TEACHERS' LETTER BOMB
[In my town, the kids go to a regional public high school shared by two other towns. According to the most recent Grade Eight Proficiency Exam results, the scores for eighth graders at our middle school declined from 2001-2002 scores in all three categories. They go to a regional high school with kids from 2 other towns who do MUCH BETTER on these tests. The kids from the regular public school cannot compete. That's why my son goes to the charter school.]
By CARL CAMPANILE and FRANKIE EDOZIEN
WRITE STUFF: Schools Chancellor Joel Klein discusses student promotion at City Hall yesterday, where he released a letter signed by 58 Brooklyn teachers.
March 4, 2004 -- Courageous teachers at a Brooklyn high school - fed up with unprepared and even illiterate students - made an impassioned plea to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein yesterday to end social promotion.
The teachers at Clara Barton HS sent Klein a plaintive letter - signed by half of the 120-member faculty - saying it's impossible to educate students who were allowed to graduate from elementary or middle schools without having learned the basics.
The result: the teens have a dismal future because they can't pass state Regents exams to earn a diploma and are prime candidates to drop out - or worse.
"As New York City high school teachers, we are wholeheartedly opposed to the practice of social promotion," the letter said. "It is not a solution. It is a lie that is eroded year by year as students realize they have been given flattery rather than the basic skills they need to survive in a classroom, and even more, in life.
"Come into our classrooms and we can show you the results of social promotion: 16-year-old students who write incoherently, misspelling the most basic words, who don't know multiplication tables, and who struggle to comprehend a passage in a basic textbook."
They said students are "shocked" when they flunk high school classes and exams because they'd gotten used to being promoted for merely showing up.
Klein released the letter as he defended Mayor Bloomberg's decision to hold back third-graders who flunk standardized English and math exams.
The letter repudiates the position of teachers union boss Randi Weingarten, who said on Tuesday that low-performing third-graders should not be held back. She said they should be promoted and given additional help in special fourth-grade classes.
Clara Barton nursing teacher Marcy Licardi said her colleagues feel so strongly about the issue that organizers were able to get 58 teachers to sign the letter in just one day.
Licardi said it's "criminal" to promote students under "false assumptions."
"We don't want to do a disservice to students," she said. "They can't survive high school if they can't read and write. It is a political ploy to call students fourth-graders if they haven't met the requirements."
And Clara Barton - where the focus is on health careers, and girls make up 85 percent of the students - is in the midrange academically. About 72 percent of its students graduate in four years.
About 55 percent of last year's graduating class scored a 65 or better on the English Regents, and 45 percent scored at least a 65 on the math test.
Klein said he was "astonished" by Weingarten's views, because most teachers he's talked to oppose social promotion.
Meanwhile, Klein issued an analysis that showed the small number of low-performing third-graders who were held back in prior years are doing better than struggling students who were promoted despite failing.
The study tracked low- performing students who were third-graders in 1999 and 2000.
Of the 1999 group of students held back once, 31.7 percent advanced from Level 1 to Level 2 on math and reading exams by sixth grade. By comparison, only 25.4 percent of kids who were promoted despite failing improved their scores.
The results were similar for the students who were third-graders in 2000.
Of those held back, 33.5 percent advanced from Level 1 to Level 2. Of those students promoted, only 23.4 percent moved up.
"This debunks the notion that retention doesn't benefit the students," Klein said.
But even Klein and deputy Diane Lam admitted that holding back students a second time could be counterproductive. Students who are held back once - and are still floundering - will be placed in a small "transitional third/fourth-grade class" to help close the gap.
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