The Bill de Blasio administration has made a big deal about the lower student suspension rate but is quiet when it comes to the uptick in student weapon confiscations. This disconnect is one of the reasons that Mayor Bill de Blasio's claim that the city schools are safer than ever is snickered at by most education experts.
In today's New York Post, Susan Edelman has published an article showing that weapon confiscations have risen significantly since Bill de Blasio became Mayor. Despite the skyrocketing student weapon confiscations in school, the suspension and arrest rates have dropped since many of the weapons confiscated were considered legal such as kitchen knives and box cutters, Moreover, principals are reluctant to suspend students caught with weapons because it hurts their statistics when being evaluated in their "quality review" and all suspensions must be approved by the DOE who can and do overrule the Principal's recommendation.
According to the Post's article weapon confiscations rose an astounding 28% last school year, rising from 2,119 in he 2016-17 school year to 2,718 in the 2017-18 school year,
No wonder students don't feel safe outside their classroom. You can read my posts on weapons in the schools Here, Here, Here, and Here.
15 comments:
The basic attitude among students now is that marijuana smoking is legal for all ages, no one really gets suspended anymore unless you kill someone, attendance and punctuality are optional, homework need not be done as everyone passes, classwork need not be done because in 'group' projects, everyone passes and teachers can be punished by making up stuff to the AP.
I know NYC schools have always been rough with a large number of very bad students, but there were suspensions in the past that were used more often, and admins up until ten years ago or so were more likely to believe teachers over students.
In my school, most staff members generally treat the kids with a kind of benign neglect. Whether they do work or not, they all pass the class. 65s are the grade du jour at my school. Any teachers who have tried to 'hold the students accountable,' get ragged on by admins and get low ratings because it's obviously their fault the students did not pass.
Diblasio allowed the phones in the school which has been a disaster. The DOE unblocked Facebook and Youtube which was the icing on the cake of distraction. Admins are afraid to suspend now so behavior is getting crazy. Now kids can smoke weed outside of school with no fear of the cops.
I need 7-8 more years. I will play it cool and laugh as the newbies get chewed up with all their idealism smashed to the ground. You cannot change the system anymore because there are too many people in NYC now and no more care for quality or fairness. it is all lip service for politicos. Retire and try to set your kids up for the (dismal) future. That is all we have now.
whats not talked about is the weapons that most nyc students have. that is a brain. because so many nyc students are incredible under-educated later in life they become easy targets to join a gang or become criminals. their stupidity is the weapon and the teachers ability to teach is the cause.
"Suspending black & hispanic students is 100 percent racism." According to my son, DeShawn, Carmen Farina & Mayor DeBlasio.
There is nothing in common between Carmen Farina and my son, DeShawn except both of them feel suspending blacks is a crime. DeShawn was suspended over 10 times last year and even though he admits he was in the wrong and should have been suspended - he still thinks suspending blacks is wrong.
Personally, I kind of disagree with DeShawn. I mean no matter how cute his 28 year-old teacher is - DeShawn was totally wrong and inappropriate for slapping her butt after she performed kick-ass science lesson. I know they slap asses in baseball but a classroom is not a baseball diamond. Higher-ups in the DOE disagreed with me and with DeShawn's principal. DeShawn's principal even said to them "look I have the parent here with me and he agrees with the suspension." They refused to talk to me. They felt DeShawn was just excited that his tight-wearing fatty booty teacher performed an excellent lesson.
Another time this year... DeShawn tried to light a bulletin board on fire. Since the bulletin board did not fully light up this was not considered a suspension. I asked his principal, "What are you guys waiting for? Are you waiting for DeShawn to kill someone?" Principal just shrugged his shoulders and begged me to keep him home for a few days.
DeShawn did get suspended for inciting a riot in the cafeteria this year. Actually, 2 riots. He was suspended twice for those. He also was suspended for beating a kid who broke the air conditioner in his classroom. I can't recall all of his suspensions off hand but he had about 10 suspensions instead of 45.
@shady its a good thing we are in this social climate. if that was a white kid they would have been expelled or worse sent to the south bronx for a real nowhere education. it good that everyone is bending over backwards for the blacks and browns. more power to them!
