Good managers retain staff. Panera Bread gives bonuses and promotions to the managers of stores that have the least number of staff turnovers. The Bronx High School of Science has had, at one point, 20 out of 22 math teachers leave. Recently, social studies teachers left in droves. And still, the DOE keeps the principal Valerie Reidy on.
No matter what the Bloomberg administration claims, the children of New York are the lowest on his priority list. The only question is, when will the media and others stop buying into his claims?
5 comments:
I have been asking myself what the purpose of education is. It used to be about imparting knowledge. It is now some game having to do with testing. These kids are so screwed.
Under Bloomberg and the reformers, principals may not support, respect and collaborate with teachers. Their job is to make them miserable every minute of the day and make them have terrible stomach pains all night long. Remember when kids didn't want to go to school in the mornings?? Now it's the teacher putting up the thermometer to the light bulb. Crazy!!
"Budget cuts" and other various excuses are destroying what were formerly neighborhood high schools, along with the influx of at risk kids, which are all the city appears to care about. The lower 1/3 gets all the money, the upper 1/3 and the high honors kids like those at Bronx Science get screwed. International Baccalaureate kids are getting "double lunch periods". This is occurring so the school saves money on running a study hall where a teacher would have to cover the class. The kid with college level courses and a 98 average gets dumped into lunch twice a day. Why insane and incompetent highly paid "leaders" like Reidy are kept by the DOE escapes logic.
Regarding the "destroying" of America's schools (or lamenting what American public education "used" to be about), remember that America's public education system is what produced the voters, administrators, reporters and ignorers who support and/or condone things as they are now. America's educational culture is also what produced the people that largely cheered on 20th century racism and sexism, the wars of the 20th century, the "bullying" problem and youth prison culture that is just now being acknowledged by corporate media and the population mass, and any other western problem you'd like to think of right now.
Public education has been a constant slide toward directing taxpayer dollars to technology and construction companies, and creating docile citizens who fear and respect absolute state authority.
Instead of idealizing a surreal past, look toward a brighter future. As you notice the evils currently being wrought, do not spend your energies falsifying the horrors of the past. You do not need the support of a fancified prehistory to justify small arguments for right behavior. The youth and life of the future is justification enough.
When the DOE makes me teach my very young students IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL CAFETERIA, this is ANOTHER SIGN that the DOE does not care about the children of NYC. (The facts behind why I am in a cafeteria are irrelevant because the bottom line is that we never SHOULD HAVE BEEN PUT IN THIS SITUATION IN THE FIRST PLACE).
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