Juan Gonzalez of the New York Daily News doesn’t usually write about education, but when he does, he hits it out of the park.
In this article, he interviews parents who can’t understand why their neighborhood school is being closed–again. It was closed and renamed in 2008, now it will be closed and renamed again.
The mayor wants to close 36 schools this year. After a full decade of mayoral control, with no one to say no to whatever the mayor wanted, there is another crop of failing schools. And next year there will be more and the year after that one. Despite all the reforms, failure never ends.
Mayor Bloomberg likes to close neighborhood schools. He likes putting kids on buses or in the subway to attend a school far from their community. He doesn’t seem to have any sense of the value of neighborhood or community. Maybe that’s because he has houses in so many different cities that community means nothing to him.
But as this article shows, it matters to parents and families. They care about stability. They don’t like turmoil. Chaos is not good for children.
And here’s the most startling fact of all: Most of the new schools opened by Mayor Bloomberg are doing worse than the “failing” schools they replaced.
Schools close, schools open, schools close. What part of this is good for children? What part produces better education?
Correct answer: none, nada, nyet.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
the more he opens and closes schools the weaker the parent body becomes. Communities are strength. The mayor wants chaos. Easier to control the peasants
Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic didn’t save that ship either.
Closing schools is an act of pure stupidity. We’ve done some of that in my district to save money. These are schools with generational support – parents and grandparents have attended them. Does that kind of support get transferred to another school? How can it?
But, the dollar (or the test score) rules the world of education.
Decisions about schools are not made for educational reasons. They are made for economic and political reasons.
Without seniority transfers the Mayor hopes to kill two birds with one stone. He will continue to close schools to force veterans into the ATR pool hoping they will quit or retire while “improving” schools at the same time!
I think it is time to concentrate on the mayoral candidates now that the dictator is stepping down. How do they stand on mayoral control? I assume they are all for it but what would it look like under their adminstrations? What about charters, vouchers?
It’s called planned chaos.
The constant disruption keeps teachers and other employees disoriented, intimidated into complying with impossible and/or conflicting demands, while steadily moving towards the real goal: the destruction of the neighborhood school and its replacement by privately managed charters or online workhouses.
Another name for it is social vandalism, but it’s all for the kids, of course.
I wish that I had a better response. Perhaps later. For now, let me just say that as much as I revere Diane Ravitch’s writing, it is very depressing. As a grandparent of black grade school children, the situation seems virtually hopeless.
Oh, come now, people! We all ‘know’ that we can recognize a ‘failing’ school when we see it, just as we ‘know’ that it should be closed and replaced, preferably by a charter, because we also ‘know’ that charters are automatically better. (tongue planted firmly in cheek)
This is not subject for TIC-comments to show off how clever you are; education of this generation of children will make a big difference for our future. Will we be producing creative, thoughtful, analytic, and loving young adults who understand the need to care for each other and begin the end to the dominance of greed and the ‘profit motive’. Or, will we be churning out test-dumbed down kids who will think that undercutting your friends and associates for personal advancement is based on their genes?
The consequence of all this nonsense is huge but we have to endeavor to understand why it has happened in order to be able to run it out. You know, if you don’t really know your enemy, how do expect to win a battle.
Like, why did Obama go for all this? What was his world view and how did he see all this testing and privatization as helping poor minority children? It is confusing because we view him as a sensitive man. Obviously, he sees things from a different perspective now that he is ‘at the top’ or maybe he is being forced to embrace these reforms. I have my own views and will keep reading and writing until I understand. I would like to ee a site spring up called “why did Obama …”. Whatever; I am just saying “don’t give up”.
I don’t typically recommend Steven Brill’s “Class Warfare” because he is starry-eyed about the hedge fund managers, but it explains why Obama supports their education ideas, misguided as they are. He is their favorite. He spoke at DFER’s first meeting in 2005. They give a lot of money to candidates.