Every year the Mayor and his Chancellor, be it Bloomberg (Klein, Black, Walcott) or De Blasio (Carmen Farina) sing the same tune. That their education policies are working and they look to the high school graduation rate as evidence of their claim. True, the graduation rate continues to climb but are the graduates really ready for college or careers? The answer is a resounding no.
Far too many students are graduating unprepared for the adult world. For example 78.3% of all New York City high school graduates had to take at least one no credit remedial course while almost a quarter took two or more remedial courses.Remember, this statistic is based on high school graduates actually applying and attending college and does not include the 20% who never bothered to attend college.
What happens to these students who struggle through high school, aided by bogus "credit recovery" courses, administrative pressure to pass them, and outright academic fraud? The answer is that these students, lacking a real education, are destined to be the new under class of society. Low wage jobs, unstable employment, and financial instability when it comes to the family. Sure there are occasional success stories, but for the majority of these struggling high school graduates the outlook is bleak.
We must stop kidding ourselves and realize that some students are not cut out to pass academic subjects and open up more vocational schools that will allow these students to enter the high paying trades like plumbers, nursing, electricians, and mechanics to name a few. This nonsense that everybody can pass the Regents and be academically proficient is a fantasy and has resulted in far too many students being shortchanged educationally and unprepared for the adult world.
19 comments:
108K (Summer's off) & non stop holidays. Love this job. I mean firefighter working 2x a week with no observations is a much better gig but I will take the 6 figure salary at 180 days out of 365. It's literally amazing. This was a nice story Chaz, poor kids. Remedial classes. More money to go around for extra help.
There seems to be slow, dawning realization that college isn't for everyone. Sending high school graduates who read on a third grade (or less) into college should be criminal. Many liberals and intellectuals look down their nose at the trades, (especially for minorities), believing the work is demeaning. These are high paying jobs, doing honest skilled work. What is demeaning is having to work two or three minimum wage jobs and still have to live in shelter because you have no education and no skills - or just give up and take the free apartment and welfare check, if you can get them.
Oh Chaz, I hope you let this comment slide, so here it goes. 8:53 always sounds like a seal in labor. It grinds on me because he or she lacks any sense of morality in letting honest people who find your blog as a place to vent or educate others a place where he insists on expressing how he is above it all or "getting over" on the system. Sadly, this is what happens when cousins pro create. I mean every village has its idiot right and, come on let's admit it - 8:53 is it.
Chaz, thanks for all the work you do brother!
Sincerely, A teacher who has been around the block many times and believe it or not admits there's some truth to what 8:53 says. I just wouldn't be express it like a seal in labor or the product of two cousins pro creating or the village idiot.
Always complaining, I forgot to add that. I got it made here in NYC with my 108K gig. Living like a fat cat and raking in the per session. Weekends off always. Gotta post that continuously cause I get lonely staring at mom's wall's down here in the basement.
Need more vocational schools. There is a school called co-op tech in my building they have plumbing, nursing, and electrical work.
Agreed...108k & summer off!!! Chaz, calm down you sound like Marx. I love it when you write about pension stuff. I eat it up and I could read it all day, even if it was the same post. Actually what will happen is: now, the morons who f*cked off during HS, will now go to community college. And guess what? Many of them will actually learn how to be students. Why? Because now they have to pay for it. I agree. This system is a sham. We should teach most vocational ed and some basic courses to the masses so they will have a skill. The best and brightest should get some AP classes and this should be the college track. What I am describing is what NYC used to do decades age. But as we all know, colleges make money off drops outs so no one cares. Poor kids... the system failed. The system fails everyone. Big Deal. Get over it. Figure it out. Many will; some won't. Nothing changes. There has always been an underclass and there always will be. Also, the majority of kids who are in city schools now are from immigrant families and the education they are getting is much better than anything there native lands were offering.
Chaz I agree with your post. Well said!
I have worked with many of these "students" in the YABC program. If only the public knew what really goes on with YABC and the distribution of credits. Nonsense course codes created to satisfy the 7 electives requirement... allowing kids to earn 3 or 4 elective credits in ONE term, giving TWO social studies credits for taking just ONE global class, and a 2 page "packet" on volleyball earns you a gym credit. These 20 and 21 year old students knew it was a scam, the teachers knew, and of course the site supervisor knew. Everyone plays along while earning incredible per session pay.
