Cheating Scandal

Many of the students graduating today and their parents have no idea how phony their education has been.  For the last 10 - 15 years the only thing that mattered in schools were numbers and the students believed that receiving a passing grade meant they knew the course material.  Parents did too.  I remember meeting a parent who was thrilled with her son's 73 on the algebra regents until I explained to her what the 73 actually meant.  I know I crushed her beliefs but I felt reality was more important that dreams.  I had a student in a remedial math class in college brag about her 65 on the algebra regents but she could not add fractions, did not know her multiplication tables and never got more than a 30 on any exam in that class.  While I haven't followed her progress, I am willing to bet she never graduated as the college still has standards and getting out of remedial meant passing a uniform computer driven exam.  In fact, the college I where I work is very strict when it comes to passing and only wants the teachers to pass those that have mastered the course.

I feel awful for the students at John Dewey whose graduation is being questioned.  I am sure many earned their diplomas and learned what they should have learned.  I am sure many did the phony credit recovery too and now do not understand why their graduation is being questioned.  But, these kids are young and while it hurts now, they can still recover and go on to do whatever their heart desires.  I heard stories of a special education AP who only let teachers willing to "help" on regents proctor exams.  I saw an AP supposedly translating exams for foreign students but no one understood the language, and knew what he was saying.  His students always did exceptionally well.

Today I happened to be talking to a new Principal and a man who is not involved in education.  We were talking about cheating and he seemed to think all the problems with education lie with the home and that as long as the cheating is going on, no one should get caught.  I spent quite a bit of time talking to him about what I see in the college and I think eventually he saw my point.  An outsider really has no idea of the impact these phony diplomas have on kids.

Kudos to the teachers at John Dewey who came forward.  If Farina and DeBlasio really care about education they need to establish some way of looking into this at all schools and see how kids who never passed are suddenly passing and graduating.  They need to follow these students into the community college and see how little they actually know.