DWC High: How A School Can Teach Us All (Trailer)
This is a preview of a new hour-long documentary about the fight to keep New York’s DeWitt Clinton High School alive. Based in the Bronx, home of the NY Yankees, “The Bronx Bombers” It has educated more than 200,000 students over a hundred years. It is now being faced with plans by “Educational Reformers” to scale it back in a threat to it’s tradition of excellence. Help us get the word out. See our Facebook page, Facebook.com/dwcfilm for how you can order and help distribute the whole film by Clinton grad Danny Schechter “The News Dissector.” Help us save DeWitt Clinton and public education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Have you seen what the Governor of Virginia is up to?
Looks like the madness is coming to the Old Dominion soon.
http://www.progressva.org/progressivepoint/mcdonnells_school_privatization_schemes.html
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These guys really do travel in their own little rarefied atmosphere. Who in their right mind would think of exporting the Louisiana disaster?
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An excellent trailer about a public school of rich tradition. ‘Brought tears to my eyes.
“Fix it, don’t nix it.”
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I loved this video and especially the fine gentleman at the end, class of 1924.
Please consider posting Jazzman’s breakdown of Rhee on Stewart. Love his wrap up:
So why do Rhee and her ilk insist on making this case every time poverty is brought up? I think the reason is quite clear, even though the squeamish among you usually get very uncomfortable when I say it. But it’s time for some hard, blunt truth:
The focus in teacher quality is a distraction. It is designed to divert attention away from the real causes of our nation’s massive inequality and disgusting childhood poverty rates. The true goal of this argument is to move blame away from the wealthy interests that control this country and place it on teachers.
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/02/rhee-on-stewart-breakdown-part-iii.html
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I am rather fond of that gentleman at the end of the video, too. I am almost as impressed by the diversity of graduates who can sing the school song. I have no idea what mine was!
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In the early seventies, I attended LaGuardia High School of Music & Art in NYC. The year I entered as a freshman, the New York City BOE announced that they were planning to close all of the “specialized” high schools – including Stuyvesant and Bronx Science – because the system wasn’t equitable (at the time these schools offered a longer day than other city public high schools.)
There was a lot of protest – I remember marching with thousands of people across the Brooklyn Bridge to the BOE main offices, at that time in Downtown Brooklyn. But the most stir was kicked up by celebrity alumni who gave awareness-raising concerts, went on newscasts and in general made a lot of noise.
Eventually a compromise was reached where the schools were allowed to remain in existence but had to squeeze their special focus into a regular length school day (for 4 years of studio art I gave up chemistry, physics, precalc and AP english.) The specialized schools are still in operation. The BOE seems to like them now, entrance exam and all.
I hope the famous grads of DeWitt Clinton can pull off something similar. The documentary is a great start.
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I am a product of the NYC Public School system and my mother’s siblings were a product of DeWitt Clinton. What a wonderful film. I hope it can get wide distribution.
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This could represent schools from coast to coast. Tradition!! Pride!! Friends and memories!! A learning ground for life! ATLANTIC CITY HIGH SCHOOL, NEW JERSEY Class of ’61!!! ACHS sent forth and sends forth literate students to contribute to family, community,country, world. Yesterday and today preparing students for life.
“Fix it! Don’t nix it!” What in this life can’t be improved?! Too many times I have heard
the conversation that it would be better to scrap the whole system then invest in improving it. Was that conversation over the last twenty-five years put in place to eventually grab for the education piece of the financial pie? Was corporate greed at the bases of a movement to literally corrupt and disrupt a system that they believed was
not working fast enough for the workers they required? The expediency of this, I believe
sinister movement, is less about the children and their lives, and more to do with the
mindset of what has become a give it to me quick throw away society.
It is also rooted, I believe, in everything from helping the real estate and building industry, market share, and with fewer jobs (due to outsourcing and automation/robotics) less people needed to educate and sending the message to those that would immigrate not to come here. It is about union busting, a sorting mechanism to find and invest in the “value added” learner and discard the too expensive and waste of time learner (by the standard of the education and corporate elite such as the Rhee-formers). Also, how to dump the expense and ignore and over ride the federal mandates that have been fought for and inacted for the learning disabled.
Education has become a cold hard numbers game wrapped in measurements. It has coldly cast off the romantic notion and truth that public education provides us a place to learn not just the lessons of books and teachers, but the skills for knowing how to live and survive life in a world made up of different kinds and types of people and problems.
It is a reality check much like the military where life skills, discipline, patience, civility,
structure, learning, mentoring, etc. comes crashing into our lives in order to provide
an opportunity to make better ourselves, our future, the world. Yes, I believe there
should be a continuum of services and a variety of learning environments for the
students who may well not fit the public school model and may take longer to educate or require a different mode of learning. Breaking apart the entire system is not the answer.
