As a NYC school teacher, I put most of the blame for the wide discrepancies for example in scores in standardized tests on the failing policies of the public school system. Parents gave been taking their kids out of the public school system in droves. Besides dumbing down what kids learn even in elementary schools, many schools have abandoned reasonable consequences for kids who create disorder in classrooms. Many parents who can afford it hire private math tutors for their kids to get worknat their levels. For years, teachers were told that correcting a student's papers would hurt a child's ego. One year, I was a teacher of 3-year-olds in a housing project in Bed-Stuy. All.of thise children learned to recognize upper and lower case alphabet letters, learning the sounds of the consonants and to varying degrees could read cardsxwith the students' names and word cards placed by dufferent areas in the room. When I ran into some parents in tne neighborhood a few years later. they told me how bored their kids were in school and first grade teachers were teaching what I was teaching in nursery school. Parents who complain to principals that their kuds are bored in school and need more challenging work are told that would be unfaur to the students a5 a lowee level. That's it in a nutshell. Yes, there may be home problems as well, but schools must do their jobs!
As a NYC school teacher, I put most of the blame for the wide discrepancies for example in scores in standardized tests on the failing policies of the public school system. Parents gave been taking their kids out of the public school system in droves. Besides dumbing down what kids learn even in elementary schools, many schools have abandoned reasonable consequences for kids who create disorder in classrooms. Many parents who can afford it hire private math tutors for their kids to get worknat their levels. For years, teachers were told that correcting a student's papers would hurt a child's ego. One year, I was a teacher of 3-year-olds in a housing project in Bed-Stuy. All.of thise children learned to recognize upper and lower case alphabet letters, learning the sounds of the consonants and to varying degrees could read cardsxwith the students' names and word cards placed by dufferent areas in the room. When I ran into some parents in tne neighborhood a few years later. they told me how bored their kids were in school and first grade teachers were teaching what I was teaching in nursery school. Parents who complain to principals that their kuds are bored in school and need more challenging work are told that would be unfaur to the students a5 a lowee level. That's it in a nutshell. Yes, there may be home problems as well, but schools must do their jobs!