9486 in the collection
6 City Schools Designated by the State as Failing
Ohanian Comment: Not to be unkind, but was anybody fooled by the pretentious names of these schools?
Not to mention the mission statements:
- The mission of the Renaissance Military and Leadership Academy is the preparation of our youth for leadership positions that
will preserve and enhance their contribution to global leadership. The academy will offer all of its students a rigorous core
curriculum that emphasizes educational social excellence, higher-order thinking skills, character development, community
service and self-discipline in a military environment.
--May 1, 2005
The other schools don't even bother to operate websites or post mission statements.
New Millennium Business Academy opened in September 2004 when CIS 145 was restructured because of "poor performance."
Poor performance by whom? Congress? The President? The Business Roundtable?
No, it's blame the teachers, blame the students, blame poor parents. Never blame the socio-economic conditions in which these schools exist. If you want to understand a story like this one, you need to listen to George Carlin.
By Elissa Gootman
Six New York City public schools, five of them middle schools, were newly placed on the state’s list of schools performing so poorly that they are at risk of being shut down. Four other city schools, state officials said, would have been added to the list, released on Wednesday, had the city not already decided to close them.
Four city schools improved enough to come off the list, the State Education Department said, bringing the total to 32 New York City schools on the list. Of the 32, the city is already planning to close five.
The five middle schools added to the list are clustered in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx. They are Intermediate School 286 (Renaissance Military Leadership Academy), Middle School 326 (Writers Today and Leaders Tomorrow), Public School-Intermediate School 224, Middle School 201 and the New Millennium Business Academy Middle School.
To be designated by the state as failing, or among the “schools under registration review,” a school must fail to meet rudimentary performance benchmarks. If it does not improve in three years, it risks being closed.
The SURR list, as it is known, is different from the list of schools designated as failing under the federal No Child Left Behind law, which considers not only overall test scores but factors like attendance and the performance among subgroups of students, including those who are black or Hispanic.
The state also judges schools by a different standard than the city does for its new A through F school report cards; one school just removed from the state list, Legacy School for Integrated Studies in Manhattan, received an F on its city report card.
Andrew Jacob, a spokesman for the city Education Department, said in a statement that the city had “fewer SURR schools than ever before.” Last year, the city had 35 schools on the list, some of which have since been closed.
Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, suggested that city officials were too quick to close schools rather than try to improve them.
“We believe that closing schools should be the last resort, not a first step,” she said in a statement. Ms. Weingarten noted that fewer schools were removed from the list this year than in 2005, when 16 were removed, and 2002, when 12 were removed. She said that the new additions to the list showed that “our middle schools are not getting the supports they need.”
The sixth city school added to the list is Bushwick Community High School, a transfer school for students at risk of dropping out. The schools that would have been listed had the city not decided to close them are Walton High School and the Business School for Entrepreneurial Studies in the Bronx, and Junior High School 49 (William J. Gaynor) and South Shore High School in Brooklyn. The other schools removed from the list are Intermediate School 117 (Joseph H. Wade) and Intermediate School 219 (New Venture School) in the Bronx, and Junior High School 265 (Dr. Susan S. McKinney Secondary School of the Arts) in Brooklyn.
— Elissa Gootman
New York Times
2008-02-07
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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