Thread: Principal Tells Teachers To Dumb-Down Standards

Principal Tells Teachers To Dumb-Down Standards

City Hall Angered; Central Park East High Students Miffed


HARLEM (CBS) ― Have teachers at an East Harlem school been ordered to lower their standards because many students there are poor?

That's the impression some got from their principal's memo.

And now City Hall has stepped in.

The weather was gloomy Thursday outside Central Park East High School, but the talk was about a controversial memo from the school's principal.

"I don't think he thinks we're dumb," 12th grader Crystal Scarlett said. "He just thinks we can do much better than we're doing."

But not everyone agreed.

Last month, Principal Bennett Lieberman sent off a stern memo to 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."

Was he ordering teachers to dumb down their classes?

The memo continued:

"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."

Some students took offense.

"That's not the way to pass," 12th grader Richard Palacios said. "That's not the way to get your education, so you're basically cheating yourself."

CBS 2 HD made several requests to speak with the principal and he refused. But he is standing by his comments.

Lieberman told a newspaper Thursday he "confidently stands by" his words.

But late Thursday, the Department of Education weighed in. It sent him a letter demanding he clarify his views and state that he is not ordering his teachers to lower their standards.

No word back yet from the principal.

Teachers at the school stand to receive $3,000 bonuses if their school improves.

http://wcbstv.com/local/central.park.east.2.610529.html

Teachers at the school stand to receive $3,000 bonuses if their school improves.

Does that mean if the students actually learn or does it mean if they 'improve' on paper.

That sounds a little like the stories that came out of Houston when it was touted as a success - only, according to the media, to find they actually cooked the books.

"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."

Is he talking about illegal immigrant children and anchor babies?

"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

How many have heard some form of this crap all their lives from educators who choose not to teach?

Children like you don't know anything about the kind of life in this book, you won't pass the test. Here, read this story instead.
OR
With your family background, your never going to be able to understand the language of that book, choose a different one.
OR
You need to choose courses that will do you some good. Those are college prep. Choose from this list instead.
OR
With where you come from, don't you think you'd do better taking the secretarial classes?
OR
People like you don't go to college. How about a trade school?
OR
Your kind won't be able to make it in the business world. How about a trade school?

Children of the poor, children of the projects, children of parents incarcerated for whatever, are not any different from any other child when it comes to learning. There is only one exception to this rule. The exception, the child told from the first to the last day they are in school that they are less than the other children in class. People like this principal and his staff create the students they lament. At the least, they are guilty of child abuse for their relentless brainwashing. At the most, manslaughter. The life these kids start out with is destroyed and replaced with the hand to mouth existence they eventually accept as what they can achieve.