New York School Principal Tells His Teachers to Ease up on Their Standards

 There is an old line in the manufacturing industry that goes like this, if you can’t meet the spec, change the spec. Meaning if you can’t make the product the specs the designer intended, then you just ease up on the specs instead of making the product better.

According to this article, that mentality is what the principal at an East Harlem school is endorsing with his teachers. If the students can’t pass the curriculum, instead of failing the students, or making the students do extra credit, or even stay after school for extra help, he says just make the curriculum easier.

 Here are some excerpts from a memo the principal sent out to his teachers:

“If you are not passing more than 65 percent of your students in a class, then you are not designing your expectations to meet their abilities, and you are setting your students up for failure, which, in turn, limits your success as a professional.”

“Most of our students come from the lowest third percentile in academic achievement, have difficult home lives, and struggle with life in general. They DO NOT have a similar upbringing nor a similar school experience to our experiences growing up.”

 The principal said that isf 65% of the students don’t pass than the students are being set up for failure, and the teachers have unrealistic expectations. Let us assume that a teacher is teaching a class using grade appropriate material. I think that is a reasonable assumption to make. I don’t think it is absurd to assume a sixth grade teacher is using sixth grade material. If a teacher is using material designed for the proper age group, and the students are failing the subject it can only be one of two possibilities, in my opinion. One, the teacher is not a very good teacher and is unable to teach his/her students, or two, the students that are failing need to be in a special education program where they can get the help that they need to improve and learn.

 What this principal is recommending is to change the expectations of the teachers in regards to what the students should be learning. He is telling his teachers to make the class easier. I don’t understand how this will help the student in the long run. Sure, it may help with their self esteem right now, but they won’t be learning what they should be. If these students fall behind now, intentionally, how will they ever make this up down the road? The principal says in his memo that the teachers are setting their students up for failure by trying to teach them age appropriate lessons? I say this policy of dumbing down the students is what will set the students up for failure down the road.

 The students need to either stay after school for extra help, do extra credit, or be placed in a special education program. Hell, it is better for the student to stay back now, than to be pushed ahead when they are not ready to move up a grade. This may hurt their self esteme a little now, but it will benefit them in the long run.

 This mentality of not hurting a child’s feelings by subjectiong them to the trauma of an “F”, is the same mentality that has some schools banning red pens in favor of purple ones because it is less traumatic for the children. And it is dangerous to our future. These children are our future and they need to be raised and educated properly, we cannot have students graduating high school who are not ready to enter into society, and be a contributing member of society.

 The Department of Education has stepped in and demanded that the principal of this school, Bennett Lieberman, not advocate this dumbing down of students. There is a $3,000 bonus for all teachers if this school improves, and I am sure there is even a larger bonus for the principal if the school improves. I hope this is not his motive for this memo.

 I hope the teachers and the principal aren’t putting money ahead of properly educating our children. That would be really sad.