A Child Left Behind Comes to New York ... and so does public grading of their teachers.

In baseball, it's called "The Little Things"...  You can't see them on a scorecard but all of baseball agrees success is impossible without them.  This is the reason why players why players like Nick Punto (.245 batting average with no power) is a cherished and welcomed player on any MLB team.

Unfortunately, public education has become obsessed with stats...

Click on this link:  http://projects.wsj.com/nyc-teachers/  punch in a name of a New York elementary public school teacher and you will get an evaluation of their work as perceived by a computer.  You won't know whether they smile at their children, spend their recesses helping a particular student with a school project, bully or other troubles, you won't see them share their lunch, give a compliment that brightens a day, or any one of a number of a myriad of things an elementary school teacher does that can't be scored.

It seems to be that the purpose of elementary school should be to:  teach core subjects, introduce a sense of civic and social responsibility and learn about their environment and society.  I don't think hard care test scores should be the fundamental judgement of success for a teacher of nine-year old children.

That's why I wrote this....

To, hopefully, show the challenges a public school teacher faces and the absurdity of trying to compute a score for it...

The play ran for eight months in LA and I'm proud to be performing it this month in New York.  You can see it on July 15th at the BSP Theater in Kingston, NY (near Woodstock) and in Manhattan on July 16th at the 45th Street Theatre (45th between 8th and 9th Ave.)

The performances are serving as a fundraiser for G.R.A.S.P. (Global and Regional Aspergers Syndrome Partnership). You can learn more about their organization through their website:  www.grasp.org

Hope to see you there!