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.