@4:13 Thank you for your support brother and remember DeShawn is in a Manhattan middle school. The school doesn't have to be in S Bronx. Out of control schools are everywhere even though we are about to have a 90 graduation rate in the city and a 20 percent college readiness. Go NY City GO!!! Let's celebrate. Let's blame the teachers and the unions.
Have a serious question:
Since Carmen is still working a couple of days a week and has no real title. Guessing she just wants to hold onto some power she perceives and milk the system for a few more $$$. More power to her.
Would this make her an ATR or an ACR (absent chancellor reserve)? Just curious and not making fun. I am totally serious. When I run into her I just want to know how to properly address her?
Also, would this make her the highest ranking Absent X Reserve? She and another deputy chancellor held the record for being the highest ranking ATR or ADCR (absent deputy chancellor reserve) before Klein officially retired her. I should have asked Klein before he left.
@11:41 You need to read my last book titled "Pass 'em All". I have passed dead students. A young AP questioned me in front of the superintendent trying to make a name for himself. I simply answered "how do we hold being dead against a student?" The superintendent told me to get my admin license.
My 3rd book titled "Suspend 'em All" was very highly controversial and is now off the shelf. The only group of people who actually praised my book were educators and Asians. Blacks called the book racist even though I never mentioned blacks. Blacks felt I was targeting them.
Hardest punch to the face I ever received was when I was 24 years old. I came home all excited and told my dad that I was becoming a teacher. Back then I did not understand but now I realized what he was preparing me for. 5 more years 5 more years ...60 months to go...
Anon 11:41 what you had said is so true and describes my old high school Richmond Hill to a perfect "T." I was discontinued indirectly because of my passage rates. My student passage rate for the class (and not the Regents) was 70% according to my former principal. I can only imagine by Regents passage rate as being abysmally lower. When I first started I had some sense that I needed to pass most of my kids. I naively thought that a passage rate of 70% (which was grossly inflated anyway would suffice). My former principal wanted a passage rate closer to 100%. I was a special ed teacher and the kids that I had were simply hopeless. I was denied tenure the first time that I was up for it presumably for that reason. Over the summer my former principal sat on it for awhile and then decided that my low passage was so much of a threat to him that I needed to be discontinued so the following year he got me with poor observations.
Richmond Hill was in the news for having the highest number of suspensions one year, and having one of the largest number of confiscated weapons in the building another year. In addition to that the school was in the news for a regents cheating scandal. The principal got negative media attention for being a weak and inept leader. One teacher there raped a minor girl. A huge multi-gang brawl took place right outside the school, etc, etc, etc. The principal Neil Ganesh is not concerned about creating a supportive and nurturing environment. This has been consistent with his inactions and wrong actions within the last five years that he has been principal there. He is a product of the infamous leadership academy. Being a supportive leader is not a priority to him. He has made that so clear by his actions time and time again. His only desire is making the school look good on paper to appease the mayor, the superintendent, his network leader, and the community. Since I left nothing has changed. The school looks better on paper than it did before, but internally it is the same shit hole as when I worked there. Despite everything Ganesh has done and did not do the school continues to be a renewal school. The turnover is still very high. The graduation rates haven't really changed all that much. The percentage of college ready students is still extremely low comparatively speaking. The is still a high number of vacant seats as the school can't fill up those seats.
I always feel bad about the fact that I was discontinued, but at the same time your post is a constant remind of what I would have to wake up to and report to every morning of my life for the next twenty years. I am now teaching in a charter school. It is inferior to the public schools in everyday except one. There are consequences for student actions, thus the environment is somewhat sane, and somewhat tolerable.
To 12:49
My school graduated from a Renewal to a "Rise" school because our stats went up to fast.
Can you guess how? As a staff, and one that was whipped down by mean admins, we collectively decided to pass 'em all.
Suddenly our credit accumulation rates were through the roof! We are also a portfolio school, so we do not need to give the two history regents or the science regents. With only two regents for the kids to pass, we could focus on test prep to no end.
Even with that, a lot of 'appeals' go to the superintendent for kids who got 61-64 scores and they pass. Others have IEPs and our special ed guy sits with them during their tests in a separate room and literally coaches them through the test.
