BRYANT HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS THREATENING TEACHERS WHO DON'T PASS STUDENTS WHO DON'T SHOW UP AND/OR DO NO WORK

Sue Edelman and Melissa Klein have an article in the Post on grade inflatiin/fraud under Principal Namita Dwarka at Bryant High School.

One of the complaints:

One teacher said the 11th-hour requests [to pass undeserving students] started during his first semester at the school five years ago. “I was asked to provide passing grades for a marking period I had not taught, for many students who I had never even seen.”

“Last spring, I was reprimanded for not giving a passing grade to a student who had missed almost 100 days of class and had done no work,” the educator said.

Our friend Georgia is featured in the Post piece:

Georgia Lignou, Bryant’s UFT Chapter Leader,  wrote an open letter to principal Namita Dwarka last week, saying she had fielded “numerous” complaints from teachers about the pressure to pass lagging students.

“Teachers are asked to ‘provide support,'” she said in the letter, obtained by The Post. That means that the students can get a few last-ditch assignments and pass “with much less work than what the teacher required in class.” 

We do not feel that a student who was absent for most of the year and has failed previous marking periods can possibly achieve mastery at this time of the year,” Lignou wrote.

Teachers are “intimidated by the tone” of emails they receive from higher-ups, she added.

“What they hear is ‘We want you to pass this student,’ and they do” to avoid run-ins with the assistant principals who supervise them. “They do promote students who should not have been promoted,” Lignou wrote.

Seat time requirements, absent extraordinary circumstances in which work must be submitted that is basically the same as what the class has done, could help solve this problem.

It won't happen as it would cause graduation rates to fall. Grade fraud/inflation leading to far too many virtually meaningless diplomas being handed out is one of the consequences of mayoral control of the NYC schools.

How about a federal solution?

Grade fraud is systemic,” said City Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens), who sparked investigations of Maspeth HS after hearing from whistleblower teachers. “It’s  inherent in  many schools, and everybody in the DOE administration looks the other way because it’s in their best interest.

“But they’re cheating our children out of a good education. Don’t show up in class? You pass. Everybody passes, and grades are meaningless. I think we need a federal monitor to come in and take over because nobody’s overseeing anything.”  

For those hoping this will bring down Principal Dwarka, The Post spoke to a DOE spokesperson who said: “We take any allegation of misconduct seriously and we will look into this.”

Nobody is going to hold their breath waiting for justice but at least Georgia and her colleagues are trying. The people who hide behind anonymous comments here are not helping. Have some courage. I would not recommend fighting alone usually but a small group can make a big difference.

Integrity matters.