NY Daily News: Parents Say Bloomberg School Closure Policy Is Jive

Now the DOE is closing schools under Bloomberg's regime:

It's closing time for schools in the Bronx.

The city's Education Department this week proposed 10 Bronx schools - many opened on Mayor Bloomberg's watch - be phased out starting in September.

Six were created since 2003 - the year schools Chancellor Joel Klein was appointed and began shutting large high schools in favor of opening smaller ones.

"It's ridiculous," said Madge Ruiz, whose son is a sophomore at the School for Community Research and Learning in Soundview, created in 2003 and now on the city's hit list.

"This shows that by closing schools and opening these new ones, parents aren't getting anything better."

Of the 26 schools citywide proposed for closing, a third were opened under mayoral control.

"It all feels like a sham," said Jessica Johnson, who sent her two daughters to New Day Academy, a sixth- through 12th-grade school in Morrisania, created in 2005. "There's been a lot of empty promises made to the Bronx," she said.

Seven of the Bronx schools up for closure are so-called "small schools" - academies championed by Klein because of their smaller class sizes.

Two of them - Urban Assembly Academy for History and Citizenship for Young Men in Mount Eden and Monroe Academy for Business and Law in Bronx River - replaced failing Taft and James Monroe high schools.

"Eight years of closing and reopening schools has not led to the level of progress that is needed to truly turn our public education system around," said Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

"It frustrates me that school closure continues to be the preferred option of reform used by the Department of Education."

It frustrates me too, Mr. Diaz.

Maybe if politicians didn't support mayoral control and maybe if politicians forced the mayor by law to have to work with others on education policies and issues, this WOULDN'T be the preferred option of school reform.

So maybe that can be something you'll work on in the next legislative session?

As for the school closures, at what point do the ed deformers say "You know, when all we do is close schools every year, maybe the problems lie elsewhere?"