Despite Protest, the DOE Will Phase Out MS-571 and Let Charter In
Thursday night the DOE voted to phase out the Prospect Heights middle school to make way for Brooklyn East Collegiate, which will move into the PS-9 building this fall. Despite the poor performance of MS-571, parents rallied to keep the charter school out. More details at Prospect Heights Patch…
Thursday night the DOE voted to phase out the Prospect Heights middle school to make way for Brooklyn East Collegiate, which will move into the PS-9 building this fall. Despite the poor performance of MS-571, parents rallied to keep the charter school out. More details at Prospect Heights Patch…
thanks LC Arnett. i understand very clearly what the DOE is trying to do, i just think they are doing it very mindlessly. PS9 is still 80% minority and 87% free/reduced price lunch, so to assume that it’s “upward trajectory” cannot be undermined by this kind of decision is willful, but ultimately self-serving blindness.
case in point: why put a rigid, disciplinarian charter openly targeted at at-risk underperformers in a school where the “upward trajectory” is being driving by progressive-minded parents and educators who really wouldn’t find it miraculous that their kids want to go to college?
Not sure what you mean by saying the system will be 1/3 smaller. Which system? The DOE will still exist, it will just be relegated to busing, real estate, moderating building disputes, and giving contracts the NewsCorp, etc.
I personally believe that there is no way the charter system will be able to sustain that kind of growth. the money will run out, and the scores will be less impressive as the best candidates get picked off. then the shine will be off the penny and charter schools will be seen for the ordinary organizations that they are. to wit: 8 small schools closed in this last round.
Even assuming the DOE really believes this charter nirvana can be realized, i think it is really foolhardy not to be more careful about what they are trampling along the way. they are making more work for themselves now, and probably more heartache for parents in the future.
But hey, i’m happy to be proved wrong. my core problem with charter schools is that they create (or re-create, whatever) a system of haves and have nots, but if there was a place for everyone then that objection would be diminished.
LC Arnett: I agree with you that the DOE desperately needs middle-class, white parents to commit to charters, as witness the rebranding of Harlem Success as Success Academy on the upper west side and the massive marketing campaign to win parents. But their strategy for this one is plain wrong: like the other charter chains, this one has extended school days, a strict, traditional curriculum, uniforms, all of which are designed to appeal to working-class minorities but which put off middle class families used to a more progressive approach. The two charters I know of that have been very successful in attracting the middle-class crowd are Brooklyn Prospect Charter (Dist. 15) and Community Roots (Dist. 13) were both created by parents and educators, not the Kappa/Kipp/Achievement First/Harlem Success crowd.
Which is not to say that I would like the DOE to get smarter about their charter school strategy. I’m a huge fan of neighborhood schools and see the charters as a horribly divisive development, basically the dismantling of public schools.
Edit: That should read “where lots of poor WHITE people live”
“@idisagree: This is part of DOE’s plan to get more young, progressive, public school supporting, middle-class (and yes, predominantly white) parents to consider charters as a viable option for their kids. Somehow in NYC, this class of residents views charters as schools for minority kids in neighborhoods where they would never consider educating their children. ”
That’s the case in almost every city. Charter schools are not opening in affluent suburbs or even areas where lots of poor people live. This is largely turning into an experiment involvling almost all black and latino students.
@Brooklynishome: The probable reason for relocating to an elementary school is that the school may consider it to be a better environment for its students to be the oldest children in the building rather than the youngest. When you are dealing with a middle school population, the presence of older children can sometimes be a distraction rather than an addition to the learning environment.
@idisagree: This is part of DOE’s plan to get more young, progressive, public school supporting, middle-class (and yes, predominantly white) parents to consider charters as a viable option for their kids. Somehow in NYC, this class of residents views charters as schools for minority kids in neighborhoods where they would never consider educating their children.
DOE is convinced that these parents would educate their kids in charters if they could be exposed to them and shown the models that work. Thus, the shoehorning of successful charter expansions into either sucessful schools or schools that are on an upward trajectory. The mindset is that PS9 parents will see these schools working with kids that are doing well and in five year’s time the current 1st graders will be applying to BEC as a first choice for middle school.
DOE wants to “right-size” the public school system, while maintaining the highly selective public schools, operating a core of well run schools, and dispersing the problem students across a cross-section of schools, with charters that are highly structured educating those kids with the highest needs. Think of a system which is about a third smaller, and the students that were in that third being displaced into even smaller 200-400 student charters and specialized schools. If you want to see what that looks like in practice, take a look at Bushwick High School. That school was shut in 2006 and replaced by four small schools. One of those schools, the Harbor School, has recently relocated to a brand new facility on Governor’s Island. The school which is 95% black and hispanic currently will in a few short years become a school of choice for families living in the financial district and Battery Park, as they discover a public school with private school amenities that is a five minute ferry ride away.
Right Slick, the teachers union hates kids and everybody else loves them. Do you think Eva Moskowitz, just as one example, does this for free?
I have bad news. It’s not a class war between rich and poor. It’s a war between people with a vested interest in the status quo and people who want to improve schools as expeditiously as possible.
@ pig three Why did you say the UFT’s presence only boded well for the charter? Because en masse they come off as creepy people that you wouldn’t want teaching your kids? That’s my take when I see their antics.
On another note, if you think that PS9 should be drawing kids from other zones then you should be advocating for reforms to the DOE’s zoned system. All part of the same space/budget/choice question.
In response to ch renter. PS9 would do a better job attracting kids in the zone if parents could forget their first impressions from 5 years ago. Parents I know would rather send their kids to all parts of Brooklyn instead of their own neighborhood school. Doesn’t anyone care about community anymore? Strong community is what we should all strive for. A disjointed community serves nothing to our society. The DOE should be supporting PS9’s efforts to attract zoned kids. The school and PTO are doing this. Why not the governing body of the schools? When do they try to make a neighborhood school be a neighborhood school?