When an "A" doesn't mean Anything
Since I don't have cable, I hadn't seen last week's NY 1 news report on the closing of Maxwell HS, or the mayor and chancellor's forked-tongue explanation for it until a few days ago.Even though I'm so jaded by the DoE, I think nothing else they say or do would surprise me-- I WAS surprised to see just how casually these scoundrels pointed to the state's education standards.
It's that finger point that should motivate the Coalition for Public Education (CPE) and allies (which WE are!) to take up a class action law suit.
The mayor and chancellor's speech about the state's standards verify that all the money spent on DoE School Report cards, evaluations, networks and school support organizations have no value.
Implementing School Report Cards has been a hoax designed and cleverly initiated by brilliant, highly-paid consultants. They successfully marketed a flashy data ruse to confuse and disempower from the onset, and they certainly earned their money for a job well done.
Parent leaders and whole school communities bought into the Emperor's New Clothes of School Report Cards and Progress Evaluations, just as parents all across the city have continued to believe in, and defend the Chancellor's Regs, especially for PTAs, and every other construct of parent involvement created by the evil, naked egos of Joel Klein and the city's plantation master-in-disguise, mayor. CPAC, CECs, the various Councils and especially the PEP-- were designed specifically to keep concerned folks so mentally and physically exhausted by the chaos created by the DoE, that critical sights were kept off of any "big picture" analysis of the underlying intent to use these constructs for the sole purpose of disempowering NYC's growing Black and Brown population, and eventually doing away with as much democracy and public education for us all as possible.
For those familiar with Noami Klein's "Shock Doctrine," this is classic manipulation of the masses.
I don't think the return flight of White folks to public schools was considered to be a threat before the economic downturn made these parents reconsider their spending on educating their own kids, and for sure, the White uproar over Bloomberg being an equal opportunity oppressor has been noticed. It may well be one of the only monkey wrenches thrown on the tracks of his Disaster Train for public schools— but it's not stopping it.
Assemblywoman Inez Barron has always been on the right side of this issue, and we are grateful that as a seasoned educator during the first half of her public service career, she's always been outspoken on the flaw's of mayoral control as an elected official. Now she's about to introduce a bill to end it. Though it seems to be languishing in Albany-hell, Senator Tony Avella also put forth a bill to impose a moratorium on school closings, and just recently and for whatever LATE excuse — Assemblyman Keith Wright feels he can no longer remain silent on the issue of school closings. He and old time Assemblyman Herman Denny Farrell are ready throw political-career-caution-to-the-wind and do something about mayoral control. Councilmember Robert Jackson says he will back that with a resolution from the City Council so that finally, FINALLY, our schools will get relief from its dictatorial control and destruction.
Not only is about EF'n time, but Please Lord, let these politicians LISTEN and really hear from those of us who have an alternative plan: a completely new human rights based education system for NYC. The Independent Coalition for Public Education (iCOPE) is about to put out a book about an alternative to the corporate model. (Look for it here). And the Coalition for Public Education (CPE) has been working on and calling in allies to create a real People's Board of Education.
Right now, the rumbling in ed-activist circles is all about school closings and co-locations and understandably, concerned people all across NYC are hot and bothered. The sad and scary thing is our inability to forecast when the school closing train will pull up on a neighborhood— which lends itself to our double inability to ACT BEFORE it happens.
Also, we seem to all have a combined avoidance of, or lack of interest in thoroughly disseminating the mayor's 2030 PlaNYC-- the blueprint for the destruction of public education and the road map for the train wreck of school closings.
Seems like the more I read it and make note of how the city is taking new shape and spending gobs of our money on everything BUT the construction of enough brand new schools, the more obvious it is that this plan was designed by corporate free-market privateers and covertly racist segregationists. Furthermore, it was put in motion long before any of us caught wind of what it would mean for our public schools, and especially our poorer Black/Latino communities.
No longer should we question why the schools and surrounding communities in Brownsville, East New York, Jamaica and Far Rockaway have been allowed to decay and remain starved of resources that we all know can be implemented to improve very human outcomes. These neighborhoods are an easy commute to, and are in close proximity to JFK airport. The newly constructed Resorts World Casino at Aqueduct and the NY Times article about Governor Coumo's backing of a convention center there, speak directly to the future plans of white power players to generate income from control of disadvantaged communities.
A convention center near the airport and Casino means hotels and a huge revenue from tourism without even having to come into Manhattan. While jobs may come from these plans to develop under-served real estate, by denying the academic and intellectual growth of thousands of kids in those areas, the power players have already determined their fate as bus-boys, chambermaids, valets and janitors. The PlaNYC is big on supporting entrepreneurial start-ups and city contracting (as long as you make $5 million a year), but where are the parallel measures to ensure wealth creation for the hundreds of thousands of poor Black and Latino students and families who currently live out there? It is not a coincidence that the majority schools in these areas are in chaos and financial crisis, or that they are providing academically challenged and bored-to-death students with deficient educations. Centuries worth of colonists have shown us that the best way to move in and take over land, is to force people out through starvation and draught. Intellectual and academic starvation are just the modern methods. Schools serving predominantly poor children of color have been embargoed.
I intend to use the NY1 video segment on Maxwell HS as a "Wake up, Folks!" organizing tool, and hope you will as well.
Hopefully enough teachers, parent leaders and students will heed the heartbreaking lessons of Maxwell HS (and SO MANY other schools-- like Wadleigh MS and Legacy) who are struggling to keep from being closed. Clearly the message is that even when you do all the right, hard work, and determined things to improve, and even when you raise graduation rates over 60% like it's reported that Maxwell has, it doesn't mean a thing. Regardless of the efforts of students, parents, teachers, principals and the community to earnestly follow the DoE's directives, mandates and regulations-- if City Hall has told Tweed and the PEP to target your school, that train is gonna' pull up on you sooner or later.
Even though the mayor "allows" a few protesting school communities to feel empowered by taking a step back, make no mistake-- this is merely a strategic calculation on the part of the chess players at City Hall. It is not a loss for Tweed, or for the mayor's 2030 PlaNYC, but rather part of the strategy to confuse, cause chaos and ease the pressure on them so that something else behind the scenes is cleverly orchestrated-- all the while we activists are busy taking a breather and/or enjoying a false victory. Bloomberg & Co's master plan is in full operation.
ANother reason I so like this NY1 video is because it encapsulates a painful warning to all good-intentioned parents involved in defending the CECs, CPAC and their various "elected" positions in DoE's Councils, and it shows the entire city just how unjust and harmful mayoral control is to our democracy, and human and civil rights.
It supports what Khem Irby said about recognizing the plantation politics orchestrated by the DoE, and her calling (on behalf of The MANY) for NYC parent leaders to step up and LEAD. There sure needs to be a PARENT led moratorium on school closings and co-locations initiated by their united resignation from all DoE parent involvement constructs. This does not mean to walk away from the fight-- not at ALL. It's just encouraging parents to walk away from the game the DoE has created all the rules for.
Like Muba always says, in unity there is strength.
Indeed, a People's Board of Education is a logical next step.
So is a real and democratically formed Parent Union.
But in the MEAN-time, the strategic component of a campaign to end Mayoral Control must be urgently waged.
Raising money to hire a Civil Rights law firm and calling in the Justice Department are paramount.
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