Today's New York Times reports that Joel Klein is out on the stump again, telling the world what a great job he's doing. Thus he visited District 26, which was actually doing very well long before his arrival. Nonetheless it's still doing well, and that's what passes for success under this administration. If the building hasn't fallen down yet, it's because they were propping it up when no one was looking.
Yet still, there came a voice of dissent in the form of Assemblyman Mark Weprin:
Mr. Weprin, a Queens Democrat, seized nearly five minutes of the news conference to lambaste the grading system and the Bloomberg administration’s focus on standardized testing to measure achievement.“Our schools have turned — I know the chancellor is standing here, but — to Stanley Kaplan courses in a lot of ways,” Mr. Weprin said, referring to a large test preparation company.
Lacing his comments with apologies for being “impolite,” Mr. Weprin said, “Too much focus is trying to get the right answers on tests and not enough focus on, in my opinion, on learning. And a good teacher doesn’t just teach how to get the right answers, a good teacher inspires, and a lot of that is being lost in our schools.”
I agree that a good teacher inspires more than simply how well to fill in bubbles, but I seem to be in the minority on this one. Still, the truth is that even great reformers Klein and Bloomberg have failed to achieve more correctly filled bubbles on tests they couldn't manipulate. Mr. Klein emphasized the versatility of his programs by asking whether the kids studied art:
The school's art teacher, Rita Rothenberg, said she works with most of the school's students once a week, though that particular class of fourth-graders does not visit her at the moment.
Oh well. So what do these awards mean? Philissa at the Inside Schools Blog calculates it comes to about 30 bucks per kid, and adds:
I wonder why the amounts being disbursed are not all multiples of $30 -- perhaps it's a result of the DOE's class size reduction plan that diminished classes by an average of just a fraction of a kid each?
Yes, in a mere six years, they've cleverly managed to remove 20% of one kid from each classroom. How do they do it? Maybe by loading schools like mine to over 250% capacity. But that 30 bucks surely makes up for both the overcrowding, the cold-in-the-winter, hot-in-the-summer trailers, and the crumbling buildings they sit behind.
Nothing shows you care quite like 30 bucks. Try approaching your significant other and saying, "Wow. You look like thirty bucks." Let us know how that works out for you.
Thanks to Schoolgal
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