Last night I led a discussion of my book at P.S. 15 in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
The community is right on the water facing Néw York harbor and the Statue of Liberty. It is cut off from the mainsream of Brooklyn by a major highway, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. It has working docks, Ikea, and a gourmet supermarket called Fairway. It also has a large number of public housing projects and great ethnic diversity. Last year, Red Hook was inundated by Hurricane Sandy, and many homes and businesses were flooded.
P.S. 15 is a gem of an elementary school that suffered a terrible tragedy some years ago. Its principal, Patrick Daly, was going to find a missing student when he got caught in gang crossfire in the projects and was killed. The school is now known as the Patrick Daly School.
The school had another problem. The NYC Department of Education had placed a charter into it a few years ago, which took away 10 classrooms. The charter founder, a billionaire, eventually built his own building and moved out a year ago.
When I arrived, I was escorted to the school library by two young students. They wore large red sashes which said in glitter “Ambassador.” They pointed out their classrooms with pride. They showed me a wall with a bulletin board called the “Wall of Hope,” where children pinned their hopeful thoughts, what they thought about when things were bad and they needed hope. They told me how much they love their teachers. I wanted to hug them.
About 80-100 parents, teachers, and community members were there. Good exchanges.
I was intoduced by Carmen Farina, a former Deputy Chancellor of the school system, a Red Hook resident, and currently a candidate for Chancellor of the system. We talked about testing; charters; building support for the school in the community; parent engagement; the Common Core; and what a wonderful school P.S. 15 is.
As it happened, there was a meeting right after ours where the local community board was deciding whether to approve a BASIS charter school. BASIS is an Arizona charter chain noted for its rigorous curriculum and high attrition. I learned today that the community board rejected BASIS.
P.S. 15 will continue building community support, spreading the word that it is a great neighborhood school with terrific teachers.
The Patrick Daly school survives. If you saw these kids, you would hug them too.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m so glad you get to do these kinds of meetings with people who live with the decisions of bureaucratic chess masters sacrificing pawns to protect their “King.” I can almost hear the pride in the voices of those students who were chosen as Ambassadors of their school.
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Dr. Ravitch,
I’m not from Red Hook, Brooklyn but from the Borough of the Bronx. Had the great opportunity to meet and greet you, and to partake of the discourse. As long as those of us who oppose the direction of education reform, speak up, fervently & often, there is hope to set a new course and do the proper thing by our children. I hope this for my grandchildren and everyone else’s, as well. Thank you for what you’ve done to enlighten and “school” all of us in the ways of deform-Reform.
Roberta Reid
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This touched my heart and made me smile. Now tell me again why the Bilionaire Boys want to dismantle neighborhood schools?
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I am so glad to see Basis school rejected. Michael and Olga Block have made a fortune with their high rigor and high attrition schools. But you’ll never know how much the Blocks make, because they created a non-profit (oxymoron, anyone?) company (books closed) to run their company. In fiscal 2011, the non-profit paid the Blocks’ company $9.8 million out of $13.7 million in total spending.
Who knew that working in education could be so financially rewarding?
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You probably don’t live in the community. WE NEED SCHOOLS AND STORES SO THEY EMPLOY OUR COMMUNITY RESIDENTS YOU IDIOT.
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Yeah for YOU. Congrats. TY.
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It was wonderful to meet you. I am one of those teachers who love and hug the children of Red Hook everyday. Thank you so much.
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Thanks for your talk at PS 15 and for your tireless work. I was honored to meet you that night, right before I hightailed it over to watch the CB6 vote down BASIS. I thought that was the end of the story, but no, no, many more chapters were to come. Tomorrow the BSA hearing (one among several I’m told) will decide the true fate of this trumped up school which appears by its website and marketing to be enrolling children, though it is not even built (well, it’s being built “modularly, off site”). The people of Red Hook are up in arms about this school coming to our neighborhood, and we are testifying at the BSA tomorrow. I’m going to quote you, from pages 171-172. Thanks for providing supporting documentation for the many egregious wrongs these companies are visiting on our precious children.
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