The much greater number do not need to be taken from what is and has been a fundamental beautiful cherished and loved part of our Democracy, our hometown neighborhood schools, Public Education. With all it’s warts, worries, and hard work, it is and has been a glorious part of our lives and tradition. “Fix it! Don’t nix it!”
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I am also a graduate of New York City Public Schools. I graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx. Sadly, this is a school that no longer exists. I went back to that beautiful building last year and it brought tears to my eyes. It has been carved up into a multitude of “smaller schools”. There is no longer cohesiveness in the building. There is a feeling of separateness; us against them. Is this what we want for our country?
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“a public school of rich tradition,” but when was the last time any of you were at dewitt-clinton? I teach in the bronx, and I’m not for shutting down schools, but I think your nostalgia would quickly deflate if you spent a day, shoot, and hour, on its campus. Where is the rally to get more funding, more teachers, more space?
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Schools are community institutions. They should be restored, rebuilt, revived with the staff, programs and resources needed to thrive.
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Couldn’t agree more.
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Mr. S, you are absolutely right. In fact, I DID visit the campus, and taught there for nearly four years. The real rally should be to ensure that teachers are not the ones held responsible for the pervasive poverty that encompasses DWC. I love the school, love the staff, love the students, but to think that carving this school or any public school into smaller schools is going to fix the problems there is to blame cars for accidents when they are driven by drunkards. What do I propose? More attention to what matters: cutting the fat in district offices and divert even a fraction of our military spending to the real battlegrounds–public schools such as DWC for more teachers, staff, resources.
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The problem at DWC and in the system in general is the fact that they (the DOE) won’t let teachers concentrate on teaching. Instead they have us in endless meeting developing “curriculum maps” and re-inventing lesson plans that have worked well for years. One year we are focusing on project based learning, now it’s the common core. What’s next? Ask McGraw Hill. The concentration is never on content but on delivery, on endless new “Danielson” influenced models of teaching. How long will Danielson last? Now, we are being forced to give students long multiple choice tests on material they haven’t learned yet that are somehow supposed to assess their skills. As an experienced teacher I can assess my students in a far more meaningful way by simply giving them a short writing assignment. Another problem is the so called “comp” job. Experienced teachers, actually some of the best teachers are pulled out of the class-room to become “deans” who patrol the hallways. If the security agents were better supervised this waste of teaching man-power would not be necessary. The department assistant is another way that some of the best teachers are pulled from the class-room; they work the book-rooms or do other jobs that a school aide could be doing. I don’t blame the teachers; I blame the administrators for creating these positions. I sincerely wish the UFT would work to eliminate such a waste of man-power. Let teachers teach!!!!!
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I am well aware of the fact that sometimes these “comp” positions were created to prevent the excessing of teachers which wouldn’t be necessary if the DOE didn’t constantly short the schools of funding, especially at the last minute. As Jon Stewart attempted to explain to Ms. Rhee on the Daily Show (must see TV) last week, constantly changing what is expected of teachers creates a level of anxiety that can be demoralizing. Ultimately, when it comes time to decide upon the future of DWC, our statistics are often cited as a reason for the school staying open or being closed. If we let teachers teach, focus on teaching and not the methodology du jour, then our statistics would certainly be better! DWC has “elements” of greatness to this day. The job we do with at-risk students is incomparable but is not reflected accurately in statistics such as our four year graduation rate. Our athletic program is still one of the finest in the country never mind the city. Our honors program and myriad AP classes are glowing examples of what DWC still does so well. We have some of the best young as well more experienced teachers in the city. At the core of DWC there exists an uncommon camaraderie among our staff. Our current administration has done an amazing job battling the incompetence and constant sabotaging by the DOE. I see a light at the end of the tunnel as the mayor finally “sunsets.” I can only hope that we can stop the co-location currently being planned and instead be allowed to work to restore DWC to its rightful place as one of the top schools in the city.
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The story of deforming DeWitt Clinton could apply to many of the large high schools of New York City that have provided so much to the working class and immigrant children of New York City. It is symptomatic of how far a hoodwinked citizenry has allowed the Bloomberg administration to go in the destruction of the very structures that form the base of the middle class and a solid free, public education, in the name of reform, while turning it over to private “for profit” shysters. If this country isn’t careful, in ten years it will have found it lost itself to outside powers without a single shot ever fired, just the elimination of quality, free, public education for all. This is really the bulwark of our national defense and Bloomberg and his cronies are trying to sell it off to their buddies. Let’s hope this fine film begins the fight back and awakens the citizens of both New York and all America to return education to educators, to stop teaching to the test, and to return to teaching critical thinking and throw the “deformers” out of office. The fight to save DeWitt Clinton, is the fight for all the large high schools and in reality for all free public education.
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