Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña has exceedingly high expectations for New York City’s schools — so high, meeting them would make her the most successful leader ever of the nation’s largest public education system.
In a meeting with the Daily News Editorial Board on Thursday, Mayor de Blasio’s education policy alter ego spoke of lifting children to historic heights and elevating the quality of instruction by weeding out incompetent teachers and spreading best practices among the rest.
All the more power to Fariña, even accepting that her methods for getting from here to there will require an investment of faith. One thing for sure: She is jazzed for this week’s opening day, her first as chancellor.
Commitment: De Blasio’s universal full-day pre-kindergarten program will provide kids a foundation for literacy by adding 1,000 words to their vocabularies before they enter kindergarten.
“This will work,” she declared.
Commitment: The overwhelming majority of children will hit tough new Common Core reading proficiency targets by second grade.
Asked whether her strategies would have all third graders reading on grade level — a de Blasio campaign pledge — Fariña upped the ante in a city where two-thirds now fall below the bar:
“I have a higher goal than that. I want to see every second grader on grade level. . . . It’s not going to happen overnight, but I would say over the next few years.”
Commitment: The size of the so-called Absent Teacher Reserve — where unwanted teachers can idle for years after losing jobs, whether from layoffs or school closures — will shrink significantly from its level of about 1,200 last year.
“We anticipate that the ATR pool, certainly by the end of September, the beginning of October, will, thanks to a new contract — be dramatically smaller than it was at this time [last year].”
Commitment: The department will not force any principal to take a teacher out of the pool.
“I don’t know how many ways to say this: There is no forced placement. None whatsoever.”
Commitment: Elementary school students will get richer, content-based instruction.
“When I visit schools, I expect to see the teaching of history. I expect to see the teaching of geography,” she said. “I do believe that every child should be leaving fourth grade knowing (U.S.) history. You should leave third grade knowing what the continents are and where they are and the names of the countries in those continents.”
Commitment: More teachers will stay on the job, thanks to better training and higher morale.
“I think the retention rate is going to be much better,” she said.
Commitment: To improve parental engagement, if more than 20 moms or dads want ESL or GED instruction for themselves, she will provide it at a principal’s request.
Commitment: Many more principals will use the power she insists they have, notwithstanding state tenure law, to remove bad teachers.
“I’m encouraging principals also to look at staff they don’t want going forward. . . . I think principals need to be a lot more forceful about writing up people that don’t belong in their buildings. . . . I don’t want to walk a building when I observe a school and see someone who I think is really, really ineffective — and come back the next year . . . and see the same person in the building.
“I will hold people accountable for that.”
Commitment: So will we.