(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) Students and teachers are fleeing New York City’s public school system, with more than 120,000 children leaving over the past five years and the number of teachers dropping by 2.5 percent since last year, the New York City Department of Education reported.
Chancellor of Schools David Banks said at the City Council’s Education Committee meeting on March 21 that the decline in enrollment will force the district to reconsider its budget.
“How many more will come back? We don’t know,” Banks said. “So we have to hope for the best but plan for the worst.”
Banks acknowledged that New York City public schools need to earn back the people’s trust.
“For our schools to deliver on their original promise of serving as the engine of the American dream, we will need to do things very differently in ways that build trust one big step at a time,” he said.
This may mean that schools let parents participate more in their children’s education and that education focuses more on the “real world” and each child’s interests.
“It is the biggest complaint that I’ve heard since I started as chancellor,” Banks said. “Parents have felt unheard and disrespected.”
Teachers’ support staff has left in greater numbers, with 15 percent of aides and assistants leaving in one year.
“Two years or so we have been through this thing where the mayor just said, ‘OK, go teach at home,'” ESL teacher Arthur Goldstein said. “And I had never used Zoom before, and I had never used Google Classroom.”
