Bard College President, Leon Botstein.

You send your kid to a school in NY. It’s a good neighborhood school. You like the school. It has caring and dedicated teachers. It struggles with test scores, but as Eduwonkette has demonstrated, there doesn’t seem to be a correlation between test scores and a positive school environment.

As a result of the latest stupidity from NY’s school chancellor Klein, schools now get a grade, A through F. The grade is mainly based on Regents’ test scores. The school you send your kid to, the one with the good school environment but weak Regents’ test scores, gets a C or a D. Great incentive for the staff (I’m being ironic). Good for the kids too (irony again). And the parents start feeling uneasy (no irony).

But it is a regular school. No famous parents. No influence downtown.

According to the NY Times today, it’s a different story at Bard College’s school. They were going to get a C. But the DOE withheld the grade.

The Times reported that Bard President Leon Botstein appealed directly to Klein:

Mr. Botstein said he respected the chancellor’s need to turn around a failing school system, but urged that he not do it at the expense of innovation and excellence.

“You have a system that is broken and that is failing, and they are desperately trying to improve it. But don’t throw the baby out with the bath water,” he said. “There are a couple of places, and we’re one of them, that really do something different and well.

“Not all plants are weeds,” he said, “so why are you spraying insecticide on the whole thing?”

Oh, do tell.

“They’re in a tough bind, and I have a lot of respect for them,” Botstein said.

“Let’s say we’re a vegetarian restaurant and you’re telling me our meat is not good. I’m telling you we don’t serve meat. We’re not in the meat business.”

Eeesh.