All high school seniors should graduate, all middle school students should receive full credit, elementary schoolers sho𒁏uld get no grades and everyone should be promoted, dem𒁃and 37 education advocates led by City Councilman Mark Treyger.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the ugliest inequities in our society into the glaring light for all to see. We must not continue the same system that resulted in these inequities, but must instead fundamentally change the way we think about our education, our society, and the world,” reads a letter sent Friday to Mayor Bill de Blas🍨io and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza.
“In addition to the enormous number of lives lost and many more having fallen ill, New York City’s most vulnerable families and communities are suffering the ripple effect of harm caused by decades of segregation and systemic disinvestment in historically marginalized communities,” it continues.
Treyger, c꧅hairman of the City Council’s education committee, is the letter’s lead signer, followed by nonprofit groups including Advocates for Children, Class Size Matters, NYC Coalition for Educationa🌜l Justice, along with several Community Education Council members.
While the nation’s largest school system, with 1.1 million students, has launched an at-home instruction program, it has gotten off to a rocky start, with thousands o🌊f kids still without laptops or iPads, or Internet service.
The letter says “remaining technical disparities alone warr💎ant c༒omplete restructuring of the way students are evaluated towards a more humane grading system.”
The city Department of Education should ease the emphasis on academics, it says, recommending that all elementary school students rece𒆙ive only “narrative reports” for the curren🐻t marking period — no grades.
“Instruction during the school shutdown should be built around social cohesion, critical consciousness, social-emotionalꦗ support, belonging, inclusion and wellness.”
Under the proposal for high schoo𒉰l seniors, schools would provide “post-graduati🥃on and college transition support and planning,” the letter urges.
Students who need to complete work from prior terms would get ꦜsummer instruction so they can graඣduate in August.
And 21 year-olds — normally the age when students must leave the public-school system — could return to high sc🎀hool for the 2020-21 academic year.
For lower grades༺, the curriculum should provide “space for students to reflect on their current reality,” the letter says.
Teachers should worꦺk with families to develop “i🌸ndividualized learning plans.”
Middle and high school students could get “intensive s🅘upport ov🌃er the summer and next school year to progress academically.”
The letter concludes: “This pandemic is an opportunity to dismantle systems of oppression and build a society that honors our collective hum𝓀anity.”
The letter w🀅as also sent to Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams♔ and DOE Chief Academic Officer Linda Chen.