In yesterday's New York Post, Chancellor Carmen Farina used some questionable statistics to show how the New York City schools have improved. First, was the 70% high school graduation rate, of course she failed to mention that only 34% were "college and career ready"and that far too many of the schools had a "college ready" rate below 20%. Second, she crowed about the 55% who went to college but failed to mention that 78% needed no-credit remedial courses and usually flunked out without getting even a two year degree. Finally, school violence has gone down, due to a change in reporting requirements but she failed to mention how her lax student discipline policies has made student misbehavior the biggest problem for school staff. For more information behind the Chancellor's bogus statistics, read the New York City Controller report.
Today, in the New York Post an untenured teacher was discontinued because he dared report student misbehavior at the Bronx High School, called Design and Construction. Despite the school's requirement to document student misbehavior, the school administration didn't want it reported, You can read the article here. How good is the school? Take a look at their snapshot. That;s right the school has a 63% graduation rate and a 15% "college and career readiness"rate, another diploma mill with few graduates who will be getting financially successful jobs.or succeed in college.
The school administration should be installing a strict student discipline policy rather than hiding student misbehavior but then we all know the DOE rather punish teachers that dare report such inconvenient facts and reward schools that hide incidents, just to make their statistics look good. For the DOE it still is "children last"....Always.