wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

Dear Brian,
I love your show and listen to it since a year. Now I can’t download it complete. Not from this homepage and not with Juice or i Tunes.
One massage was ....DTDs... but what is that?

Love
Max

You mention "social promotion".

Consider, based on the "multiple intelligences" and related discussions, that SOME students won't "get" some things. My subject is Math (and Computer), and I have, over the years, figured out that
(A) EVERY student can learn SOMETHING from taking math classes - one possibility is, "I am not good at math"
(B) EVERY student can learn that SOME math is hard - and therefore, when you DO win the lottery, you should pay your accountant what he is worth, because you learned that what he does is hard.
(C) I should be able to give a 65 to ANY student who attends class and tries and learns SOMETHING. Going from a 35 on tests to a 55 on tests is accomplishing something, and MAY BE worthy of a 65. Remember, any employer who hires such a student to do math, gets what he deserves. But any student who does what we ask / demand - go to class and learn what you can - should graduate high school. I claim there is a SIGNIFICANT difference between a 65 and a 66.

There is more.

You neglect to mention that Bloomberg pushed an initiative to mandate lower class size off of the ballot a few years ago. This means that regular, not charter or small schools, have terrible teaching conditions, while a few schools get special treatment, allowing them to have low student to teacher ratios. This shows that Bloomberg is hypocritical about improving things in a meaningful way and instead does unmeaningful things, or deceive us, by lowing tests rigor to get the non-believable increases in test scores.

I am a second grade teacher in Brooklyn. One of the effects of the emphasis on testing is that the smallest classes in our school are in 3rd, 4th and 5th, and the classes in k-2 are larger. The testing emphasis has also increased the # of children who are left back in 1st and 2nd grade. These are not in keeping with good early childhood practice.

Please withhold name.

Great caller but horrible cell phone service, is he on AT&T??

Not just class size. I taught in Japan where class sizes with as many as 40 students. The students fell in line because they had a personal sense of responsibility. These would be non-issues if parents and students are more personally accountable.

You asked NYC teachers to write you regarding the past 6 years "before you pack for 8 weeks at your beach house." Do you really think a NYC teacher earns the income necessary for 8 weeks on a beach? Are you kidding? I taught in East Harlem my first year because I wanted to give back to the system that produced me. I had amazing teachers in district 4. I am now a bilingual, bicultural professional with the equivalent of two masters degrees--a highly qualified teacher. One year in NYC was enough for me however. I decided I could also make a difference in a suburban district where I did not have to pay for my own supplies and copies at Kinkos. I could not take care of my family on a NYC starting salary, and I certainly could not afford 8 weeks on the beach! Many teachers WORK during the summer Brian. In fact, I am headed back to my classroom now to finish filing and organizing for September. Teachers work more than ten months per year and it is not an 8:00-3:00 job either. I typically work ten hours per day.

I know EXCELLENT teachers who have developed EXCELLENT curricula who are (Mayoral control or previous Superintendent control) who have been been allowed to teach "pilot" classes, which SUCCEEDED by any measure WE could perceive, yet other teachers (and, often, those teachers, too) were constrained to teach the normal curriculum to the next cohort of students.

I know ONE forward-looking Superintendent who, ahead of the city-wide change, had the Brooklyn High Schools include ALL freshman in Regents-preparatory classes. Our school went from a 31% passing rate on the first Mathematics Regents, teaching and testing less than 50% of our entering freshman to a 31% passing rate on the [next version of the] first Mathematics Regents, teaching and testing 100% of our entering freshman.
[If you, like that forward-looking Superintendent, don't notice, that constant 31% passing represents MORE THAN DOUBLE THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS passing the Regents. It took a few minutes scribbling on a napkin to lower her blood pressure when the results were first reported to her. And so many people say they will never use what they learn in high school math again in their lives!]

I have more.

Heartless, the schools have lost their souls becauase the bottom line is the dollar.
Did you know that the tests were re-normed and that is the only reason that the scores "went up" The kids are not really performing any better it was just for Joel Klein to say that the scores showed improvement. It's a shame and a sham. It's also very sad that kids are
encouraged to perform on a "test" and not in life.Of course the tests are easier!!!!

Yes, things are better. There is a stronger focus on teacher accountability and a closer monitoring of students progress. Am I happy with the focus on testing? No. But I think it is a process and this is one of the steps towards changing a huge stubborn system with people entrenched.

The schools are not much different because the feeling of wait a minute and things will change so why bother to adopt the changes.

C'mon, you should know better. Teachers are not off to the beach. We prepare for the Fall, take continuing ed classes, working additional jobs to substitute meager incomes, work on summer classes.
You make it look like we get 8 weeks vacation: we do not.

Younger principals with so little experience that they don't know how to lead or support teachers.

They are more businesslike, though. They are probably better at paperwork than the old principals.