Teachers say they’re pushed to pass students who skipped class all year

[The Bobster]

Teachers say they’re pushed to pass students who skipped class all year

Administrators at William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens are demanding that teachers pass undeserving students – including some they’ve never even seen.

nypost.com

Teachers say they’re pushed to pass students who skipped class all year​

By
Susan Edelman and

Melissa Klein


June 18, 2022 10:12am
Updated

Teachers at William Cullen Bryant High School in Long Island City claim school administrators are pressuring them to pass undeserving students. Matthew McDermott

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Administrators at a Queens high school are demanding that teachers pass undeserving students – including some they’ve never even seen, fed-up educators told The Post.
The teachers at William Cullen Bryant High School in Long Island City say the pressure comes as the school year is about to end and they are asked to promote students who have skipped classes and done little or no work.
One teacher said the 11th-hour requests started during his first semester at the school five years ago. “I was asked to provide passing grades for a marking period I had not taught, for many students who I had never even seen.”
“Last spring, I was reprimanded for not giving a passing grade to a student who had missed almost 100 days of class and had done no work,” the educator said.
The teacher also angered supervisors by refusing to pass students who turned in plagiarized work, he said.
The issue of AWOL students getting a pass is not unique to Bryant High School, which has 2,100 students and boasts legendary singer Ethel Merman and ex-schools chancellor Joel Klein among alumni.
Schools justify the laxity under a city Department of Education policy which says students can’t be denied credit based on a lack of “seat time.”
One teacher reports to have “never seen” students that administrators asked him to pass.Matthew McDermott
Students must meet “academic expectations,” but it’s loosely up to each school to decide what’s expected.
“Administrators use that policy to push teachers to promote students who have been absent from class for the whole year,” another Bryant teacher said. “Failure is not an option.”

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Among recent grade-fixing scandals, the Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools last year blasted Maspeth High School in Queens for creating fake classes, awarding bogus credits, and promoting truant or chronically absent students.
“I don’t care if a kid shows up at 7:44 and you dismiss at 7:45 — it’s your job to give that kid credit,” Maspeth principal Khurshid Abdul-Mutakabbir was quoted as telling a teacher. The DOE removed him as a principal, but will let him stay on the city payroll for seven years until he retires.
In a massive scheme at Dewey HS in Brooklyn, a 2015 probe confirmed complaints by teacher whistleblowers that hundreds of students who were given work “packets” or put in bogus classes without instruction by certified teachers received credits toward graduation. Kids called it “Easy Pass.”
The abuses at Maspeth and Dewey, while extreme, are mirrored throughout the city, with principals under pressure from DOE higher-ups to beef up graduation rates. Many high schools give minimal tasks for failing students in the final weeks to make-up for missing most of the class, The Post has reported.
Georgia Lignou, Bryant’s UFT Chapter Leader, wrote an open letter to principal Namita Dwarka last week, saying she had fielded “numerous” complaints from teachers about the pressure to pass lagging students.
“Teachers are asked to ‘provide support,'” she said in the letter, obtained by The Post. That means that the students can get a few last-ditch assignments and pass “with much less work than what the teacher required in class.”
Bryant’s UFT Chapter Leader Georgia Lignou reported to principal Namita Dwarka, pictured, that teachers have complained about being pressured to pass students.Twitter
“We do not feel that a student who was absent for most of the year and has failed previous marking periods can possibly achieve mastery at this time of the year,” Lignou wrote.
Teachers are “intimidated by the tone” of emails they receive from higher-ups, she added.
“What they hear is ‘We want you to pass this student,’ and they do” to avoid run-ins with the assistant principals who supervise them. “They do promote students who should not have been promoted,” Lignou wrote.
“Grade fraud is systemic,” said City Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens), who sparked investigations of Maspeth HS after hearing from whistleblower teachers. “It’s inherent in many schools, and everybody in the DOE administration looks the other way because it’s in their best interest.
“But they’re cheating our children out of a good education. Don’t show up in class? You pass. Everybody passes, and grades are meaningless. I think we need a federal monitor to come in and take over because nobody’s overseeing anything.”

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The DOE confirmed students cannot be failed or prevented from promotion based on attendance.
“Grading and promotion decisions are based on whether or not the student completes their work and demonstrates mastery,” said spokeswoman Nicole Brownstein. “Our educators and school leaders know their students best and are equipped to ensure students receive the grades they worked hard to earn.”
In the open letter to Bryant principal Dwarka, a spokesman added, “We take any allegation of misconduct seriously and we will look into this.”

 

[The Bobster]

Controversial NYC principal Namita Dwarka, who is accused of grade-fraud, gets promoted

Namita Dwarka was the controversial principal of William Cullen Bryant HS.

nypost.com

Controversial NYC principal Namita Dwarka, who is accused of grade-fraud, gets promoted​

By
Susan Edelman


August 27, 2022 8:54am
Updated

Namita Dwarka was the controversial principal of William Cullen Bryant HS. Matthew McDermott


The city Department of Education has promoted a Queens high school principal whose reign was marred by alleged grade-fixing and intimidation, The Post has learned.
Namita Dwarka, the controversial – and often reviled – principal of William Cullen Bryant HS, told staff in a farewell note, “As of Monday, August 29th, I will be assuming the position of Deputy Superintendent.”
Dwarka’s tenure has been marred by accusations of grade-fixing and intimidation.
“It’s a new low for the DOE,” said City Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens), who has urged Chancellor David Banks to crack down on school culture that turns a blind eye to academic fraud in schemes to boost graduation rates. “She shouldn’t be working in the DOE, much less in a leadership role.”
Dwarka, with a $198,000 salary, will serve as deputy to Josephine Van-Ess, superintendent of the Queens South HS district, overseeing 29 schools. Bryant HS is in the Queens North district. Banks has given more power to superintendents in his DOE reorganization.
The appointment sent shockwaves through Queens education circles:
“She’s got a terrible reputation among teachers. I’ve been hearing horror stories about her for years,” said Arthur Goldstein, a teacher at Francis Lewis HS in Queens. “She inspires good people to leave the system at a time that we sorely need them.”
Dwarka’s 11-year tenure at the Astoria school, which was threatened with closure for poor results when she arrived, was rife with turmoil and tensions. Dozens of staffers, including assistant principals, quit under her “dictatorship” or were forced out, insiders say. Morale was low.

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“She was the one willing to do the dirty work,” said Sam Lazarus, a former teacher and UFT chapter leader. “It was not a happy place.”
But Dwarka demanded more than hard work and good teaching to boost the school’s performance statistics, whistleblowers say.
Just two months ago, Georgia Lignou, a Bryant teacher and current UFT chapter leader, wrote a letter to Dwarka decrying pressure from administrators to promote students who skipped classes or did little or no work – and even some kids teachers had never even seen.
Teachers were “intimidated by the tone” of emails they received from supervisors. When asked to “provide support,” Lignou wrote, “what they hear is ‘We want you to pass this student.'” In a common practice citywide, teachers would give failing students a few last-ditch assignments to pass them “with much less work than what they required in class.”
Current Bryant teachers are decrying Dwarka’s treatment of faculty and students.Matthew McDermott
“They do promote students who should not have been promoted,” Lignou added.
The DOE gave no comment on the complaints or on Dwarka’s announcement. “Ms. Dwarka passed an internal background check and will be considered for a position as Deputy Superintendent,” said spokeswoman Chyann Tull.
The DOE’s Office of Special Investigations has an open case at Bryant HS, but “it doesn’t name Dwarka,” officials said.
Dwarka could not be reached for comment. The Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, the principals’ union, did not respond to a request for comment.
Dwarka’s scandals go back years. In 2013, she confined more than 20 students with behavior problems in a moldy outdoor trailer that looked like a shipping container, where they stayed the whole day while teachers took turns going in.
The DOE offered no comment on Dwarka’s promotion.
Dwarka called it “the Scholars Academy.” One mom said, “You might as well send them to Rikers Island.”
In 2014, dozens of students were falsely labeled “former English language learners” to grant them an extra hour to finish the Regents exams, teachers alleged. Many such students were native English speakers or otherwise proficient.
In 2015, then-Chancellor Carmen Fariña appointed a task force on academic policy after a series of reports in The Post. In one, an 18-year-old Bryant student admitted she regularly skipped a government class, had failing grades, and even missed the final exam — yet received a passing score of 65 to graduate.
“New York City gave me a diploma I didn’t deserve,” she said. Her teacher blamed “a tremendous amount of pressure” to pass kids.

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Another report detailed Bryant’s online summer-school classes that let kids surf the Internet to plug in answers.
“They’re not learning. They’re not becoming college- or career-ready. They’re just getting out of high school,” veteran math teacher Mary Bozoyan complained at the time.
After her comments, Bozoyan, who suffers physical disabilities and difficulty walking, was locked out of a restroom next to her classroom, and forced to use one down the hall. The teacher said Dwarka also refused her plea to use a side entrance with fewer steps, calling it “retaliation – and heartlessness.”
“I felt a mix of anger and sadness,” the since-retired Bozoyan said last week of Dwarka’s promotion. “I have just one question: Why Chancellor Banks, why?”
Dwarka has curried favor with DOE brass as Bryant’s lagging graduation rate, which was 56.5 percent when she started in 2011, slightly below the citywide average.
Last year, Bryant’s graduation rate was 87 percent — about the same as citywide — with 61 percent deemed able to enroll in CUNY without remedial help.
Dwarka’s farewell note to the faculty and staff said, “I encourage all of you to continue on the relentless quest for excellence and provide our students with the highest quality instruction and support.”