Saturday, October 08, 2005

Get off your ath let's do some math

Not in some classes at my school. A parent came in last week to complain that her son's class had been without a math teacher since the first week of school. She didn't speak much English, so the front office blew her off and told her to wait for a month until they found a new teacher.

It would have been great if the office had tried to communicate with the parent and listen to her concerns (or at least explain what was going on), but the real problem here, and it is a big one, is that some 7th graders are going without math teachers when they are required to pass a math exam in order to be promoted. Can we take Bloomy's and Klein's "no social promotion" policy seriously when they obviously are not putting enough resources towards retaining and hiring qualified teachers in high-need schools? Not having math teachers at this school shouldn't take anyone by surprise - apparently one class didn't have a teacher for several months last year.

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