9486 in the collection
Garth Harries Leaves New York City, and This is a Good Thing
Ohanian Comment:In it's self description, NYC Rubber Room Reporter offers a close-up look at the New York City public school system from the viewpoint of a parent advocate, who also provides details on teacher re-assignment issues and the people who have been, are now, or will be affected by the City of New York and the New York City Board of Education policies of corruption and fraud.
That said, there is a huge subtext to this story. I followed the NEST+M battle with Ross Global Charter Academy over building space/encroachment. Complicated story, but I certainly believe that the New York City administrators behaved badly.
The very real tragedy is that other public schools didn't have such strong advocacy when "small schools" moved in, gutting their programs in the name of freeing up space. I'm thinking particularly of school with strong vocational ed programs. These programs were deemed expendable by the mayor and his minions.
by Rubber Room Reporter
With everything else that is wrong with the current New York City public school system, Garth Harries' inappropriate approach to public school education may seem minuscule, but he wielded great power while he was at Tweed. I certainly hope that the New Haven school system can survive his appointment as Assistant Superintendent for Portfolio and Performance Management.
I first met Mr. Harries when he came to one of my daughter's schools, NEST+M at 111 Columbia Street. It was 2006, and Joel Klein had announced that the Ross Global Charter Academy would be taking a part of the building for their new charter school in New York City. The NEST PTA started protesting with a website.
We parents of Or maybe not. Life is complicated. Of course we were helped immensely by the support of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who was with us throughout this adventure into 'creating politics with public money' that became the lawsuit against Courtney Ross, the founder of the Ross Global Academy, and Joel Klein.
Garth came to visit the school, and I was there that day. He came with a group of people who had come to measure the number of feet in the rooms they wanted in the building. As they walked the halls of NEST, we parents cornered Garth and told him that he had to come to the auditorium and answer all of the parents' questions. He protested, but in vain. He went into the auditorium. He sat on the edge of the stage and addressed us [parents] as if we were children. He called NEST+M "the plant" and gave us a picture of our children being widgets in a factory. He told us that we were lying about the available space in the building, and the Ross Global Charter Academy would be taking half of the school as we were half full. He altered the occupancy of the building, alienating all of the people listening to him. He seemed totally out of touch with who we were, the children, and public school principles in general. All of us were disgusted with him after the hour we grilled him with questions. He left the auditorium in great despair, as we just didn't buy his pre-paid statements about our school.
— A parent advocate
Rubber Room Reporter
2009-06-12
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/06/garth-harries-leaves-new-york-city-and.html
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
[1] 2 3 4 5 6 Next >> Last >>
