Volume 2, Number 6 | The Weekly Newspaper of Chelsea | November 16 - 22, 2007
Letters to the Editor
Complaining about complainers
To The Editor:
Re “Geothermal drilling pits neighbors against GTS” (news article, Nov. 9):
There are some people who are not disturbed by the noise directly across from where we live on the 400 block of West 21st Street.
We have lived in our apartments/homes for over 45 years. We love our home/environment thanks to General Theological Seminary saving all the brownstones on the West 400 block of 21st/20th Streets.
The noise from the drilling has lasted far longer than expected, as the testing is more frequent due to the complaints. The first drill took almost three months due to the complaining about the noise. In trying to accommodate the complainers, GTS had to slow down its progress considerably. The second hold drilling across from us should not be as long.
Mrs. Sewell
GTS should be applauded
To The Editor:
Re “Geothermal drilling pits neighbors against GTS” (news article, Nov. 9):
As someone who lives a few hundred feet across Ninth Avenue from the General Theological Seminary, I can hear the Seminary’s noisy geothermal drilling inside my apartment—and it is a sound that gives me pride and pleasure. Here is a local institution making a major infrastructure investment to reduce the environmental impact of its physical plant. The noises made by opponents to this sensible, forward-thinking plan, however, sound like just so much hot air. The Seminary should be applauded—not held back by regressive litigation—for the effort it is making bring its historic property into the 21st century.
Joshua David
DOE report cards get an ‘F’
To The Editor:
I was horrified to read on DOE’s Website that my son’s school, Salk School of Science, received a C on its “Report Card.” The principal of this school, Rhonda Perry, is one of the most hard-working, gifted and visionary educators I have ever encountered or can imagine encountering—and that includes all the inspirational professors I was privileged to work with when studying for my M.Ed., and all the smart, committed educators I worked with and learned from when I myself worked as a teacher.
The teachers whom Ms. Perry has employed at Salk are also shining stars of the system. They work long days, long beyond what is called for contractually, personally shepherding the 36-plus students they have in their classes, meeting regularly to discuss and compare notes on kids who might be falling behind. Ms. Perry and the teachers at Salk bring a vibrancy and enthusiasm and creativity to a DOE curriculum that is increasingly hidebound and dominated by test prep You should be interested to know that in the time my son has been at Salk, I have been so impressed by the teachers and curriculum that I regularly have written educator friends of mine in other states to describe the exciting learning community we are privileged to be part of. But if my son is getting a great education—an education that engages and excites him at every turn—it is because of Ms. Perry and the teachers at Salk, and largely IN SPITE OF what the DOE is doing and the ill-advised, miserly, destabilizing changes it has initiated in the last few years.
It is outrageous to me that our schools are given a letter grade at all, and even more so that that grade is principally determined by a narrow assessment of test scores. According to DOE’s Website, Salk School of Science is now threatened with “consequences” if they get three C’s in a row. Wow.
How are our smart, hard-working educators supposed to feel in the face of a grade that might merit “consequences?” If they feel completely demoralized and are now considering throwing in the towel and leaving the castigating DOE behind them, I could not blame them one whit.
But me? I feel angry that DOE has reduced our educational system to this, angry that it shows such disrespect for the hard-working educators who are on the front lines, working with our children day in and day out. The way you treat our educators is part and parcel of the way you treat our students -- constantly barraging them with narrow, deadening tests and demoralizing them with meaningless scores.
My grade for the DOE? A resounding F. Unfortunately, I fear that DOE’s actions will now resound throughout the system. And it is our schools and students who will feel the “consequences” of its grade.
Jan Carr
School grades inappropriate
To The Editor:
The new school grading system is statistically indefensible, will yield inaccurate results, and will cause a further decline in morale and authentic learning in our schools.
In part, this is because 85 percent of each school’s grade will depend on one year’s test scores alone — which, as any psychometrician will tell you, is highly unreliable, statistically speaking. Researchers have found that 50 to 80 percent of the annual fluctuations in a typical school’s test scores are random and/or due to one-time factors alone — completely unrelated to a school’s actual learning conditions.
Moreover, the “peer schools” that each school is being compared to for the purposes of determining its grade often differ in significant ways. For example, I.S. 89 in District 2 apparently received a “D” despite being the only New York City middle school to be honored this fall by the U.S. Department of Education for high achievement, despite having more than 40 percent economically disadvantaged students. Now the school is being compared to Lab and East Side middle schools, two highly selective schools that base admission largely on test scores alone.
Another important set of conditions that are not taken into account anywhere in the grading system are class sizes and levels of overcrowding at schools, which, in turn, have substantial effects on student achievement. Thus, schools with class sizes of 30 or more can be compared to other schools with classes of 20 or less — as though students at these schools had an equal chance to succeed; and yet these conditions are largely outside the control of any individual principal.
Jim Liebman, head of the Department of Education’s Accountability Office, has said that parents are supposed to compare their schools’ grades to that of other schools nearby, and encourage their principals to go visit these schools to see why they may be doing better.
Unfortunately, Tweed has offloaded this critical accountability onto principals, teachers and parents — and no longer accepts any responsibility for the systemic inadequacies that go beyond individuals at the school level to address, such as excessive class sizes.
Leonie Haimson
Haimson is executive director, Class Size Matters
