In the course of admitting he didn’t have a good reason for taking a good school away from kids in Harlem, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that to fix a “broken” city school system, we have to “shake the foundations.”
Today, some 1,500 students and teachers from Success Academy charter schools will be doing that at the Armory on the Hudson. They are holding a giant pep rally as they head into next week’s tests. It’s called “Slam the Exam!” And it’s a terrific example of how to “shake the foundations” of a public school system mired in low expectations and even lower performance.
This Empire is centrally organized, overly bureaucratic and failing 85 percent of our black and Latino students.
Yet it has its defenders. Look at Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña. She’s already made clear that charter children are not her concern. So what does she tell principals of the children who are her concern? Not to go overboard on “test preparation.” Hmm. Wonder if that’s the approach in Singapore or South Korea, whose students score well above ours in reading, math and science.
Fariña worries about “stressing” students. She should go to the armory today. These kids believe they can compete with the best of them, and that tests give them an opportunity to prove it. So their approach to testing is simple: “Bring it on.”
Then there’s Mayor de Blasio’s idea of shaking it up, which is to take away good schools for kids if they are charters and keep failing schools open if they are traditional schools. That’s the instinct of the old guard who put the teachers union above student performance.
The mayor complains about competition. But competition is the key to shaking the foundations. Because charters are showing that kids can learn, and in so doing, deprive failing public schools of excuses. And they invite comparisons important to parents.
Our students need more of this, no matter how much the Empire of the mayor and his schools chancellor may strike back.