The Department of Education has begun a citywide survey of more than 1.8 million parents, students and teachers concerning their attitudes about the public schools, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel I. Klein announced yesterday.
The $2 million effort is part of the Children First initiative, in which each school will receive a report card with a standard school grade, A through F. Data from the surveys will account for 10 percent of each school’s grade.
The Learning Environment Surveys are being mailed with postage-paid return envelopes to parents of middle school and high school students and are being sent home with elementary school children for their parents to fill out.
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Even before Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein’s announcement, a group of eight parents was urging the public to snub the survey. The parents, who were members of the focus groups that the Department of Education assembled to help them fine-tune the survey, said the questions ignore their concerns about class size, standardized testing and school leadership teams.
The group urged parents to cross out the questions and send back the form with a handwritten message demanding “real parent input.”
Mr. Bloomberg said the group had found a way to “subvert the system and sit around and complain and not make it any better.”
