I was wondering what NYC schools have great teachers. Not great students, or facilities, or college matriculations. Just great teachers -- not just a few, but almost uniformly.
As I mentioned in https://www.nycitymoms.com/nycmoms/main/comment/5f919be73a626d002d7384ed , of all the schools I've visited in recent years the only one that struck me as placing extraordinary emphasis on hiring great teachers is Rudolph Steiner. (Success Academy is its own beast. While they may not hire great teachers, they train their teachers and set them up to be amazingly effective. And I'm not just talking about test scores. So far as I'm concerned any mayor that doesn't hire Eva as chancellor is grossly incompetent. But I'm getting distracted.)
At all other schools we've visited, including the one my DCs attend, the teachers as a whole are not obviously impressive.
So I'm curious to hear what schools you think have uniformly great teachers, and why.
I've had kids in 2 different private schools and have been super happy with all our teachers.
Do you mind saying which?
@Anonymous A hill school and a 3T in manhattan.
I love the teachers at Speyer -- interesting, engaged, enthusiastic, smart, fun individuals who really seem excited about their jobs and the children.
lol, this reminds me of the "Speyer spammer" from UB days.
@anonymous was there one? I don't remember that! What did they say? It's really a great school -- the first time I was there, I thought, *I* want to go to this school!
Considering the fact that you cite SA as an example of great teachers--when what they do is give their teachers a script to read from--I feel like your definition of "great teachers" might be different from mine.
But I've been thrilled with all my DCs teachers at our Brooklyn gen ed. (D15).
OP here. I said SA teachers are well-trained and effective, not that they were great. I'm not saying they're not great; it's just hard to disentangle the system.
@Anonymous I would say they are consistently trained, which isn't necessarily the same thing as well. And the system is effective for the kids who aren't encouraged to leave because the system wasn't effective for them, which is a bit of a confounding factor.
I don't have kids in SA (do you?) but I can see how their very standardized system would mean fewer/no super ineffective teachers--at least they're following a method, which is better than nothing for some dud teachers--but similarly, the other end of the bell curve would also be curtailed. The best teachers I or my DC have had are the ones who are creative and think outside the box, and also have genuine rapport with the students. SA is like McDonalds: you know exactly what you're going to get and it won't be terrible but it also won't be amazing. But McDonalds is an extremely profitable business, so you can see why SA adopted the approach.
As a thought experiment, Eva as Chancellor would be interesting because I would love to see her have to explain why her methods aren't as effective in public schools which have to educate all comers. But since actual children and their actual education is at stake, I never want to see her in that position IRL.
@a nonymous , I don't have kids in SA, but I have had a fair amount of visibility into their teaching (sorry, don't want to go into details). Your McDonald's analogy isn't bad, but I think the quality of SA instruction is higher than most people think. I agree that they don't really address both ends of the bell curve.
As for SA methods not being able to educate "all comers", I guess the question is whether those kids for whom SA's methods don't work are better served by the current DoE. I'm not so sure. Also, you seem to conflate Eva with SA. She devised SA to address a particular need. I would guess that she could successfully run schools addressing other needs.
My child just finished Wagner Middle School this summer and it was 3 years of quality instruction, amazing sports and music, and dedicated, inspiring teachers.
It’s a mixed bag by grade
ps 11 in Chelsea has an amazing staff. The principal is phenomenal and he hires extremely well and runs a tight ship. The G&Tprogram there is a feeder to the top D2 middle schools but all the teachers (not just g&t) are incredible.
I have to agree. My kids went there. LOVED that school. That was a simpler time. Sigh.
I thought the PS11 principal didn't care much for the G&T, and didn't want them doing anything the GenEd wasn't doing. Maybe that doesn't matter.
@Anonymous I don’t think your kids went to the school? The kids all follow the state curriculum but the g&t classes are able to go deeper given the peer group. More writing, deeper math etc. The prinipal does go to pains to ensure that all students are treated equally and set up for success. Which is what makes the school fantastic,
You lost me at "Eva as chancellor."
THIS.
My older one just finished MS 54 - I have to say that the 8th grade teachers were phenomenal - not only did they push my child to work well above his capacity, they would email us interesting fun facts about their subject because they were so passionate about it - all of this during a new transition to remote learning. Special mention to the fact that all of my son's sections had like 30 students in them. That is really saying something. It may explain why 50% of their 300 school class gets a seat at a SHS while the rest get into solid screened public HSs.
@dyedinthewoolNYr I love MS 54. Older kid was there for 6th. Really want my younger one to go there next year, but will probably get screwed in some kind of middle school lottery. UGH.