Congratulations on winning the most ignorant post in this thread award!! Educators cannot teach students who are not present in the classroom, who are disrupting the lesson or who are not paying any attention.
Now read this excerpt from Michael Goodwin's column in the same issue of the NY Post: (bolding is mine)
"...When it comes to early education, the only thing New York City’s first lady, Chirlane McCray, doesn’t mention is parenting. Until she does, she’s guilty of neglecting the biggest force for change. McCray’s husband, Mayor de Blasio, called her “my best friend in the world, my closest confidante, my No. 1 adviser” and gave her an official job and staff. It’s safe to say, then, that she’s on message when she trots out the heroes of the civil-rights movement to rally support for his agenda. Coming from a black woman, that invocation is meant to assert moral authority and move Albany lawmakers to support the $2.6 billion tax hike de Blasio demands.
In truth, McCray’s approach is misguided and creates a false equivalency. Likening school failure to the race-based denial of civil rights paints modern society as the embodiment of Bull Connor, the Alabama official who loosed water hoses and snarling dogs on black marchers in Birmingham 50 years ago.
The suggestion to mostly black audiences that they must mobilize because the city is putting up impediments to African-American students defies reality. New York already spends more than $20 billion on education, much of it specifically directed to help poor, nonwhite children. Still, the racial achievement gap remains stuck at high levels.
As de Blasio has noted, only 11 percent of black city school grads are ready for college or careers.
Yet the first couple’s ideological bent, which favors collective society over individuals and families, leads them to believe the best ways to help children are found outside the home. They are looking in the wrong places.
So far, they display no interest in the mountain of studies showing that children raised in stable, two-parent families are far more likely to succeed in school and life. Conversely, dysfunctional families usually produce dysfunctional children, no matter the buffet of social programs.
Consider that, year in, year out, about 45 percent of city children are born out of wedlock. The total hits 90 percent in some black and Hispanic neighborhoods, and 70 percent in all The Bronx.
Attendance is another fundamental key to school success. One study found that 24 percent of black third- and fourth-graders in New York missed more than a month of school. The figure was 23 percent for Latino children, 12 percent for whites and 4 percent for Asians. Attendance rates are early predictors of graduation rates because most children who fall behind don’t catch up..."
Peddle your one-note tirade, based on nothing at all but your own ignorance, elsewhere. I have personally witnessed exactly what Mr. Goodwin describes. The largest ethnic group of students walking the halls when they should be in class are black students. Nearly always, the first student in a class to act out is a black student. Calls to their homes often result in "This number is disconnected" recordings. It is becoming more and more uncommon to see a student with the same last name as the parent/guardian. Most of the worst behaved and most academically at risk students prove, upon investigation, to be in foster care.
So these children are severely handicapped before they ever reach a classroom, by their irresponsible parent(s). A patchwork mishmash of online "instruction" and other stabs in the dark approaches is a parody of the education they should be receiving. I have personally witnessed some of these computer classes. Taxpayers, did you know that the kids are graded often on how long they spend logged on to the computer rather than what online coursework they completed? The minute the teacher's back is turned, they go to websites about high-dollar sneakers, pop music, games, etc., minimizing those windows when the teacher walks by. What a complete farce! No wonder their letters and emails reflected ignorance. They were a true mirror of what they had learned online!
I am quite sure that 99% of educators, with one hand tied behind their back, would best you in academic skills.
Why should resources be wasted on these people? Why bother to try to educate them at all? It’s a waste of time, effort, and money.
Let them meet at a recreation hall in the morning. They can play basketball, have double dutch contests, some type of vocational training, whatever. At least they will be off the streets for eight hours.
Encourage the 11% who are really interested in learning and forget the rest.
It’s hopeless and it’s never, ever going to change.
Enough is enough!
When liberals don’t have the facts on their side, they call names.
You’ve written a superb post, and I appreciate that you stand up for us beleaguered teachers against a hostile public.
I am sick and tired of people thinking they’re experts on education and that the fault of failing students lies strictly with the teachers. Critics who have never set foot in a classroom yet remember their own classrooms as full of kids eager to learn from brilliant teachers and think it’s the same now as it was then. Well, times have certainly changed and I’d invite any of them into a typical high school classroom to show us how to do it.
So few have any idea what it’s like to work in a school where black kids not only freely roam the halls all day but, when in class, are hostile to the education process and do everything they can to interrupt, disrupt, run around the room, yell and defy the teacher.
I know because I’ve been in those classrooms and when I tried to get help, am told by administrators that I cannot send students out for defiance, that children should be in class and if I send them out, I am denying these students the “right” to an education.
I felt as if I had fallen through the looking glass.
The local media are no better. Low test scores are prominently displayed with full blame assigned to “uneducated,” “boring,” or “racist” teachers. The paper is always happy to interview the kids who are happy to claim, “I didn’t learn nothing from that teacher!”
We teachers are never asked, of course, and the kids’ attendance or discipline records never scrutinized, it’s always the teachers’ fault.