Sunday, February 12, 2012

Lazy Sunday morning.
Michele Rhee documentary on Bloomberg TV. Good for a laugh? or aggravation before the morning coffee?

Surprisingly it was more balanced than I had imagined. There is the part where Geoffry Canada blames the AFT for Mayor Fenty's re-election defeat and Joel Klein gets entirely too much time for someone who has absolutely nothing to say but there are little clips made by people whose names I woefully can't include (due to my terrible memory for names and lack of ambition to get out of bed and find a pencil). One reporter spoke about about spending election day at one school in the middle of DC. The school had made significant improvement during the Rhee years. If anywhere Rhee support should have be earned it was there. Yet the reporter noted, that every parent he interviewed during the election day made getting Rhee out of the role of Chancellor a priority in their voting choice.

But the best line (again unattributed- until I do some research) was: Rich people love Michele Rhee.

I am punished. My seniors didn't do well on those oh-so-important-to-our-data-report Regents Exams. (Forget the impact it has on their lives)

So now I am teaching sixth grade social studies. Ancient Egypt- the city of New York has not one but two of the world's best Ancient Egypt collections, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum. We should take a trip. We could walk through a real Temple and sketch a real mummy. Talk about your primary sources?

But- wait - no! Not before the state exams. There will be no trips before state exams. Too much test prep to squeeze in.

The New York Times ran an article about the achievement gap widening between rich and poor.

I can tell you why. If you walk through the Ancient Egypt collections at either museum you will see the students from the private schools and the rich suburbs sketching the mummies, walking through the temple. But where are the NYC public school students?

In the classroom.

Doing test prep.

1 comment:

  1. You've been moved to the sixth grade? Love that management structure!

    ReplyDelete