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…
ch renter,
“Hooray for the Charter! More opportunities for kids that are serious about learning.”
A lottery is not an opportunity or more choices for district 13. It is just that, a lottery.
And while I’m sure they are successful with teaching their kids, it is not they type of school I would like my children to attend.
ps. my kids are serious about learning
The problem is with Bloomberg. He has repeatedly done everything he can to destroy our public school system. The rhetoric that parents need a choice is purely propaganda. Parents have always had a choice. Don’t believe his hype. PS9 is a growing thriving school that is really starting to attract the neighborhood kids. It should be given every chance to do that. With the charter school coming in the PS9 kids will have less time for lunch, gym, auditorium and the yard. The BEC says they have their own library in classrooms. If they use PS9’s then they must pay an entry fee. The PEP is a joke. Bloomberg has set up NYC like an autocracy, We need a real change soon or else you can kiss public education goodbye!
dogface: about 50%, currently, and that number is dropping. and even if it wasn’t, the balance is still a much higher number, in absolute terms, and much higher percentage of local kids than BEC, which will give preference to D 13, but no specific preference for the zone or PS9 kids, will have.
Publicly financed private schools taking space and resources away from publicly financed public schools. This is the the vision of technocrat educators like Bloomybucks who want to privatize everything as if that will somehow solve all of our problems. This is a union busting tactic and we aren’t too far away from the dream these corporatist politicians have of just giving everybody a voucher to pay for their schooling and letting the magical marketplace work its magic. Too bad today’s kids are guinea pigs, or pawns if you prefer. Make no mistake, there is a class war going on in this city between the wealthy and poor, and this is just one of the battlegrounds.
there are no dumb schools, only dumb children
while i support charter schools, Ps 9 DOES IN FACT attract not only kids from the zone, but from the entire district 13.
way to miss the point, ch_renter. PS 9 should get the whole building because it’s already there, it’s a community school, and it will serve the needs of all children in the surrounding community (whether they’re from the precise ps 9 zone or not).
why should BEC get the building is the better question. it’s not a part of this community, and it wasn’t created to, and doesn’t plan to serve this community’s residents. why do they get preference? why won’t the DOE hear PS9’s plan to expand to a middle school?
i’m no fan of the failing middle school. it’s one challenge ps 9 has had to overcome in order to attract and retain a student body that reflects the affluence of the community. and now by adding a third school, not only will ps 9 suffer, but so will BEC. to say nothing of the ms-571 kids who will be left behind, wondering why they are ignored while the charter kids are showered in resources.
so let me break it down for you: you jam a 3rd school in there, and add to it the current presumption of how the space will be shared, and it makes involved, motivated and concerned parents less likely to send their kids to PS9 or MS 571, or less likely to keep them there in the older grades. so those parents have no choice but to try to get into one of the acceptable charter schools or unzoned small schools, because all the zoned schools that are worth a commute are full. and then the DOE says, look! everyone loves charter schools and they do so well! and look at PS9, zoned students don’t want to go there! so let’s give more space to the charters. and the cycle of deterioration continues.
meanwhile the DOE has to pay all of these moving and expansion and administrative costs for co-locations, and all the busing for all the kids to get to the non-local schools. not to mention the extra costs for phasing out schools.
the DOE is providing lip service only to its motto of “children first.” what this decision tells you is “charter schools first” and who cares what happens to everyone else. but what’s going to happen when charter schools have reached the saturation point? it will happen, and what will the DOE have left?
“I don’t have issues with charter schools or traditional public schools in general. But if the city were serious about education and they believe that the charter school has a better education model then they should require the charters to take these same failing students and prove that they can do a better job. Win/Win for everyone. ”
^^^This
“More opportunities for kids that are serious about learning.”
So it’s the kids fault they are not learning and therefore they should be punished and tossed to the side?
I don’t have issues with charter schools or traditional public schools in general. But if the city were serious about education and they believe that the charter school has a better education model then they should require the charters to take these same failing students and prove that they can do a better job. Win/Win for everyone.
But this is just adults playing politics while the kids continue to suffer. Sickening.