You’ve got a new chancellor and a new home for the latest news about New York City’s schools. Now we’re offering a new way (that’s similar to an old way) to see interesting insights from Chalkbeat readers, pulled from our comments section, Facebook, and Twitter.
This week, our readers responded to Chancellor Carmen Fariña’s vision, as expressed in her first message to principals and in her 2008 book for school leaders, which she appears to be using as a playbook for her own leadership. Here’s what a few of them had to say. (And here’s our comments philosophy, so you can be prepared to join the conversation.)
Ms. V parsed Fariña’s letter to principals:
What does this mean? “aligning technology to the Common Core” How can you align a tool to a set of standards?
I share your concern, this quote does not make sense. While I am welcome the change in administration and am relieved to finally have an educator at the helm, my hope is that the new administration does not throw out the baby with the bathwater. We must retain seasoned tech-savvy educators as part of her high level team. I am in my late 40s and work hard to keep up with technology in my school and how to use it to support our kids achievement. I have seen firsthand the impact it has, especially on our ELLs and SWDs. I hope Ms. Farina has the foresight to seek out expertise to incorporate technology into her vision of teaching and learning.
Ira shared a different concern:
Not one word about special ed? Has she seen the graduation rate?
And Larry Littlefield sounded a different alarm about Fariña’s vision in a comment on our story about her book. He wrote:
“Graduating students who are inventive, analytical, literate, compassionate, artistic, and creative human beings.” If their parents want them to be able to spell, write grammatically correct sentences, and do arithmetic, they can do these boring tasks at home leaving the fun ones for the schools. And for the kids who don’t have parents that can do so? This is what I’m afraid of. Great for the yuppies. Not for the rest.
What are you thinking about Fariña’s vision for the city’s schools, three weeks after she became chancellor? Leave a comment to let us know.