http://nypost.com/2019/09/14/maspeth-high-schools-secret-to-high-pass-rates-is-cheating-teachers/

Good Lord. Every time I read one of these articles I have to clench my asshole. It’s as if the Post has a hard-on for all news DOE related. I mean I can get behind the articles about the Chancellor because I really don’t care for the guy. But teachers don’t need more bad press, people are mad we make a living in general.

But this article really set my sphincter on fire. Is it wrong that teachers are basically helping/forcing their students to cheat to make the school better a bad idea? No shit. Do I support this? No fuckin’ way. Am I absolutely surprised? Not in the slightest. It’s the NYC DOE for shit’s sake.

If I had a nickel for every time it was stressed by administration that I had to be mindful of my scholarship numbers, I wouldn’t be on the train to work right now. Hell, if I had a nickel for every time someone that thinks that they’re part of the administration but really isn’t (you know who you are), told me that my scholarship report numbers needed to be at a certain part, I wouldn’t have to calculate how much from my last sentence.

Point is, this isn’t anything new. Every teacher has been told that their pass rates have to be at a certain point. We’ve all been asked to take work WAYYYY after we should have. We’ve all had to send kids to “boot camp” where students are allowed to make up an entire semester worth of work in a week. Administration has that ability to strong-arm teachers because they are able to hold our ratings hostage. In my relatively short time in the DOE, I don’t think I’ve had a year where admin DIDN’T use that leverage on teachers.

What makes everything so much worse is that teachers are the ones coming out saying that the fake classes are being made. There are students saying that teachers would only read out the right answers when going through the directions of a test. Could this fly years ago? Of course. But what teachers don’t realize is that they have to act like they’re constantly being recorded. I’ll never understand why, but people love to get teachers in trouble or fired. These teachers definitely need to get fired though. What they did is just academically dishonest and just all levels of fucked up. But you know who needs to get canned also? The fuckin’ administrators. Those people should lose their job 100%.

The more I stay around here, the more I realize how toxic this place is. It’s apparently like vaping. Not too bad in the beginning, but then you wind up with some wonky disease that leaves you with more damage than you originally realized.