poor nycparent, imagine the horror of having to take care of your own children and look after their educational needs. Lack of parental involvement leading to poor performance is certainly not a farce or an excuse, but one of the most accurate cause/effect predictors of student acheivement. If you were in our field and read the studies we read you would know this, since this is our job and area of expertise and we know what it takes to produce a good student. It always amazes me how many “experts” there are who can do our job so much better than we can who have never been in a classroom. Without parental involvement (checking homework, checking notebook, knowing when a test is given and what the kid gets on the test should be at least the minimum) the student is not going to make it. If you resent having to be on top of your kids schoolwork maybe you shouldn’t have had them.

When comparing funding between our schools, vs. international schools, keep in mind that part of the money we spend is spent on:

* School meals
* Busing
* Health care (school nurses etc.)

Now if we had better safety nets, a lot of this funding would be unnecessary. Even without the safety nets, one must subtract the costs for these extra, non-educational expenditures to get a more accurate picture of what we actually spend on education.

Actually, for anyone to do that, you’d need to express them.

You said, completely and exactly exactly “Parental involvement, from my point of view, is also a farce.”

You are incapable of a substantive response, so you nitpick over nonsense.

I agree quality teaching is the most important aspect in the classroom. However, I also believe the NYC school system has many quality teachers and these quality teachers (many on this blog) will tell you that you are wrong about class sizes, and parental involvement.

For you to ignore all the studies that have been done on these two issues and to rant about the few teachers in your school that may not meet your standards is ridiculess. It’s the many quality teachers in the NYC school system that gives the children a chance.

Blame the Bloomberg/Klein administration who hire the teachers in your school and the school administrators who gave them tenure in the first place. Further, blame the Bloomberg/Klein administration on shortchanging the schools in money and supplies and allowing the overcrowding of good high schools by their fixation on charter/small schools that do not work!

Finally, you need to keep an open mind on what works in a school not listen to the right-wing zelots who don’t care about the public schools or the left- wing teacher college crowd who want to micromanage every minute of classroom instruction.

If you want to improve your child’s education? Then support the “Let Teachers Teach” program and ensure that the schools have adequate funding.

No one at Edwize denies the importance of teaching quality in education. I have made that point here on a number of occasions, as have others. I can only assume that because we made that point in terms of the need for quality professional development, for self-policing of the profession, etc., and you aren’t concerned with those matters, you just passed over it.

As for ‘blaming others,’ ‘whining’ and ‘excuses,’ I suggest you go back and take a look at the original post and then at your comments.

Me too, and I said that before. Good teachers come first.

I’ve also said that when you have the lowest standard for teachers in the state, you are hardly trying to attract the best.

Mayor Bloomberg took the LAST test, a basic competency test, passed it, and declared any high school graduate ought to be able to pass it.

He then sent Chancellor Klein to Albany to beg for the right to retain and continue hiring those who failed it.

In my suburban district, hundreds apply for each opening. In NYC, despite lower standards, 800 numbers, websites, job fairs, and unbelievable worldwide recruiting efforts, they’re lucky indeed to find one.

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome? No, I don’t endorse that at all, nor did I say so.

You do not read very carefully.

There are certainly ways to attract good teachers. Mayor Bloomberg chooses not to use them.

Now, a moment ago parental involvement was a “farce,” but now you’re running bake sales, tutoring, volunteering and doing God knows what else–little of which has much to do with parental involvement anyway, which occurs mostly in the home.

That speaks to your credibility.

You voted for Mayor Bloomberg. You wanted status quo, and now you’ve got it. What on earth are you complaining about?

So there are bad teachers. The UFT does not do the hiring.

You do.

Parents choosing a specific private school? Of course that might be the best thing for their kid. Policymakers pushing the rapid expansion of vouchers or charter schools? Not good for the kids.