BRONX NEWS: Bronx parents peeved over end to state test tutoring

Angry parents took to the streets over a city decision to nix tutoring for kids who failed last year’s toughened state exams.

Rallying outside a city Education Department office in Fordham Monday, Bronx parents protested the cost-cutting measure, which denies after-school tutoring to kids who would have passed the older, dumbed-down tests.

“It’s so unfair what is happening, and our kids are getting a raw deal,” said Frances Tejada, an organizer with Highbridge Community Life Center.

“The state raised the standards for what is passing, but the city is not giving us the resources we need to raise our kids up. How do they expect our children to be successful?”

The protest is one of several planned for this week culminating in a rally in front of Education Department headquarters Wednesday.

After the new test scores were released this summer, more than 50 parent and community groups joined to form Save Our Schools to fight for more help for struggling kids.

The Board of Regents voted last month to allow the city to cut the extra tutoring – citing the financial burden it would impose because of this year’s high fail rates.

The harder tests made scores fall citywide – but affected outer-borough neighborhoods the most. In District 9 in the Bronx, 75% of third- through eighth-graders failed either the state’s math or English exams – 4,000 more students than in 2008. Citywide, more than 100,000 more students failed the harder tests.

Bronx mom Michaeleen Edwards said her daughter Tyese, 14, was a freshman at Urban Academy on the upper East Side for a month before getting a letter saying she had failed her eighth grade state math exam.

“It’s unbelievable what has happened,” the angry mother said, adding that her daughter was guaranteed extra tutoring if she was sent back to the eighth grade. But that promise is yet to be fulfilled.

“We’re intent on providing services to students who really need them,” said department spokesman Matt Mittenthal. “We’re not going back on that promise.”