65s are our magic number too, just like the first poster. We routinely graduate kids with a 4th grade skill level. It's not our fault. They come to us in high school with 1st to 2nd grade skills in some cases. School is not their priority. A few are outstanding, but many are really in need of serious intervention that only 2-3 extra years of high school could fix, but alas, the numbers and our school Quality Review beckons!
@12:49 I am sorry you had to go through this BS and nonsense. Many times I joke around here but how F'ed up the school system is and was and always will be. However, after the Bloomberg era there is only 1 thing to remember: Never work at a failing school. Whenever you work at a failing school whether you are a principal, AP or teacher - you must accept the fact that you will be recognized as a failure.
Now, I personally do not agree with this view. I know and understand working in failing school with struggling students is ten times harder than working in a specialized high school. However, Bloomberg, Carmen, Klein and now Carranza think otherwise. The blame is now on those working at failing schools.
Some people would rather spend a year in a rubber room than spend 1 month in a failing school for this reason. If you are free next week please come to our MAC (Manhattan ATR Chapter) meeting in midtown Many of the Manhattan ATRs need to hear your story.
3:14 you are absolutely right about the dangers of working in a failing school. If I could get back into the DOE I would never fail any student, stay as far from away from the principal as possible, NEVER got to the UFT for any reason, and not let my idealism get in the way of anything, and simply try not to give a shit about anything but that s hard to do. My former chapter leader advised me to stay in the school until I get tenure and then move away. While true in theory, this was very bad advise. I should have left that school when I still had the chance.
I have one brother and one sister who were and are still NYC DOE teachers. Unlike me, they did not work in facing schools. My sister got tenure and my brother is on his way to tenure. They both worked in very nice schools compared to Richmond Hill. What is also just as important as the status of the school is the quality of the principal. A person like Neil Ganesh who thinks absolutely nothing of destroying one's career should be avoided at all costs. Sadly there are many Ganeshs all over the DOE.
I also know of a husband and wife who work/worked in the DOE. The wife currently works in a nice school. Nobody bothers her and she got tenure without any issues. The husband on the other hand worked in a failing school with an infamous principal and they attempted to discontinue him.
Anon 3:14, Unfortunately I am not free next week, however if you give me your contact info I can send you a very detailed letter that I wrote to the chancellor that I plan on now sending members of the NYS educational panel since the chancellor ignored my letter like I knew he would.
You do have my permission to share this letter with other ATR members. I would just omit my name from the letter.
3:14 you are absolutely right about the dangers of working in a failing school. If I could get back into the DOE I would never ever work in a failing school fail any student, stay as far from away from the principal as possible, NEVER got to the UFT for any reason, and not let my idealism get in the way of anything, and simply try not to give a shit about anything but that is hard to do.
My former chapter leader advised me to stay in the school until I got tenure and then move away. While true in theory, this was very bad advise. I should have left that school when I still had the chance.
I have one brother and one sister who were and are still NYC DOE teachers. Unlike me, they did not work in failing schools. My sister got tenure and my brother is on his way to getting tenure. They both worked in very nice schools compared to Richmond Hill. What is also just as important as the status of the school is the quality of the principal. A person like Neil Ganesh who thinks absolutely nothing of destroying one's career should be avoided at all costs. Sadly there are many Ganeshs all over the DOE.
I also know of a husband and wife who work/worked in the DOE. The wife currently works in a nice school. Nobody bothers her and she got tenure without any issues. The husband on the other hand worked in a failing school with an infamous principal and they attempted to discontinue him.
@1:49, I can 100% confirm what you said. I worked in a school with a girl I dated, it was a really bad school. She was discontinued, I was able to escape before that happened to me, and got into a decent school and got tenure with no issues. Meanwhile the whackadoo principal is there while 95% of the staff is gone.
Stop blaming the school for your son's behavior. You are his parent. I had the same problem with my son. I filed for a PIN petition and let the state have him. It was difficult for me to accept I was unable to handle my son. I love him no matter what.
Jackson completed high school and moved back in with me this summer. He will be starting QCC this fall.
You must take action now!!! My son is black, but I refused to let him become a statistic.
Good Luck
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