Make Emanuel Pay For This Outrage (UPDATED)

That's the plan:

The board voted 6-0 to back Emanuel on closing 48 elementary schools and one high school program. The vote to close Von Humboldt Elementary was broken out, and passed 4-2. 

The board's solid support for the long, controversial slate of closings came as little surprise to his critics, chief among them the Chicago Teachers Union, which last week filed two federal lawsuits seeking to block the district from following through on its plan.

CTU President Karen Lewis said the union was still hoping courts would intervene to keep schools open but vowed to leverage voter anger over closings to block the re-election of Emanuel, who has said he was prepared to take a political hit for the closings.

"Well, he will," Lewis declared. "I'm glad he's prepared."

Emanuel held no public events Wednesday, but his office released a statement after the vote in which he acknowledged closings were "incredibly difficult" but added, "I firmly believe the most important thing we can do as a city is provide the next generation with a brighter future."

The way to make the future brighter is to beat Rahm Emanuel and send him back to his hedge fund.

That's after winning the civil suits filed to keep these schools opened.

That's the way to make the future brighter.

UPDATE: Emanuel is closing 49 schools to save money.

He's giving DePaul $100 million for a stadium.

The outrages don't stop.

DOE Sets Destructive Sights On Newtown, Flushing High Schools

There is less than one year left in Emperor Bloomberg's illegal third term, but that doesn't mean he isn't trying to cause as much chaos and destruction in the school system as he can before he goes out.

The Daily News reports that two Queens schools that have made the "failing" list put out by the state in the past will be the sites of three new school co-locations despite the improvements these schools have made on their school report cards:

The city has proposed opening one new school in the Newtown High School building, in Elmhurst, and two new schools at the Flushing High School campus.

The Department of Education is also looking to cut enrollment at the large high schools, which could affect the amount of funding each institution receives.

The city attempted to close both of the schools last year, but was blocked by a court order.

“These are two overcrowded schools that have just turned the corner in starting to make progress,” said James Vasquez, the Queens High School rep for the United Federation of Teachers. “This does nothing to help these school communities.”

Indeed, these co-locations are meant to be a knife into both Newtown and Flushing, not help either of those school communities to continue to "improve" on their school report cards.

 

The DOE wants these schools to fail:

Last year, the state identified Flushing and Newtown High Schools as two of the worst-performing schools in New York.

The city plans to reduce enrollment at Newtown by about 300 to 350 students and open a new international school in the same building. The new school will focus on foreign-born students who may not speak English well.

But Newtown is improving. It went from a “C” to a “B” on its last city report card. Newtown PTA President Debora Martinez said “if they bring another [school], that’s going to affect us.”

City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) called the co-location “insane.”

“This is a school that has been struggling to improve and [has] done the job,” he said. “It seems as if the [city] wants to make sure that Newtown fails.”

 And how will the co-locations affect Flushing High School?

The city also plans to reduce Flushing’s enrollment by about 850 to 900 students and install two new schools on the campus. One will offer Chinese bilingual programs. Flushing got a “D” on its last city report card.

State Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Flushing) said the proposal was destructive. “Enrollment will decrease, funding will go down,” she said. “The school will have fewer resources and it will be even more difficult for [it] to succeed.”

When asked why the DOE would want to co-locate schools in Newtown and Flushing, taking away much needed space and resources in a move that is sure to undercut the schools and set them up for failure, the DOE spokesperson offered the usual jive:

Education Department spokesman Devon Puglia said decreasing the schools’ student bodies will help them improve while the new schools serve the area’s immigrant populations.

“Our goal is to create a system of great schools that prepare all students for college,” he said.

That's not true - their goal has been to undercut and set up as many large schools for failure as possible.

Their goal has been to close as many schools as possible once the failure set-up has been in place foe a few years.

Their goal has been to blow up as much of the old school system as possible so that it cannot be re-constituted in any way after Emperor Bloomberg flies off to Bermuda full-time.

Newtown and Flushing are two of the few larger schools left and now they've got their sights set on them.

It is possible that these two schools will survive because Bloomberg will be gone by the time the schools reap the consequences of the destructive actions the DOE schoolbusters are taking this year.

But don't bet on it.

The one thing you rarely see in corporate media accounts of school closures and school "failure" is how Bloomberg and his DOE minions have deliberately set up the large schools for failure in a systematic way.

They've closed the "bad schools," taken the kids from those school and dumped them into neighboring "good schools" and made those into "bad schools" within a few years.

Murry Bergtraum, just a few short blocks from Tweed Courthouse, is the perfect example of that.

When Bloomberg came into office, that was one of the "good schools."

Then, as the DOE closed many larger schools around Manhattan, they used that school as a dumping ground.

Now Murry Bergtraum is a mess.

That's been the pattern of "reform" Bloomberg and Klein followed from the beginning, but you never see that in the suck-up stories in The Atlantic Monthly or The New Yorker about the wonders of Joel Klein or the miracle that is the Bloomberg Education Reform Movement.

Now Flushing and Newtown are next on the list unless somebody stops them.

NY1/Marist Poll Finds NYers Think NYC Schools Have Grown Worse Over The Past 20 Years

A Ny1/Marist poll finds that 49% of New Yorkers think the quality of New York City public schools has declined over the past 20 years.

Another 16% say the quality has remained the same despite all the changes to the system - from the demise of the old Board of Education to the advent of mayoral control to the closure of many large high schools and the opening of many new small schools.

Just 23% say the schools have improved.

NY1 reports that responses to the poll do not change much across borough, income level, race or age - 2/3rds of the city's inhabitants believe the school system has either not improved or gotten worse over the last 20 years.

And what are some of the complaints people cited for why they believe the system is worse now than it was a generation ago?

“Overcrowding. Budget cuts. A lot of things that once were implemented in schools, like a lot of programs, have been cut out,” said one New Yorker.

“He's cramming these charter schools into the public schools, pitting charter school parents against public school parents," said another.

“There are so many problems inherent in the standardized tests and the focus on testing,” said a third.

Mayor Bloomberg thinks the school system has gotten much better since he took over total control of it a decade ago.  When asked by NY1 why so many New Yorkers and parents of NYC public school students disagree with his assessment of the state of NYC schools, the mayor pointed to school surveys that showed parents were happy with their own schools and rising enrollment which shows people are voting with their feet.

And yet, the mayor could not explain the dismal NY1/Marist poll numbers.

49% say the system is worse than a generation ago.

Another 16% say it is about the same - even though the mayor has had autocratic control of the system and pushed through a radical agenda of school closures, standardized testing accountability, and charter school expansion.

Those numbers - independent of the DOE's school surveys, which are of course slanted since parents and teachers know if they make any complaints in the surveys, those complaints will be held against the individual schools, not the DOE as a whole - are hard to argue with.

But leave it to the data-loving mayor to argue with data that doesn't agree with his worldview that he has done a magnificent job of reforming the NYC school system and given another year, will do an even better job by closing another 60 schools and opening another 30 charters.

The mayor has gotten a Mayor Data Report in the form of the NY1/Marist poll - and he has failed to add value to the school system or to the education of students.

Opting Out Of Federal Education Standards

Here's an interesting spin on school choice:

Here’s the school choice experiment I’d like to see tried. Let our school district require every parent to make an initial choice between two options. If the parents want to put their kids in a classroom governed by policies dictated by the federal government, they could choose the Federal Option. If the parents would prefer classrooms that are governed by policies chosen by the local community, they could choose the Local Option.

For the kids in the Federal Option, school would look a lot like it does now. No Child Left Behind would be in full force, and the district and its school personnel would have to meet NCLB’s standardized testing benchmarks or face the statutory penalties. In these classrooms, the district would do whatever it takes to raise math and reading test scores, regardless of the other values that might have to be sacrificed. Subjects with no direct bearing on standardized test results, such as art and music, would be cut back as necessary. Recess and lunch would be minimized. Untestable qualities such as curiosity, skepticism, creativity, and initiative would not be pursued. Whether the kids actually enjoy learning would be a secondary concern, at best. To keep the kids from squirming during their lengthy test prep sessions -- er, I mean, lessons -- the teachers would instruct them on the importance of unquestioning compliance with rules, and would single out the quiet and obedient students for special praise and rewards.

Down the hall, though, would be the Local Option classrooms. What would they be like? That would be entirely up to the people of our district. Maybe they would decide that there is more to being well-educated than what is measured by standardized tests. Maybe they’d give the teachers more autonomy over what and how to teach. Maybe they’d put more emphasis on developing the kids’ intrinsic motivation and pleasure in learning, and less emphasis on external rewards. Maybe they’d challenge the kids to think critically about the world around them. Maybe they’d recognize that kids need downtime, physical activity, and a decent lunch to learn well and to develop social skills. Maybe they’d treat the kids more like kids and less like employees. Maybe they’d take a few lessons from Finland. Or maybe they’d do none of those things, and come up with their own ideas. Who knows what our community might choose. It’s been so long since anyone asked.

I suppose there could be some awkward moments, when the kids in the Federal Option classrooms, with their ongoing math and reading drills and their nightly worksheets and their behavior charts and their abbreviated recesses and quiet fifteen-minute lunches, saw their friends down the hall having what would likely be a more meaningful -- not to mention enjoyable -- educational experience. Since the Federal Option classrooms would, by definition, be less likely to reflect the parents’ preferences, it might be hard for parents to choose those classrooms for their kids. But as things stand now, we all choose them every day. We’re just not constantly reminded that there could be another way.

Right now, of course, this experiment is impossible. My district could set up Local Option classrooms, but it couldn’t use tax money to pay for them. Why? Because the people who brought us charter schools don’t really believe that communities should be allowed to run their own schools.

What do these people have against choice?

I can tell you what For-Profit Geoffrey and Mistress Eva and Masking Tape Michelle and Corporate Chris Cerf have against real choice - there's no money in it for them.

But there IS money in bringing corporate-run, top-down education to more and more children all across this land.

Lots of it, in fact.

Just ask For-Profit Geoffrey Canada how much Goldman Sachs (owner of for-profit colleges) has given him.

Or how much hedge fund largesse Michelle Rhee plans to raise in a year for her Students First/Teachers Suck lobbying group?

Or why Mistress Eva pays herself nearly $450,000 a year to run a handful of schools while Clueless Cathie Black, NYC schools chancellor, gets $250,000?