Alina Adams' daughter didn't learn any Spanish in ninth-grade Spanish 1. Her New York City school couldn't find a permanent teacher, so six different teachers rotated in and out of the class. As a 10th-grader, she was placed in Spanish 2, which had three teachers, all of whom assumed their students had mastered Spanish 1.
Her daughter finished 10th grade with straight A's -- except for Spanish 2. She's on track to earn a Regents Diploma with Advanced Designation in all her subjects, except for Spanish.
She could afford to hire a tutor, Adams write on The 74. But she's tired of "perpetuating the lie that her public education was adequate."
Many of the city's “high-performing” schools "rely on well-off parents to prep their children outside the classroom, then happily take credit for their successful test scores," writes Adams. When her daughter's math teacher was inadequate, Adams' engineer husband tutored her in math.
But many parents can't tutor their kids or afford to pay a tutor, she writes. They count on their children's schools to get the job done.
Some parents are too aggressive about helping their children, when the student should try on their own first, but she isn't aggressive enough. They have the ability to get a tutor, but don't. I just wonder if there are other areas where the mother is an anti-tiger mother.
It's always great to use your children as sacrificial lambs to make a political point than to do your best for them! Next up: New Yorker denies her children fruits and vegetables because some urban families live in food deserts or just choose not to eat them, and it's not fair that her kid is thin when the kids raised on doritos, twinkies, big macs and soda pop are not. Though, maybe she's just trying to ensure that her highly priviledged child has an obstacle to write about on college applications!
The problem is that when the daughter applies for college, they will not care how the daughter learned calculus, Spanish, or play a musical instrument. People apply to college as an individual and are judged on their individual achievement.