RACIAL

DISCRIMINATION

Is it preventing your child from getting the best possible education?

PARENTS' COALITION OF THE NYACKS & NYACK BRANCH NAACP

It was a beautiful, cool summer evening. While the kids ran shouting through the playground, their parents sat under the big silver beech tree and talked about education.

"Mine's not learning how to read. That's why I'm here."

"Mine's not learning how to think. He reads okay, but he's bored."

"One first-grade teacher told me 40% of her class didn't pass the end of the year reading test."

"40%!? That's crazy."

"If you don't pass, they give you the old standardized CAT test -"

"Which the school has said it doesn't believe in -"

"And if you don't pass that -"

"You feel stupid. My kid feels stupid. Seems to me we're right back where we started: labeling kids fast or slow."

"I think it's because there's no vision. No idea of how the whole school works."

One of the children came up, and the parents quieted. He asked for a slice of watermelon. It wasn't quite ripe, about the pink of the sky where the sunset was. But it tasted fine.

"Not all kids are ready to read at the same time."

"They say they don't have a schedule for learning, then they test you at the end of the year!"

"I know lots of parents - lots - who've hired private reading tutors. They don't think this whole language way of teaching works."

"Wait a second! I've used whole language in my teaching; it's great!"

"Maybe, but I'm a pretty smart guy, and I don't get what it is."

"I think some of the teachers don't either."

"That's the kind of thing we're not allowed to talk about. If you just go in a classroom to see how things are, you make everyone nervous."

"I'm scared to death that next year mine's going to get Mrs________."

"My oldest had her; learned absolutely nothing. But I know a girl in the same class who had a great year. Go figure."

Out in the dusk, some little body fell and started to cry. A parent got up to cope.

"Shouldn't the school have some overall program or curriculum so the kids keep learning even if they get a bad teacher?"

"What about master teachers? What about recognizing the good ones and getting them time to teach other teachers?"

"First people have to want to change the school. They have to come forward and say what a lot of us think: that Upper Nyack isn't a great school. And our kids deserve the best."

Up the hill, a ballgame broke up. The parking lot lit up with car headlights.

"I think the school's fine. I don't have complaints."

"I think the rote learning, the work sheets, disciplining kids by missing recess.... People go along with those 'cause they don't know what else is out there."

"We need models."

"I visited this school where kindergarten through second grade were combined. There wasn't this push to read by a certain age; they had team-teaching; and different aged kids got to work together."

"I saw this TV show about a school that was like a mini-city. The kids played banker and lawyer and cop, and all the learning followed from that: the math, reading, everything."

"What about getting our kids out into the community more?"

"Or setting up classrooms in circles or something. I think a lot of what my son learned in first grade was how to sit in a row and stand in line."

"Can anybody tell me why Upper Nyack isn't trying this stuff? Instead of being on the cutting edge, we get 'happy face.'"

"Happy face? I don't think that's fair."

Now it was getting darker. The first fireflies were threading their way across the lawn, down by the basketball court, up by the picnic tables.

"How do we begin talking about this? You saw the letter the principal sent out: clearly just us getting together worries people."

"Maybe we should meet with the principal."

Now the children were shadows, chasing the fireflies across the dark field. There were more cries and more skinned knees. It was getting to be time to go.

"I'm optimistic. I think when people get together and talk about this kind of thing, it starts to change."