« on: June 25, 2010, 04:25:22 AM »
When a School Year Ends in Purgatory
Dana Chivvis
Part 4 of a four-part series about a small academy at the center of a national battle over the direction of public education in America
NEW YORK (June 22) -- As the school year winds down, most of New York City's public school administrations will wrap up this semester with an idea of what they will face next year -- how many students, how little money, how many classrooms.
But not the Metropolitan Corporate Academy.
The future of the small Brooklyn high school rests at the center of a great debate in New York. On Thursday, MCA was to graduate approximately 35 of its seniors, with no indication of how many more graduations it will have.
"We can't plan for anything," Assistant Principal Debbi Nagel said. "It's unnerving."
High school seniors from Metropolitan Corporate Academy attend their graduation in Brooklyn, N.Y., Thursday. MCA, which graduated approximately 35 of its seniors, faces an uncertain future amid a legal battle between the city and the teacher's union over whether it should be closed.
High school seniors from Metropolitan Corporate Academy attend their graduation in Brooklyn, N.Y., Thursday. MCA, which graduated approximately 35 of its seniors, faces an uncertain future amid a legal battle between the city and the teacher's union over whether it should be closed.
The school was marked as failing and slated for closure by the city's Education Department in December. In February, New York City's teachers' union, the United Federation of Teachers, filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming it had acted illegally when it decided to close the 19 public schools it deemed to be "failing."
The decision caused a massive uproar in communities citywide.
"A school is often the heart of its local community. It has traditions, values, memories that bind the generations. What is [lost] is an anchor of the community, and that removes an important institution," Diane Ravitch, an education expert and former assistant secretary of education, wrote in an e-mail to AOL News. "Schools are not like shoe stores; they should not open and close in response to consumer demand. They should be forces for stability in their community."
NAACP Joined Lawsuit
The lawsuit charged that the city had violated state law by not effectively analyzing how the closings would affect the more than 13,000 students who attend the schools, the communities around them, or the public schools where the students would end up instead.
The New York chapter of the NAACP joined the lawsuit, saying the school closings discriminated against minority students and kept parents out of the decision-making process.
"We believe that quality and equality is a right and public schools must be given the resources needed so students aren't shortchanged," Hazel Dukes, president of the NAACP New York State Conference, said in a statement.
The NAACP's decision irked the Bloomberg administration.
"Either you're for fixing schools that have failed poor and overwhelmingly minority students for far too long, or you're not. I know what side we're on," Deputy Mayor for Education Dennis Walcott said in a statement, according to GothamSchools.org.
But Stephon Adams, a junior co-captain on MCA's prizewinning debate team, says he also knows which side the city is on, and it's not the side of minority students like him.
Adams, 17, and debate partner Devonte Escoffery, 18, rap most of their arguments at debate tournaments as a method of self-expression and a means of breaking with tradition.
In his song "Poverty Exchange," Adams raps:
"Economy bad the government is trippin
Jobs is falling down
And the dollar bill is slippin
"Do something now, cause
This is where we're weak in
Nobody listens cause all of y'all is sleeping."
Students Already Leaving
After their best season yet, Adams and Escoffery's debating future is uncertain, like much of MCA.
On March 26, a judge in Manhattan decided in favor of the teachers' lawsuit. But by then, the city had already sent out letters to the eighth-graders who had chosen one of the 19 schools, assigning them to other high schools for the fall. After the ruling, the city backtracked, sending those students another letter saying they could matriculate at the 19 schools after all.
But in many ways it's already too late. Only eight students chose to enroll in MCA's freshman class next year, while 25 rising sophomores chose to transfer to other schools. Nagel, who helped open the school 18 years ago, says another school is still planning on moving into some of MCA's classrooms. The city has cut MCA's budget based on predictions of a reduced student body.
The city has appealed and is waiting to hear the judge's decision.
A School Fails in Brooklyn
"If the judge's ruling stands then we'll be forced to keep open failing schools," said Danny Kanner, a spokesman for the Education Department.
But it wouldn't mean the city couldn't try to close the schools again next year.
If the judge rules in favor of the city, the Education Department could begin phasing the schools out as early as next fall. If that were to happen, MCA and the other 18 schools would not have an incoming freshman class in September. The next year there would be no freshman class and no sophomore class. And so on until the school no longer exists.
"I never thought I'd open and close a school before I retired," Nagel said. "It's just heartbreaking for me. It's like I'm watching it crumble."
In February, before the Manhattan judge had ruled in favor of the teachers' suit, Nagel and Principal Lennel George talked of the obstacles they'd been fighting at the small Brooklyn high school.
They spoke of their small community as a family and talked about how they'd managed to make their run-down building into a home for its students, though it lacks basic amenities like a library, a cafeteria, a basketball court, lockers, water fountains and textbooks that students don't have to share.
"Our hearts are broken, our hearts are broken," Nagel said.
To which George added:
"But we're not broken."
You have got to be kidding me. A debate team that has members who respond in "rap"!! Maybe we should change our job application process to interviewing in "rap" ["I be wantin dat jawb, I werk reel hawd. Hiya me now or I shank u n da yawd!"]. To think other debate team members who take debating seriously, quite possibly from another school, would be subjected to an insult like this. What a terrible school to go to. Bless HaShem it is closing. YS'V to all the teachers and supporters of this abomination of a "school". A small wonder people have nightmares about having reservations about hiring people from these schools... iffin' day don't day be rassssssist! Aight!!
Logged
"You must keep the arab under your boot or he will be at your throat" -Unknown
"When we tell the Arab, ‘Come, I want to help you and see to your needs,’ he doesn’t look at us like gentlemen. He sees weakness and then the wolf shows what he can do.” - Maimonides
“I am all peace, but when I speak, they are for war.” -Psalms 120:7
"The difference between a Jewish liberal and a Jewish conservative is that when a Jewish liberal walks out of the Holocaust Museum, he feels, "This shows why we need to have more tolerance and multiculturalism." The Jewish conservative feels, "We should have killed a lot more Nazis, and sooner."" - Philip Klein
Topic: Wen da Skool Yeer be endin' n da Pirgatory!! (Read 538 times)