Formed to back Bloomberg, StudentsFirstNY now an adversary
Sonia Saddler joined a protest organized by StudentsFirstNY because she was unhappy with how many times her grand-niece’s kindergarten teacher at P.S. 92 was absent last year.
An advocacy group that fought for changes to teacher evaluations plans to cite data from the old rating system in a civil rights suit against the city.
In a complaint that hasn’t yet been filed, StudentsFirstNY will ask the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights to investigate the distribution of teacher quality in city schools. The group issued a report in January finding that the 3 percent of teachers rated “unsatisfactory” last year worked disproportionately often in schools with many poor students of color. Its complaint will allege that the distribution was the result of discriminatory city policies.
Filing a complaint against the Bloomberg administration is an unusual move for StudentsFirstNY, which was formed to defend the mayor’s education policies and criticize opponents during the mayoral election. Some of