Trust in Schools

For John, BLUF:  He isn't out right lying to us, but neither is he giving us the truth.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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His team’s trying to hide it, but de Blasio’s bungling has parents fleeing NYC schools

From The New York Post, by Mr Ray Domanico (Director of Education Policy at the Manhattan Institute), 10 November 2021, 7:47 pm.

Here is the lede plus three:

Mayor-elect Eric Adams won on a common-sense platform of making critical city services more efficient.  Nowhere is the need clearer than in Gotham’s school system, which under outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio has drifted aimlessly, sowing parental discontent.

Last week, the system released its annual student headcount, much anticipated after last year’s huge drop, particularly in the early grades, due to COVID-related school closures and the city’s uneven remote-learning performance.  Did some students who left return this year or has the Department of Education irrevocably lost them to public charter and private schools?

We have no way of knowing: In an incredibly cynical act, the DOE released a single number, total students enrolled in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.  With that restricted accounting, the news didn’t seem so awful:  Enrollment was down 17,000, a much smaller drop than last year’s 43,000.  But that comparison says little because year-to-year changes often look very different at different grade levels.

What is the city hiding?  A close look at State Education Department numbers shows parental confidence in de Blasio’s stewardship was already dwindling pre-pandemic, before the disastrous 18-month shutdown of most DOE schools.

The COVID-19 Pandemic has been a disaster for Public Schools and for the leadership of such schools, be it Administration or Labor Union.  Suddenly, parents were seeing, live, what was going on in the classrooms.  Parents got to see what was going on in the classroom and some of them, many of them, were unimpressed.

I think that Mayor Bill de Blasio only added to the distrust and distaste.  Then along came Virginia Gubinatorial Candidate Terry McAuliffe, with his assertion:  “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” I hope that as we go forward together, schools will be receptive to the desires of the parents, working with all parents.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff