The Aftermath

So the DOE school reports have been out for a while. A lot of discussions have formulated from them. But now what? Of course, every school wants an A for their school grade. But how do we do that? How can the survey conducted by the DOE about the students feelings towards their won college be used for any good? The answer is very little of the survey can be used, if any.

One thing the survey makes very clear is the attidude of students towards their school. Questions like, do you like your teacher?, do you have a role model at school?, and are you happy here?, are more geared towards how the student feels about the school than the eduaction level at the school. At a school like, for example, Brooklyn Tech, it is very hard at a large school to find a mentor or feel like you know everyone. The survey should be tailored towards the school and different ones should be made for different types of school. Also, students should be encouraged to take the survey with an unbiased mind, and consider their whole experience at the school, not just the fact that they failed a hard math test that week.

The DOE student and parent survey used to help rank schools is a great start at improving schools, but the survey has to be more reliable and different surveys should be made geared towards a schools circumstances. Only then can we have a good base to work from.