“You were questioned on everything,” says Helen Kellert, an English teacher who took early retirement in 2009. But for Bronx Science? Teachers who don’t hew to Reidy’s methods, no matter how experienced or highly regarded, have come to be seen as a problem, the principal’s detractors say. They argue that her pedagogical approach-the sort of data-driven, systematized method the Bloomberg-era Department of Education has mandated elsewhere-might be appropriate for schools that are failing. In her ten years as principal, Reidy’s critics say, she has driven out precisely the kind of teachers who make Bronx Science special. The reason for the seismic upheaval, virtually everyone agrees, is Valerie Reidy. In 2010, nearly a quarter of the teachers at Bronx Science had less than three years of experience the corresponding numbers at Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech were 6 percent and 1 percent, respectively. In 2009, it was math before that, English. Their departure came after similar exoduses in other departments. This spring and summer, however, more than a third of the school’s social-studies department-eight of the twenty teachers-announced they wouldn’t be returning for the 2011 school year. Teachers have traditionally held on to their jobs for decades some have come to teach the children of their former students. The faculty has long been known as among the best, most beloved anywhere. Virtually every senior last year gained acceptance to one of the country’s top colleges. It has spawned 135 Intel science-competition finalists-more than any other high school in America. Doctorow and Stokely Carmichael among its alumni, as well as seven Nobel laureates and six Pulitzer Prize winners. Founded in 1938, Bronx Science counts E. L. Together, the three schools reflect some of the city’s most prized values: achievement, brains, democracy. Along with Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science is one of the city’s most storied high schools and among its most celebrated public institutions of any kind-part of a select fraternity that promises a free education of the highest quality to anyone with the intelligence to qualify. There was a time when working at the Bronx High School of Science seemed like the pinnacle of a teaching career in the New York public schools. Principal Valerie Reidy at Bronx Science last week.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |