New parent survey; check it out!

I had just finished filling out my Parent Survey for the DOE, when I noticed that there were three pages of questions asking me to rate my son's middle school, but not a single question asking me about the DOE itself. What???

Immediately, of course, I realized that this must be an oversight. Clearly some underpaid assistant had forgotten to attach the relevant pages!

Because I am confident that the DOE is as interested in how I think THEY'RE doing as they are in how I think my son's school is doing, I took the liberty of crafting my own set of survey questions and mailing them in with the pages they had provided me. A copy of my addendum is attached here.

Sincerely, Jan Carr, public school parent
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THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
2007 Parent Survey

We want to know what YOU think about the DOE! By filling out this survey, you can give the DOE information about how it can improve your child’s education.

1. How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements about the DOE?

a. The DOE listens to the concerns of parents. Strongly disagree

b. The DOE listens to the concerns of principals. Strongly disagree

c. The DOE listens to the concerns of teachers. Strongly disagree

d. The DOE listens to the concerns of the City Council. Strongly disagree

e. The DOE has proceeded in a reckless fashion
with the radical restructuring of the schools. Strongly agree

f. The DOE has the best interests of the students at heart. Strongly disagree

g. The DOE is working to decrease class size. Strongly disagree

h. The DOE is humiliating hard-working educators and
pitting schools against each other by issuing report cards to schools. Strongly agree

i. The DOE is misallocating scarce resources by lining the pockets
of its friends in the testing industry. Strongly agree

2. How satisfied are you with the following things about the DOE?

a. Increased number of tests administered to our children. Very unsatisfied

b. Increased focus on assessment and metrics. Very unsatisfied

c. Proposal to pit teachers against each other
by issuing merit pay. Very unsatisfied

d. Plan to add unnecessary stress to principals
by requiring better scores each year over three years time
with punitive threat of dismissal. Very unsatisfied

e. Plan to dismantle the regions and put the supports
for schools in the hands of independent contractors. Very unsatisfied

f. Amount of information made available to principals
about the specifics of the new support organizations
they will need to choose among under the new restructuring plan. Very unsatisfied

g. Attention (if any) to staff development as a key to
attracting and retaining smart, qualified teachers. Very unsatisfied

h. Respect for educators and utilization of their experience
and expertise to improve the quality of our schools Very unsatisfied

Thank you for taking this survey!

This survey will be balled up and thrown in the trash and the results will be ignored completely!