The entire staff is well aware that none of these 20 and 21 year olds will survive college, even a 2 year one. I mean, if it takes you SEVEN to EIGHT years to earn 44 credits, you have ZERO chance of success in college.
Chaz. At least let me respond to 10:34, because 9:12 is def played out poor guy. Anyway, 10:34, what was so bad about the post? The truth bothers you? It's a lie that we only work 180 days out of 365? It's a lie if you're on top salary (like myself), you're not at 108K? Kid need remedial help, etc etc, it's not true that this leads to more opportunity for additional work whether it be summers, after school tutoring, a possible 6th assignment? This is a lie too? If I'm doing per session I'm actually working. I'm actually doing hours that I chose to come in. This was bad to write as well? You're upset because I explained some truths of what's really happening? A seal in labor? Trust me, plenty of teachers like myself are happy at work. We are also happy to work extra if it's available. I'm not supposed to voice my opinion because there's some people on this blog that are in miserable mode? They hate their jobs and read my post and become furious? Misery loves company but I ain't hangin at your party. I feel so bad for teachers who haven't figured this system out. So simple.
Left unspoken: many immigrants in recent years are truly the 'bottom of the barrel' from their societies. The lowest, most hopeless, least educated. They cannot make it in their own societies, even speaking the language, so they decamp for the free welfare here. So many of them cannot survive in a first world society, so they swell in numbers in our cities, expanding the third world here.
Anon 8:53 and 9:12. It is good you are proud of your job (although 108K doesn't go far after federal, state, and city taxes here in NYC) but being lonely in your mother's basement must be a drag. Maybe you can go upstairs into the light and tell real live people all about how you don't work nights and weekends and summers but you do work days and per session and stuff. They would find it fascinating and it might ease the loneliness to share it out loud rather than continuously posting it to the blogosphere.
I have been saying, "Bring back the vo-ed schools" for over 20 years. I've had so many students in the past act out in academic courses like biology or math, but put a power drill in their hand---and you had a totally different, productive kid. Not everyone is cut out for college, and it's time for the liberals and PC do-gooders to stop looking down their snobbish noses at honest blue collar labor and admit that. Many the plumber or electrician makes more money than their teachers do! We will always need honest tradesmen, even when they're laying off attorneys and middle management personnel.
Dude, it's 108 + 12 (6th assignment) + 15 per session + 4 summers = 139K. It's a great salary in today's society. Cmon man.
Chaz I Have to respond to anonymous 6:54 and again to 10:34 that I am not a seal in labor, I am almost out of my mom's basement, I am not really very lonely, I am not the village idiot, and procreate is not spelled pro create. It is one word: procreate.
Hey Chaz what's the story on mandated interviews. Thought when the atr agreement was allowed to sunset we weren't going to have them anymore. Please give us Atrs some info thanks.
Chaz we don't know what percentage of students who graduated applied for college and ended up in remedial courses. So the number of unprepared students could be higher than 20 percent because I don't believe that 78 percent of ALL graduates went to college. Its my guess that the number would be alot less.
At 8:53 the lonely troll brags (!) about earning 108k and not working in the summer. Apparently realizing his teacher fantasy is (considering this is NYC at 108k minus city, state, and federal taxes) low paying he then fantasizes (at 8:52) he actually earns 132k because he works all summer as a teacher.
The troll is actually making it all up of course - except for his repeated admissions of living in his mom's basement.
I've read that 30-60% of college grads work at jobs that have nothing to do with their degree, and have paid a high price for that degree. I have for many years referred to the educational system as nothing more than a pyramid scheme, although not too loudly, because I am in the thick of it! In the bad schools, we are just baby sitters. In high school, we push them through. Higher Ed then rakes in tuition, yet they only hire adjuncts, so it is only the top of the pyramid that sees the big bucks!
Anon 4:45
My understanding is that there are no mandated interviews. However, you will be sent to a school with a vacancy by seniority order. Or so the 2011 ATR agreement states.
Thanks Chaz but just received email that mandates an interview just like the emails we got the last few years. Wish someone would tell us what's going on. Has anyone else received a mandated interview? Please let me know
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