Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Gonzalez: Bill de Blasio's choosing Carmen Fariña as schools chancellor will revolutionize city's schools


This comes from The Daily News by way of a member of Mayor Bill de Blasio's Transition Team.


“Teachers and administrators have been maligned,” she said. She vowed to reinstitute professional development and training of teachers, but to do so from within the school system itself.

She repeatedly stressed the need to treat parents as partners.

“She actually sees parents as allies in making the schools better, not as a nuisance to be kept out,” said Javier Valdes, executive director of Make the Road New York, a Brooklyn community group that hailed her appointment.

But the emotional high point of Fariña’s remarks came when she talked of entering city public schools speaking only Spanish, and of facing discrimination from a teacher who refused to learn to pronounce her name.
With Latinos now making up more than 40% of our school population, thousands of pupils from Latin America and other parts of the world continue to face the same kind of problem today, Fariña said. Too often, teachers pressure those children to 

Anglicize their names.

“Your children will be spoken to by the name you gave them,” the new chancellor promised.
Only a lifetime educator could grasp the importance of properly pronouncing every child’s name in the classroom.


Editors Note 

As a member of the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council when Ms. Farina was promoted to Deputy Chancellor, I beg to differ with the above comments and article. Citywide parent leaders found Deputy Chancellor Farina to be just like Chancellor Joel Klein when it came to parent concerns. The only reason I can find for her appointment as chancellor is her history with Community School Board 15 member and now Mayor Bill de Blasio.


No comments:

Post a Comment