Last night was District 26's turn to get the Power Point Presentation of the explanation of the School Grade from Joe Liebman and staff. I must say that the Power Point Presentation was a bunch of crap. It was another attempt to show us the powerless parents just how well the DOE is facing accountability in schools without taking into effect how a school is run. The more they talked the more I sat there knowing that they had absolutely no clue on what it takes to be an educator, a Principal or a student. Nothing not one word was said on how a school could improve but said that the data shows that there is a need for improvement. They did not say they would give a school money to improve, decrease class size to improve but they did say you would get credit for taking in children that need improvement. ie: special ed. student, ELL Students etc. So lets get this right. The only way we can improve is if we take in students that are low in proficiency and then improve them and then our scores can go up. But with that won't come money for giving them the services they need.
Every time a question was asked Liebman or one of his staff would run to the lap top to show us a graph or a chart on how improvement has been shown. You know we did not want to see an presentation we wanted answers that were not given.
The point was mentioned that during Quality Reviews Principals hand pick who is on the panel and that a true voice of the schools are not represented and Liebman said that was not true that Quality Reviewers asked other parents questions whether it be on the subway ride over or in the halls. Oh sure I believe that. Remind me the next time there is a Quality Review at my school that I hold a sign on the subway and ask are you coming to do a Quality Review at my school please ask me a question.
At one point when Santi as he wanted to be called presented his part of the presentation he said something about the fact that if there are 20 children in your class. Now let me see 20 children in your class. Is he speaking about a Public School? I mean a Public School in New York city or does he believe that in District 26 we are damn elite that we only have 20 children per class. Last I checked there were 30 in my sons class and the high school well lets not go there.
Lastly I want to give a big hand to the two Principals who were in attendance last night. Bravo ladies you did a wonderful job explaining to the Liebman staff just how out of the loop they are.
Almost forgot the NAEP scores were brought up also and shown to be stagnant and of course Liebman said that was not true and that we can't believe everything we read in the press since they don't control what the press says. Liebman gave the ole party line on how well African-American and Hispanic Students fared. I guess they don't read the same stats that we do.
disclaimer: I have not double checked the spelling or grammatical errors and I am still in shock over the non answers.
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To summarily dismiss the scores (and resulting implications) of the NAEP is abhorrent, particularly when presented to parents and other stakeholders.
Oh wait. Did I just refer to parents as stakeholders? So, sorry. That seems to be against BOE policy. Parents are viewed more as a contingent to pacify and silence, rather than true stakeholders. As the kids say, my bad.
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