If you don’t care whether children come to class, you don’t care if they learn at all — and that’s what New York City’s regular public-school system has come to.
Public-school teacher Mike Dowd’s damning column in Friday’s Post confirmed our worst fears about the sad state of the system.
A third of students in Department of Education schools, more than 300,000, are chronically absent — and uncounted others miss much of the school day.
Teachers aren’t allowed to penalize kids for skipping class thanks to “reforms” made in the name of “equity” under Mayor Bill de Blasio that have continued under Mayor Eric Adams.
Out the window, thunders Dowd, went “the longstanding notion that attendance was a basic requirement for passing.”
This makes it easier to show fine high-school graduation rates (it’s now 84% systemwide) , and to keep attendance-based state and federal aid coming — all of which is convenient for the adults who make a living off the system, even as it betrays their fundamental duty.
Some teachers and administrators likely even privately rationalize rules that let problem kids opt out of class as making it easier to teach the children who do show.
Never mind that the complete lack of expectations sends the worst possible message to all students.
Nor that it fails parents, who surely expect schools to at least let them know their kids are truant.
It’s a grotesque “culture shift,” Dowd warns, “as attending class goes from being a widely understood responsibility to a mere lifestyle choice. Regularly absent students often ask me with complete sincerity how they might improve their grades. Some even request college recommendation letters.”
These policies, he fumes, are teaching students “to surrender in the face of everyday challenges. At a formative time in their lives, our future workforce is losing its self-discipline, reliability and resilience.”
By blowing the whistle, Dowd has courageously risked his career with the city Department of Education — and likely earned the fury of United Federation of Teachers head Michael Mulgrew, who’s plainly happy to go along with the farce.
This scam also lets the air out of all the moral posturing behind the state law mandating minimum class-sizes for city schools: The very same people insisting on low student-teacher ratios plainly don’t care if the students are actually in the classroom with a teacher.
It’s plain that no one in power in New York government will utter a peep about any of this: They all care too much about appeasing the UFT and other adult interests that feed off the schools.
But Congress can hold hearings (it’s a safe bet New York isn’t the only large city committing such fraud), and Education Secretary Linda McMahon can launch an investigation — as could the Justice Department.
Surely this conspiracy of silence and neglect violates the civil-rights laws?
This story originally appeared on NYPost
