In New York City as in Detroit, the government and school board are trying to increase the school day and year. Really teaching to a higher standard would require spending the money to build more classrooms and hiring the teachers, paraprofessionals and guidance personnel needed to work with students on their individual academic and social needs, in classes with much smaller pupil-teacher ratios. In New York City a majority of students are reading below grade level by the sixth grade. This school, in a gentrified Manhattan neighborhood, is over capacity by 800 to 1,000 students because there are no other general admission schools built for the area.
Some students have problems of their home environment that challenge most adults.
Perhaps because New York City, with a million students, is seven times as large as the Detroit school district, the New York City Board of Education has not yet fully applied the ramrod approach being experienced in Detroit. It has prepared the way toward that end in stages. Under the last contract, the New York school board claimed to free teachers from non-teaching assignments, such as cafeteria and hall duty. However, they did not hire the personnel that would allow schools to function without paraprofessionals and volunteer teachers continuing in those duties. The exception is an increase of uniformed security guards which develops a prison atmosphere.