0000

Hey Fair, did you know that if a teacher stays one minute more than the contract says, the union cuts off one of their fingers?

By: Bronx Teacher

Bronx Teacher — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 01:30:00 +0000

This is an ignorant statement. There is no one who will stop a teacher from spending extra time to help struggling students. Blaming the contract is moronic. No where in the contract does it state that teachers are to work so-so hours ONLY and cannot work a single minute more.

By: Norm

Norm — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 00:18:00 +0000

“My primary concern is that my granddaugther is in a decent school where
parents sign a contract to care and if they don’t – their kids won’t go
there, period.”

Who can blame you for wanting to isolate your child from the kids whose parents are not able to offer the kind of emotional support you can? That is exactly what the charter schools have been set up to appeal to. In the days I taught parents like you would have your children isolated in the top classes but that is now a no-no so where else can you go but to a charter, which will toss the kids of parents who won’t follow the contract. So they will end up back in the public schools which Bloomberg and Walcott won’t allow to toss them right back. So we end up with dual school systems. Oh for the day when there are only charters like in New Orleans and no public schools to dump them in. Well, there are always the levees when they are fortunate enough to have a hurricane.

By: Public Consensus

Public Consensus — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 21:33:00 +0000

To “Fair”: my colleagues and I have spent countless hours UNPAID after school to tutor students. You like to make false accusations about the Union and many dedicated, hardworking teachers. You are anti-teacher.

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 19:06:00 +0000

“No, it is not the Union that protects low-performing teachers. It is the law and justice that protect every employee and give them their fair trial and due diligence so that nobody is wrongly thrown out without hearings.”

You’re Ivy-educated, eh?

By: a U-rated teacher

a U-rated teacher — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 17:35:00 +0000

BTW, I make this comparison because my brother is a doctor. He and I are both Ivy League educated. I also graduated from Stuyvesant HS and graduated as the valedictorian from JHS 185. To read the PROFILE of a U-rated teacher like me, read “Public Consensus” comments below.

By: Public Consensus

Public Consensus — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 17:24:00 +0000

To “Fair”:
You need to see the big picture here. Teachers and parents work together to provide the best education for our students. By antagonizing and blaming the teachers for everything, it destroy the teachers’ morale and jeopardize a happy school environment conducive to learning. Ultimately, your children/grandchildren’s education is affected because of this teacher scapegoat situation. The Union’s involvement will insure a fair and happy school environment conducive to learning which will ultimate benefit your children/grandchildren.
Let’s look at a comparison: If you complain about a doctor for your illness not recovering, is it the doctor’s fault that you don’t recover as well as other patients? Do we rate our doctors by how well the patients recover and how many recover? By antagonizing and blaming the doctor, do you think the doctor will appreciate that and continue to make sure to give his/her very best to help you recover? Please don’t trash our dedicated teachers and doctors if you want the best results.

By: Openyoureyes

Openyoureyes — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 15:26:00 +0000

Fair—Just one question. Do you believe that the DOE and/or school administrators (principals and AP’s) have the students best interests in mind?

Sincerely,
Openyoureyes

By: Abc

Abc — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 14:15:00 +0000

Fair you want the best for your grandchild and it is very important to you as it should. It isn’t the contract that holds back a student it is the preparation that parents families give a child to be able to be sucessful. Teachers get student and many of them are way behind in kindergarden and why is that? There are so many reasons that it would be impossible to list them here. So you blame the teachers and their contract. Have you ever read the contract? Don’t answer I know the answer already. Put the blame where it belongs not where you think it should be. In all the years I worked I never saw a teacher not help a student. But I have seen hundreds of cases where parents didn’t do the right the right thing.

By: Pogue

Pogue — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 13:44:00 +0000

Question: When does Fair become Unfair?

Answer: When teachers in unions start becoming villains and scapegoats for the ills of education.

By: a U-rated teacher

a U-rated teacher — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 05:03:00 +0000

Here’s my story: I graduated as the valedictorian from JHS 185 in Queens, then went to Stuyvesant HS, then went to Columbia U. undergrad majoring in math. I then worked in financial companies for a decade and got a masters degree in Statistics from Columbia U during that time. I got worn out from the finance world, and I wanted to give back to my community, so I became a public school teacher, teaching math at a low-performing public high school. I worked very hard, earned my tenure. My students love me, and I’m also the adviser of the biggest student club in that school. I worked for a very capable and experienced math assistant principal for 7 years, and she loved my teaching, but she decided to retire after 40+ yrs in DOE. Unfortunately, my new math AP is terrible, very narrow-minded, and she doesn’t like female teachers. Ever since she took over the dept, half of the dept left. Recently she made me her new target and gave me a U-rating which I’ve never had before. This shattered my strong work ethics (which is evident from my life long record of accomplishments), and left me feeling horribly demoralized. I have been praised by other math AP whom I met previous that I’m experienced, highly qualified, effective, and a great asset to out students and the DOE. Really? My horrible new AP humiliates me. Sometime I comtemplate having the New York Times or other media profile what a U-rated teacher is like. Yes, PROFILE ME!

By: Guest

Guest — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 04:59:00 +0000

I have never been prohibited from voluntarily helping a struggling child before school, at lunch, or after school by a union contract. I’m not a NYC teacher, but I have been in 2 unions in 2 other districts where I’ve worked. This is simply not true, at least in my experience.

By: Teacher123

Teacher123 — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 04:57:00 +0000

I don’t quite understand why you are suggesting that a teacher helping a student after school is prohibited by a contract. I know countless teachers who do that *all the time.* On the other hand, I would also suggest that you think about whatever job you have or had. Were you always, 100% of the time, available to stay late without notice? You mention you are a parent and grandparent — if you worked while your child was young, did you have the kind of childcare that would allow you to work as late as you felt like? Did you ever have a personal situation that forced you to spend more of your non-work hours thinking about and dealing with that situation rather than doing more work?

I love my job and I consider it an honor to teach my kids. I (like every other teacher I know) put in tons of time “off the clock” both with and without students present. I don’t consider it to be taking advantage of me to now and then stay a half hour after school to do something or help a kid. I do it constantly. But do you understand that despite my love for my job, it’s also only part of my life? I also have a family and personal interests and health concerns to attend to and sometimes a need to just rest and relax outside of work. So it would definitely start to become “taking advantage” if someone informed me that as long as any student I taught had any confusion, I couldn’t leave the building. First of all, I really doubt that the kids would stay that long And — doesn’t that sound like taking advantage to you? To suggest that teachers should always, 100% of the time, be on call? To suggest that teachers should always tell their spouses and children that they had no idea when they might come home, because it depended on what the kids or the principal or the asst principal or whoever needed them to do? That doesn’t really sound like a job anyone would want.

It sounds like you had a bad experience with a school or teacher in your life. I get that. But I also get frustrated when I hear people referring to “just a half an hour” or “those teachers won’t spend just that little bit of extra time” — not realizing what that really means. If I were to really spend a half an hour a week — or even a month — with each one of my students to attend to their extra needs, that would be 37 1/2 hours extra. The problem is not that teachers don’t care and don’t want to give the attention — it’s much bigger than that.