Queens has a superior track record with many of the finest educators in the city, but they are being pushed around in all sorts of ways for reasons that have nothing to do with quality of instruction or service to students.
One of these areas is the restrictions on a teacher’s freedom to decide criteria for judging student performance. Do not tread on teachers’ rights. All this fuss about how teachers grade their students is evidence of the needless meddling of outside influences, usually political, driven by non-educators — or those who got their credentials fast — who are up in arms about allowing professionals to have reasonable independence in their classrooms.
Teachers should be trained and trusted by supervisors, who should know at least as much as the teachers do, provided the supervisors rose up “the old-fashioned way.” Teachers should have restored to them reasonable power to decide their own grading policies based on their unique insights and knowledge of their students. Standards should be spelled out clearly to parents and students and they should be enforced fairly.
The avenue of appeal should be preserved, but basically it should be up to teachers to develop and justify their grading policies. That was how it worked in the glory days of public education.
Ron Isaac
Bayside
