I received this report from a Bronx High student who saw the blog post below this one. Remember – These are the top performing students you can find anywhere in this nation and they are still treated this way. (Imagine how kids who are struggling are treated in some places.) If you checkout some of the blogs of current and former students (many of the latter at top colleges) you can see how Reidy is totally despised and disrespected.
It's really frightening actually.
Today, the principal and her cronies were walking around school confiscating any newspapers that students might be holding. Also, if they noticed a group of kids standing in a group having a conversation in the hallway, they quickly came and told everyone to "move along!" Sounds a lot like communist Russia, doesn't it?
Actually, compared to Bronx High, Communist Russia under Stalin is looking pretty good.
Just more of Joel Klein's Children First. But Joel Klein will support her to the bitter end just as he did Jolanta Rohloff at Lafayette HS no matter how many careers she destroyed. What our friends in the anti-teacher ed reform movement don't realize is that the Reidys and Kleins of this world are helping resistance to these attacks grow. What can the public think about these stories?
I think perhaps that the treatment of students at Bronx Science described here is not that unusual -- but they are being treated more like students at some of our other, less elite comprehensive HS where students are told not to congregate in the halls and disciplinary policies are extremely strict. Which is not to say that any of this is acceptable.
ReplyDeleteJolanta Rohloff is now a big shot at Staten Island rubber room, she does nothing all day except giving teachers there hard time.
ReplyDeleteOn the question of gimmicks...
ReplyDeleteI am teaching in the scorched educational landscape left by Jeb Bush in Florida. In our inner-city high school the security monitors promoted to administration "very strongly suggest" that Differentiated Instruction be employed in the classroom, mostly to please their bosses and the state. I have a nice collection of DI conference brochures going back several years. Registration is only $200 but you can pick up the whole package for only $369 and become a master of DI I guess.
DI, like every educational gimmick that has come out of corporate America's attack on the public schools, puts money in the pockets of some charlatan at the end of the day.