So finally Klein and Bloomberg have announced some more details of the specifics of the Support Organizations Principals are to choose.
Once again I believe this late in the game that the plan should be abolished or at least implemented at a later date. I vote for abolished.
Principals have yet to find out what their allotment is, but they do know how much of that egg they have to spend. I still don't understand how that is to work.
The money that is to be spent depends on the size of your school. So if you are a small school you will pay less. What is the criteria for a smaller school? How many students are in a small school 500? I know that the Guidance Counselor at middle one's school said to me in a conversation how am I to know if I have your child this is a large school.
I have read a few of the mission statements from some of the new Support Organizations and as they are good on paper what does it really mean?
I will take this example from my region the description is an
Integrated Curriculum and Instruction” group, which promises to help schools develop a multidisciplinary “thinking curriculum,” at a cost of $47,500 per school.
What??? A thinking curriculum I would hope that the curriculum will have children thinking, hello isn't that the point of going to school to think?
So now this gets me to my next point.
Since we don't really know how much our Principals are to get what role is the PTA going to play in this. Are the PTA's going to have major fundraising drives to fund the programs that the Principal is no longer able to provide. I mean the PTA in schools now provide textbooks, art, music, supplies, grants to teachers to purchase classroom supplies etc.
If a well performing school now has to cut a few things to make ends meet (you know like most New Yorkers) what will be cut. All those extra programs that the children need to help expand their minds like Music and Art. Will PTA's now have to be grant writers also?
I wish the higher ups (the ones who keep telling us to shut up) would listen and realize that they are not going to make our school systems better they are going to make them far worse.
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I just saw a comment posted on the NYC Public School Parents website (it's a comment posted by someone called nyceducator to a posting titled "A Deal on School Reorganization is Made: UPDATE") saying that because the UFT and a few other groups -- excluding most or all parent groups and CECs) -- has ostensibly brokered some sort of deal with Bloomberg and Klein, the May 9th rally outside City Hall has been canceled. The NY Times today also reports that the groups who met with Bloomberg agreed not to hold the rally.
Do you know if any of this is true and if the rally is in fact canceled? If so, what we will have had is an almost unconscionable and seemingly unilateral action on the part of the UFT to take care of its own at the expense of public school parents. Since the UFT "has a deal," there's no longer a reason to have a rally -- is that the message? So what of all the other parent issues -- the reorganizations, the lack of parent voice, etc? When the UFT wants parents to come to a rally, they don't hesitate to ask for support, but now that they could meet and get a deal, they don't see the need for parents to rally and give voice to their concerns and frustrations? As a public school parents, I feel as though Randi Weingarten just cut the legs out from other the PA/PTAs, CECs, and other parent groups around the city. Shouldn't we still have the rally, whether the UFT wishes to participate or not? I believe there are more than enough parents who are still not satisfied with where things stand and where they're going.
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