Too much test prep (but not at every school)
In the latest weekly poll, we asked whether you thought there was too much focus on test preparation at your school. The majority of you said yes, with 33 percent reporting “way too much” test prep and 20 percent responding that while there may be too much test preparation, the system, not the school, is to blame. Another 20 percent of respondents wished their school provided more coaching and feel the students were unprepared for the high stakes exams.
Just 26 percent of the respondents felt that their school hit the right balance, with strong enough academics to negate the need for much test prep.
This week, we wonder whether immigrant parents who don’t speak English are included in your school community. A report just released by Advocates for Children, our parent organization, suggests that many non-English speaking parents don’t feel welcome in the city’s public schools. What have you observed in your school community?
Subscribe to 
Toolbar icons by 
May I be completely honest? I may come off sounding like a racist or like I’m ethnocentric, but neither are true.
Try being a working class, white, English-speaking parent in this city. You want to feel like a minority? Try supporting a whole family on 58K per year and see what apartments and houses are available to you given what you can afford. Try seeing how rare it is in this city to be a white, English-speaking family in these neighborhoods. Try not being able to get a car service driver who speaks English AND knows how to find the emergency rooms when you need to get to a hospital because you can just barely breathe…and you speak English, and he speaks Spanish…and he wasn’t you TO GIVE HIM DIRECTIONS. Try having your child be the only white child in a school with hundreds of children in it, and then we can have a conversation about being excluded or not really belonging. Try having your husband held up at gunpoint because some guy saw the white guy in the Chinese restaurant able to pay to buy food for his family, and assumed the white guy had money (the guy got $20 and we got lucky that he didn’t kill my husband). Immigrants are coming to this country that my ancestors founded and built and complain that they don’t feel included? Try learning to speak English. I would certainly never think of moving the Dominican Republic and not learning first to speak functional Spanish. I’m sorry, but from my perspective, not only are they included, they run the show and own the neighborhood.
NE
Comment by Nikki E. — March 21, 2009 @ 3:17 pm
I’m sorry that Nikki E. is feeling so excluded as a white English-speaking parent in NYC, but it is possible for more than one group to feel excluded. Since the discussion proposed by InsideSchools is one about the hardships of immigrants and non-English speaking parents, I think that’s where the focus of our comments should be. While it may be necessary to also discuss the difficulties of being a member of the growing white minority class in this city, this is a separate discussion that cannot be properly covered in conjunction with the hardships affecting immigrants. Perhaps InsideSchools or another medium will provide a separate forum that is appropriate for discussing Nikki’s concerns.
Comment by Tracy — March 23, 2009 @ 9:26 am
At my son’s school, spanish is the first language. Just because his last name is spanish, it doesn’t mean he/or I speak it. I feel like a minority today, it’s sad. All these families should be required to learn some English to be able to attend the school. My Grandmother came from Europe @ 16 years of age and HAD to learn English so she would not be ripped off by merchants, or her employers. It is sad that this country has alot of immigrants of all different nationalities and we give them too much info in their native tongue, not English. I feel that if you want to live here, you MUST learn English. If I moved to Germany, I would have to learn German!!! It upsets me when I am the only non-spanish speaking person in the group.
Comment by edie bellocchio — March 24, 2009 @ 11:39 am
This communication chain demonstrates that the report has not only unveiled immigrant parents experiences in the school system, but has also touched upon some hard questions about race, ethnicity, culture, identity, class, etc., in this country. In the communities I work with, predominantly Asian Pacific Americans, we do work with parents that want to learn English but struggle to find classes that fit with their work schedules. We work with parents that want to get involved but are often unsure of how start. The report shows us that the misconception that immigrant parents don’t care about their child’s education is actually untrue. They do care but they face barriers. What is shocking really is that the United States has been a country that people have always pointed to as welcoming to people of all backgrounds, and we proudly have a Statue of Liberty that symbolizes that, yet our policies and daily activities often fall short of being open to everyone. We should encourage and respect the diversity and richness of different cultures and languages. The United States is not a country owned by any particular race or ethnicity, but a country that has a long history of migration, slavery, and colonization. The people currently in this country and those that will continue to come reflect this history and our future actions in this world. We need to recognize that anyone who moves here, either by choice or by war, will struggle to build a home in this new place, and we should find ways to welcome their adjustment instead of shun them from being a part of our society. If that means offering language services, providing fact sheets on the school system, we should do so to allow all people to succeed because when everyone succeeds, we will all succeed as well.
Comment by Choua — March 25, 2009 @ 10:16 am
Well, I’m immigrant parent who’ve been living in US for almost 7 years. When we first came here I was not involved in my child’s school life/community/whatever and neither now, despite I can already understand and speak some English which is far from fluent but I realize it’s my problem not anyone else’s. At the beginning I was not even allowed to enter my son’s first (elementary) school which security treated me like garbage yelling like a horn “Da uuuu hav anapoooointment”!!!! Things got better when my son attended middle school where I was always welcomed, their officials were very nice, everybody was smiling and ready to assist. However, when I actually asked for help or brought up issues they promised to fix it and then did absolutely nothing. Currently, my boy goes to another middle school where parent’s (other parents, not me again) activity level is so high that son of PTA president wins school’s science fair three years in a row and he also happens to be class president. I am wondering how this people from PTA so powerful and what else they actually do useful except for promoting their children and holding all this stupid family nights. Btw even if I come there they won’t speak with me, because I don’t belong, you know, or they might say “Hi”, yes, they definitely will. Should I say they keep their positions for years, no strangers allowed. Somehow, my son who probably will be so called self made man has no problem at this school and highly motivated to learn, so I don’t care much of been involved.
