New Middle School Coming to Fort Greene
According to The Local, Fort Greene will get a new 300-seat middle school starting in the Fall of 2010. The Fort Greene Preparatory Academy, as it will be called, will be located at 100 Clermont Avenue where PS 46 currently is. The academics will be structured around Socratic seminars and the arts. The goal of…
According to The Local, Fort Greene will get a new 300-seat middle school starting in the Fall of 2010. The Fort Greene Preparatory Academy, as it will be called, will be located at 100 Clermont Avenue where PS 46 currently is. The academics will be structured around Socratic seminars and the arts. The goal of the school is to be driven by student inquiry, said Paula Lettiere, the intended principal. We’re seeking to move away from traditional curriculum. This sounds like a pretty conscious effort to provide an alternative to the PS 20 approach that has turned off so many of the families that have moved to the neighborhood in recent years.
New Middle School Coming in 2010 [Local/NYT]
Photo by silk cut
thank you minard, altho it’s tough to tar a whole nabe. I suspect this ‘Socratic’ slash arts academy is a bone to some of the white parents, no?
“We’re seeking to move away from traditional curriculum.â€
Translation: We’re dumbing down the curriculum even further.
Rob,
What do you know about the “good” schools in NYC?
I went to school in a working class Long Island community in the 60s. I am sure my daughter is getting a better education at “good” (not the “best” super-duper gifted programs) public schools in NYC.
i sorta kinda agree with minard on some of his points though.
im so glad i was educated in jersey. the public schools in the ghettos in new jersey are actually much better than most of the “good” schools in nyc.
*rob*
The white parents in Brooklyn Heights don’t give a flying f– if the little Black kids from the project don’t learn a thing in their precious PS8. They rail agaisnt the citywide tests as if that’s the problem. Deluded, arrogant, self-absorbed…..now I’m really ranting, so I will stop. But there is a problem there and the whole neighborhood needs an intervention.
If the grown ups (despite all evidence to the contrary) can stop yelling at each other for a moment, we might join in a group cheer that children in Fort Greene will have another educational option. And that there are people out there willing to work hard to provide it. Yay. Okay you can go back to bickering now.
Anyone can go to the Dept. of Education website, look up any school, and see the test results, broken down by grade, race, poverty, gender, etc., etc. Here’s the detailed report for 113:
https://www.nystart.gov/publicweb-rc/2008/e4/AOR-2008-331300010113.pdf
Note that the report is very long and the breakdowns start on page 15.
“they do separate the wheat from the chaff and catch the schools where education is not taking place.”
Well, if that’s the case, they would have shut down 80% of the system by now and called it a day! 🙂 Giuliani did get one thing right: blow up 110 Livingston St. and start over.
“I think there is room for a range of schools as long as the principal and staff keep their eye on the prize, which is of course education.”
True – but that’s the challenge – how can you hire and retain excellent teachers who actually want to, and know how to *educate* as opposed to *train* students? It’s almost impossible in a system with bad working conditions, huge classes, and clueless DOE bureaucrats shoving standardized tests down your throats. In my department (I teach high school social studies) we used to have about 15-20 elective courses each year. Now we have two or three if we’re lucky. Almost all the money goes to remedial courses for kids who failed. The teachers who put their hearts and souls into developing those electives – where motivated students and teachers alike could explore their intellectual interests – are mostly gone or disillusioned.
sixyears,
what high school? write to me at robyf@aol.com
Thanks!