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9486 in the collection
At a Harlem Charter, School on a Snow Day
Joseph Mugivan Comment:
NO SNOW DAY FOR YOU!!!
While school children around the City enjoyed a rare snow day yesterday, a New York Times story this morning reveals that a small group of third graders were not so lucky. Those eight-year-old students at Harlem Success Academy, one of Eva Moskowitz’s four charter schools, were informed by automated telephone messages that they were expected to show up for four hours of classes, from 10:00 to 2:00.
The reason? Those 50 children were the only ones in the school due to take State standardized exams tomorrow, as of course will third through fifth graders all over NYC. One child in the Times story is quoted enthusiastically about being able to "ace the exam.”
Maybe it's just me, but I find this story so disturbing on so many levels -- making third graders (and their teachers) go to school on a day when the rest of the city school children had a day off, just so they could prepare for a test. It’s not as though they were the only ones taking exams this week, but Ms. Moskowitz apparently decided that four more hours of test preparation was more important than letting those eight-year-olds enjoy the rare opportunity of a little free time playing in a heavy snowfall with their friends. Who does “education” like this really serve, the children? Or the adults like Ms. Moskowitz and Mr. Klein who benefit politically (and, as we recently learned thanks to Juan Gonzalez, quite substantially financially)?
Some of my most cherished childhood memories growing up in Indianapolis involved the thrill of waking up to snow days – sledding on any hill we could find, building snow forts, having snowball fights, and, yes, even shoveling a neighbor’s driveway for $5. I know Manhattan isn't Indianapolis, but still. Furthermore, I don't ever remember my school days being driven by the overwhelming desire to "ace" a standardized exam (other, perhaps, than the SAT, but we were 17 by then and knew the stakes in that exam were personal, directly affecting our future – and almost nobody thought in terms of “acing” that test).
Perhaps for these third graders, their future, less glowing memories will include the time all their friends stayed home and played while they alone studied for a State exam. I guess if it's test-acing little third grade robots you want, this is what you do to get them.
Neither sleet nor hail nor eight inches of snow will stop test prep.
By Jaavier C. Hernandez
Pity the poor third graders of Harlem Success Academy 1.
Neither eight inches of snow, nor icy gusts up to 35 miles per hour, nor temperatures topping out at 28 degrees were enough to keep them from test preparation on Monday. While 1.1 million other New York City schoolchildren passed their first snow day in five years by sledding — or, perhaps, skiing on Wii — these 50 or so charter school students trudged to class in blue and orange uniforms and spent four hours studying rectangles and Rosa Parks. The cafeteria was closed, but the school provided Subway sandwiches and hot chocolate.
“I wanted to play my video games and play snow fights and build snowmen,” said Aboubakr Gbane, 8. “I wanted to sleep all day — until night — and then at night I would get extra sleep.”
Instead, Aboubakr learned about biographies and segregation, knowing that he would be chided for even a peek out the classroom window.
Monday’s snow day was a rarity in New York: the fifth since 1982. Rather than contend with bus delays and school entrances blocked by mounds of snow, Chancellor Joel I. Klein decided at 5:40 a.m. that classes would not go on at the city’s 1,499 public schools.
His decision postponed by a day state math tests for third, fourth and fifth graders scheduled to start on Tuesday, and delayed Monday’s deadline for kindergarten applications until Friday.
But Eva S. Moskowitz, the former city councilwoman who runs three other charter schools in Harlem, decided Sunday that Harlem Success Academy 1 would be open — at least for third graders, the only ones taking the tests.
“This is New York — we’re, like, tough cookies here,” she said Monday. “I was ready to come in this morning and crank the heating boilers myself if I had to.”
So even though the schools would lack custodial, security and food-service workers, Ms. Moskowitz sent out an automated telephone message after Mr. Klein’s announcement, reminding parents that third graders were still expected to show up, for an abbreviated day from 10 to 2.
John Gambling, the third-generation morning host on WOR-AM, said such automated systems have made the traditional radio recitation of school cancellations an anachronism, last done on his show at the close of the 20th century. It all began, Mr. Gambling said Monday, in the 1930s, when someone from Teaneck, N.J., called Mr. Gambling’s grandfather on the air and asked for an announcement.
“He said, ‘O.K., kiddies over in Teaneck, I’ve got some pretty good news for you: school’s closed today,’ ” Mr. Gambling recalled.
“You hung with your ear next to the radio, waiting for your school to be closed,” and when the name came, ”You screamed with joy and your mother moaned in anticipation of a long day.”
Things are different now, at least for students at charter schools. Publicly financed but managed by independent boards, charters are not bound by the city’s calendar. Still, even though the parents might be accustomed to having class when the city system is on holiday, the cellphones of the school’s leaders were flooded with confused calls.
In the classroom, the students calculated the area of rectangles and played a round of “telephone,” spreading the message that the “bio” in biography meant life, but several said they preferred being in class to being out in the snow.
“I always get wet so I think it was better to go to school,” said Jada Cooper, 8. One of her classmates, Sekou Cisse, 8, said, “It is more time to practice so we could ace the exam.”
Others thought the late start was the best part. Briannie Bratcher, 8, woke up at 7:30 and got ready as usual, only to learn that school was delayed: “Then I said ‘Hallelujah’ and I went to sleep.”
As school let out, several students revved up for long jumps over puddles at the curb to their parents’ cars. A group of boys heaved wads of slush at each other, sneaking in a belated snowball fight on the walk home.
James Barron contributed reporting.
— Jaavier C. HernandezVIER
New York Times
2009-03-03
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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