Sunday, January 17, 2016

The Battle For Room 314.



























There were many stories about education in the New York Post this week, ranging from the "rubber rooms" (they never went away),  our disconnected union leadership using our dues to thank Andrew Cuomo, and the fight between Mayor Bill de Blasio with the principals union on the micromanaging of the renewal schools.  Here was the original New York Times Opinion piece by the President of the CSA, Ernest Logan.  However, what really caught my attention was the excerpts from a new book called "The battle for room 314".  The book was written by a failed first year teacher who left the high-paying business world to teach in a small Bloomberg school in lower Manhattan and quit at year's end due to frustration, disrespect, and lack of support, a very common problem in the New York City school system. The book's complete title is  “The Battle for Room 314: My Year of Hope and Despair in a New York City High School”  while I have not read the book yet, the excerpts tell the story of what's happening in our public schools.  Let's go through the excerpts and identify the very many recurring issues we see in the schools today.

The Students:
The author claims the school is 100% minority (one white student in the entire school) and many are apparently over aged and under credited.  Peer pressure at the school makes any student who wants to follow the rules and eager to learn a target for bullying, intimidation, and ostracized from the student body.  They come from poverty, broken homes, and violence is a recurring theme with many of these students. The disrespect to the school staff is obvious when you read the excerpts.  For example, the teacher is gay and one student wrote on his blackboard that he was a faggot. Or another one yelled in the hallway that who the teacher was balling was no chick. Worse, the teacher was investigated for sexual harassment,  as a female student lied about what he said to her, despite the fact that everybody knew he was gay! Even worse, they left the student in his class and told the teacher not to be alone with her!  By the end of the year the teacher was disillusioned and  petrified to return to the school for another year and resigned.

The Principal:
Like all principals during this period, they hired who they liked (thanks to Eric Nadelstern) and not what was needed for their students to succeed.  He hired teachers that lived overseas and that included many "newbies" to the New York City schools who experienced a definite culture shock in instructing these challenging students.  Furthermore, the Principal did not suspend students, even the ones that made learning impossible, as one student said "its three hundred strikes and your out"..  The staff referred to the Principal as the "fearless leader" for his failure to lead or take action against dangerous students, making instruction and learning nearly impossible to do.

The school: 
Unfortunately, this school sounds like far too many high schools in the City, especially the Bloomberg small schools, and his story can be repeated over and over again in schools that have "high needs" students. The Daily News has an article about how unsafe the schools are and how the Bill de Blasio administration is not showing the true scale of violence in the schools.

The solution is complex but first and foremost we need to eliminate deep poverty, have consequences for student misbehavior (not restorative justice), and most of all a peaceful classroom where students feel safe and protected so they can break the chain of poverty and destroy the school to prison pipeline.  Putting a bandage on an infection just hides the illness and doesn't cure it and that is what is going on in far too many of our schools then and at present.

17 comments:

28 year retired new york city teacher said...

"we need to eliminate poverty"

Yes Chaz. That's just what Lyndon Johnson said 50 years ago. And haven't you liberals done a great job of it? Aren't things in America getting better and better?

So tell us: how are you going to eliminate poverty? Whether it's in inner city ghettos or the hills of backwater Kentucky.

Anonymous said...

The excerpts I read were very familiar. All high school teachers in the Bronx have experienced everything written about. Why would the city put a first year teacher in an environment like that and have 2000 experienced teachers kept out of the classroom?
Also look at the total lack of discipline - the author used the phrase 300 strikes and your out, when a kid was finally removed from the school

Anonymous said...

Yes, and I call this the failure of The Welfare State-or at least it's administration and ethos. I am a 20 year vet- so my opinion is vetted. The Mainstream Media papers over all of this, and places blame on teachers nationally? What a disgrace. But moreso, the power of this Propoganda should send a shiver down every Free Thinking person.

Walmart Cartel just announced funding 1 Billion dollars over next 5 years for charter schools. Their cheap China trade outlets are doing so poorly here, with the worldwide deflation, including workers' real earnings, that they are closing 270 stores here. They are putting their cash reserves into their next business model-public education. They want to destroy whatever is left of the Middle Class here-good paying jobs with benefits and union protection.

How much does Sheriff Andy take from this Cartel?

Anonymous said...

Lets face it, about 80% of DOE schools here are baby sitting agencies for Welfare State problems. This has been going on in NYC schools for how long now...since the 60's??? And now The Mayor wants to remove metal detectors, and lightens up on suspensions amd enforcement? Is he an imbecile, or what? No....more like a hopeless ideologue on this topic.

Anonymous said...

Kid was shot dead the other day, right outside a charter school near Jefferson, in Bklyn. I guess that was the teachers' fault? According to Bill Gates, Walmart Cartel, Obama, Duncan, Michael Bloomberg...it is. Funny how that story hasn't received much coverage.

Anonymous said...

That newbie teacher sure sounds like the unfortunate bovine that was lowered into the pit in the first Jurassic Park.

Anonymous said...

We all see the insanity everyday in the holding pens, er, classrooms. Western Civilization is toast. Many people realize that now. The 'surges' of 'refugees' whether it's the entire population of Latin America trying to flood in here, or the hoards of Asia and Africa overrunning Europe - it's all the nail in the coffin.

Our classroom problems are largely one of demographics, the great unspoken truth. Whites are having ever fewer children. How many of us have even white students in the last ten years beyond perhaps a stray one here or there? Asian students are doing better, but they are not 'us,' they are the people of Asia - another culture altogether.

Leftism has ruined the civilized world. What Dark Age will engulf the world in the next 50 years? This time there will be no coming out of it. Smile in your classrooms, and weep for the world your children will inherit.

Anonymous said...

Does something terrible have to happen for DeBozo to wake up?

Anonymous said...

So in May of 2018 top salary is 120K base with no overtime, summer, etc. Ok. I be takin that.

Anonymous said...

Yeah OK 120k..blood money much..let's see what else rises to make that number seem like a joke.

Anonymous said...

9:57,
Not if the DOE can help it.

Anonymous said...

http://nypost.com/2016/01/17/students-protesting-blatant-bigotry-at-brooklyn-tech-hs/

Every day. Edelman is killing it!!!! On MLK day we get this article out of the elit Brooklyn Tech. Disgusting!

Anonymous said...

Edelman is beast! Without her the heard would be clueless, Thank you Susan!

Anonymous said...

Please....do you REALLY believe this crud...?

Anonymous said...

Yes that was payback for the Oct 26 shooting on DeKalb Ave its a Ft. Greene v ENY battle look for it to escalate so far they've had to wait untill they leave school to get their guns but how long before thats not the case

Anonymous said...

I mean....do u really believe these racism charges at B. Tech? That is complete BS...and by the way...Dr. King is spinning like a top in his grave , appalled at the behavior of many Af. American children in public schools. He died partially for naught.

Anonymous said...

While I can certainly empathize with the author's first year teaching struggles (we've all been there), some things about the book/article make me suspect. I have taught at two separate transfer schools. One takes kids who have a criminal justice history. The behaviors this teacher describes don't match with my experience at transfer schools. At transfer schools most of the disruptive kids show up in September and disappear by November. Poor attendance and disengagement are the biggest issues at transfer schools.

Plus, the school that was identified (henry st. school) is not a transfer school. It seems to be a small school that serves an ELL population. I wish the NY Post would be more accurate in its reporting.