At 61 city high schools, students on average missed a day of classes each week last year. (Daily News)
American students lagged behind some other countries on the latest international tests. (Times, WSJ)
New York City has posted a continuing drop in childhood obesity, as have several other cities. (Times)
Some schools are taking FEMA up on its offer of free disaster management meetings for students. (NY1)
Some city teachers will get state “growth scores,” a part of new evaluations, today. (GothamSchools)
Mexico’s new president proposed reforms to improve schools and weaken the teachers union. (Reuters)
Former Turnaround Teacher
The DN article on attendance missed a key point. The teachers are the ones that should be blamed for bad attendance. If the instruction was engaging enough the students would overcome all other obstacles to attend their classes…at least that was what administration tells us during “scholarship” meetings…
Nina
It’s the NYCDOE’s fault! Everything is the NYCDOE’s fault! GET RID OF THE NYCDOE AND ALL THIS USELESS UNNECESSARY BUREAUCRACY. The student in the article says that his school’s music programs were removed in his first year there. Yet, look at the schools name. Performance Conservatory High School. Then they say because of budget cuts, how about removing the regents, huh? All this useless standardized testing. Then the NYCDOE says that not enough kids are attending school. Why’s that? Probably because they feel that they’re targets and now that their school is virtually nonexistent, they could care less. Secondly, it always seems that creativity is the first thing to be removed from public schools. How are you going to keep kids entertained and wanting to come to school if there is nothing creative and outside-of-the-box for them to do. They don’t want phony “elective” classes; which in reality are just English classes with different names. Stop the madness. Funny though, the NYCDOE only does this to certain schools and favors others, yet no one says a word. How unfair. The NYCDOE has its favorites and we all know which schools those are. HINT: Specialized schools, schools with few minority students, and the list goes on and on. Sadly, racism is still omnipresent in our society. No one says a word, but you bet that they’re thinking it. “These kids don’t deserve these programs! Let’s send them to ________ instead!” …Yup. I don’t think I have ever encountered such a racist, and corrupt DOE.
BXTeacher
I am always amazed when I call parents of missing students and they say, “Oh, s/he won’t get up and go” or “he just won’t go. For God’s sake, be a parent and get your kid’s butt up and take them to school if you have to. LOL I can only imagine if I had told my mother “I’m not going today,” I’d have had to stand up because she would have beat me so bad I wouldn’t have been able to sit.
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