Dear Editor (Queens Chronicle):
As a senior, tenured teacher I am extremely disappointed with the opinions that you express in your paper (“At last, mayoral control of schools renewed,” Editorial, Aug. 13) and the accompanying advertisements that support your views.
You claim that Mayor Bloomberg and his appointee Joel Klein are the best thing since white bread (now whole wheat), and they have done a bang-up job with education. Well, I want to correct you.
Speak to any teacher in New York City and you will hear a different opinion. Teachers in the city are very unhappy with the lack of leadership and the harsh treatment and tone of this administration.They have appointed their cronies to positions of leadership,put principals in place who lack experience or who have limited teaching experience, use scripted teaching methods,and do not allow for individual expression or teaching methods.
They have taught to the test and claim that results have improved. Have you looked at the exams? Have you scored the exams? I have!Although the results show that progress has been achieved they are not accurate.It’s an out and out lie. I read many of the exams and was told to mark them higher (which indicates that child has met the standard). Also I have heard that a principal has given credit to students to help them graduate. Is this progress or just a fudging of the results?
Children are still unable to write and they are missing out on the enriching parts of their instruction because these areas are not being measured. Administrators are micromanaging the schools, increasing paperwork, testing and data entry in lieu of teaching. These meaningless activities take away time from actual instruction with the sole result of lowering teacher morale. Do you know that textbooks are being thrown away?
The new motto on the reports from the Committee of Special Education reads One Team, One Voice, One Goal. I think this sounds like One Mayor, with no other opinions or thoughts allowed.
I would appreciate your investigation of these facts. Ask a teacher!
Neil Kedes
Bayside
6 comments:
If you were to go into several schools in various locations and get a sample of how the children can write a story, well, you would wonder how they made it to 5th grade! I totally agree with the Bayside TEACHER. Yes, just ask a Teacher, they do know more. Bloomberg has taken the love out of it. I am sure that when you have unhappy staff, the setting for the children is not a good one. Some things needed to be changed. But what has been done to the school system in this city is a horror now.
Teacher Neil Kedes has clearly placed a bull's eye on his own back.
This viciously vindictive Commissar will not allow this truth teller to remain on the job.
Will the charges be sex with a student? Theft? Falsifying classroom records?
Count on it. Plans are already afoot to punish this teacher. His name will soon be in the news.
Neil is a whistleblower. He tells the truth. The Commissar suffers when too much truth gets out.
So, let's dump this tiny, lying dwarf Commissar Kim Jung Il wannabe.
We're better than that. Our only crime was to have ever allowed him into office in the first place.
We own the vote. Let's use the vote to send the Commissar packing.
Vote for Tony Avella.
We are far too good New Yorkers to ever deserve even one extra day of this dwarf Commissar.
Taxpayer you definitely correct about the bullseye. That's why you don't see more teachers writing about the abuses in their school. They are all scared.
This is what's going on in a nutshell:
1) It has been extremely difficult to attract qualified administrators in the city. So they created the "Leadership Academy" to give wannabe administrators a cram course on how to lead a school. Problem is many are business people or have only been teachers a couple of years. They must commit to being a principal for a couple of years and then they are free to leave. Recently they've been given control of the school's budget.
2) Their first order of business is to eliminate veteran teachers since they cost the most. (You can get two new teachers for the price of one.) They do this in the form of harassment by giving out U ratings and writing teachers up for really stupid, trivial things.
3) Their second order of business is to harass new teachers by also giving them U ratings. Many are being "discontinued" which means they bascially lose their job. Try gettin another job in the city or anywhere after you've been discontinued. Two new teachers at my job were discontinued this past year. This is all done so they can be denied tenure. The DOE wants to see a reduction in tenured teachers.
4) They've created a system where teachers don't last more than a few years keeping costs down for the DOE. No more career educators for NYC. It's all about $$$.
5) The corporate model that has been used to run city schools has proved to be a disaster. It will take years to undo the damage.
BloomKlein HATES teachers. They think we are the scum of the earth. Randi Weingarten sealed the deal by making horrible deals with those dirtbags and here we are. Many teachers (even young ones) talk of leaving the system. Many great teachers have already left mostly for Long Island. And it won't be long before I leave as well. It really isn't worth the stress.
Funny how its never gets reported in the newspapers.
Media capital of the world my ass.
Attn 4th Estate: is this little turd worth it?
Vote out the bad, get the people in office who DO CARE and just don't use it as a platform!
Someone got a realistic plan how to make an honest difference? Anyone? No? Didn't think so.
Throw money at it? No. Pay teachers more? Well, no one's ever paid enough, but it wouldn't change a thing.
How about discipline in the schools from Day One? No, we can't have that any more.
Have teachers EVER respected the Board of Ed (or whatever they call it now)?
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