That’s all. I forgot to mention I’m white if it matter and I don’t own the neighborhood, I swear. But my child will own the city. Just kidding (or may be not).
Sorry for grammar mistakes.
Comment by somemom — March 25, 2009 @ 11:54 am
While I sympathize with many immigrants navigating the public school system (my parents were immigrants, so is my husband) many of the non-English speakers come here with a sense of entitlement. As a student in District 6, Washington Heights (Manhattan) I remember seeing Dominican parents protest that it was “racist” to force their kids to learn English. The Board of Ed, being politically correct, gave them special teachers and books so they could learn math, reading and science en espanol. As, expected, these kids still failed miserably, but, of course, they were still promoted to the next grade, perhaps to prove that no “racism” was going on. Further, I was constantly bullied for being white, blonde and having a long, European last name. I was pushed down stairs, kicked, beaten, cursed at in Spanish and had my belongings stolen because I was not Hispanic. By 6th grade my parents pulled me out and sent me to a private school for Grades 7-12 so I could learn in a safe, non-violent and non-racist environment. To say that this board should belong only to current immigrants who “feel they don’t belong” is absurd.
Now we live in Brooklyn in District 21 where nowadays if you have the nerve not to speak Arabic or Spanish you are an outsider and a target for bullying. My husband and I have put two kids through the public school system from Pre-K through their senior year in High School, and it was successful not only because of the outstanding staff of administrators and teachers in their schools, but because their was real diversity in their classes, and everyone spoke English, no matter which corner of the world they came from. Our three-year-old son, however, will be attending private school when he starts Pre-K next fall. The attitudes of the parents, especially those who speak Arabic and Spanish, is deplorable. I was a PTA President of my girls’ middle school a few years back, and these parents DEMANDED that I translate every letter the PTA sent out to parents in their language. If I went to Yemen or Saudi Arabia or Mexico and DEMANDED that they translate everything into English, I would either be laughed at or stoned to death. While many, many immigrant parents work hard and do their best to learn English, we have to stop being so politically correct – it’s not helping parents, and it’s certainly not helping the kids we’re supposed to serve.
Furthur, I would change the law so that only children of adults who are here LEGALLY can enroll their kids in school. We are undergoing financial difficulties and severe overcrowding in many schools, and we really have no room for illegal kids. Our tax dollars should support only American citizens and LEGAL immigrants.
Comment by Val — March 25, 2009 @ 4:36 pm
they run the school system and only care about they owe people
Comment by delores — March 26, 2009 @ 8:30 am
Why is this question???? Parent involvement is not due to language. Is due to poor encouragement from the school level to leave out all parents no matter what language they speak. So I will suggest you to change the question to Parent period. Thanks
Comment by Carmen Aquino — March 26, 2009 @ 11:01 pm
as a parent coordinator in the bronx i do my level best to make all of our parents feel welcomed in the school. our parents speak: spanish, albanian, urdu, arabic, vietnamese, cambodian, french, russian, serbo-croatian. i am an avid user of the nycdoe translation and interpretation unit services, as well as lis translation services for the languages that the translation unit does not include on the major language listing. i want to encourage all parent coordinator, who don’t already, to begin using the translation unit’s services. the staff is wonderful and the parents really appreciate the effort made to communicate with them.
Comment by bronx parent coordinator — March 27, 2009 @ 9:49 am
The US is going to have to wake up to the problem that the British have finally realize, multiculturalism is inimical to national cohesion. Immigrants must become Americans and not hyphenated Americans. Absolutely, legal migration should continue. However, the requirements should include some level of proficiency in the English language. Immigration should mean that incomers adapted to the culture of the whole, not the other way around. The millions that are spent on translating and interpreting should actually be spent on education, health care etc. Multiculturalism is for the private milieu and not a condition to be reinforced by government.
Comment by lindyroi — March 27, 2009 @ 9:50 am
I’m upset to see the pain and deprivation some are experiencing.
I came to comment because I felt the questions didn’t fit my new middle/elementary school, where there is a Chinese/English language barrier. My school / P.A. is trying pretty hard but does not get a response. I see translators at events, and translations of every flier going out and events oriented around attracting these Chinese families who live closest to the school to get more involved, but I don’t see them coming. I’m saddened when there are not more parents at parent-teacher conferences & well-publicized / translated events at the school.
Comment by mid&elem mom — March 27, 2009 @ 1:19 pm
As an immigrant parent, I do feel welcomed by my child school.This school embraces its diverse student population. I do understand that for many immigrant parents, English speaking or Non-English Speaking, there’s a disconnect in understanding what’s happening in schools. This can affect the way we relate or engage with the school and its admin. I feel that each school should provide some outreach(perhaps workshops, handbooks,or orientation) to all parents as we all are partners in procuring a nurturing and stimulating environment for our children to learn.
Comment by Patricia — March 27, 2009 @ 4:34 pm