Three parents at PS 25 in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, are suing to stop the closure of one of the city’s highest performing elementary schools. The Department of Education said the school was too small.
“The lawsuit hinges on a state law that gives local education councils the authority to approve any changes to school zones. Since P.S. 25 is the only zoned elementary school for a swath of Bedford-Stuyvesant, the department’s plans would leave some families with no zoned elementary school dedicated to educating them, forcing students to attend other district schools or enter the admissions lottery for charter schools.”
Question: Why didn’t DOE and local superintendent recruit additional students to 25?
Next question: will the building be emptied and handed over to another charter?
Next question: Why are charter operators focused on killing public schools in black communities, leaving them with no choice but a charter?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s ridiculous that the parents have to sue.
Racism is well and alive in Ameri-DUH.
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It seems that racism and greed go hand-in-hand to the bank?
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Why is SA allowed to stay open with 73 children but the DOE wants to close this small, successful school? Even the CEC could have recruited but are agreeing with closure. Something is very wrong here.
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For those interested, it is helpful to look at the entirety of the facts to understand why this decision MAY have been made.
I don’t think it is helpful to immediately cast the worst motives to someone without looking at all the facts.
If you run a school system, you can’t please everyone. Sometimes you make decisions simply to do the least harm.
There are plenty of overcrowded schools in NYC. This one slated for closure happens to be one that isn’t. I checked the data for last year on the NY State data website, and there were 17 in Kindergarten, 13 in first grade, 21 in second. Even the pre-k was undersubscribed at 13 students.
And if the statistics in the article linked above are correct, there are now fewer than 16 per grade on average.
So if the DOE is faced with a decision as to which school to close, is it really so terrible to close the one with the fewest students instead of spending money on a marketing and PR campaign to attract new students when attempts to do so in past years have not been particularly successful?
Did the fact that the DOE is obligated BY LAW to provide space for charters play into this closure? I’m sure it did. But what are the options? Making room in an overcrowded school and having twice as many students in worse conditions so that 16 per grade can have very small classes?
I also find it very hypocritical when supporters say “this is the ‘best’ school because of test scores and so superior to all the other schools with worse test scores” so we should stay open”.
This public school had a total of 48 students in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade taking state tests last year — or 16 per grade. They achieved a remarkable 50% passing rates, which is excellent and their teachers should be commended. And maybe it should be used as evidence that small class size does work. But does that really make them superior to PS 21 in the same district, with “only” a 33% passing rate but which had 3 times as many students TOTAL passing those exams?
And is the argument that “failing” schools in District 16 should be the ones to close because their principal and teachers are inferior, even if they seem to have more parents choosing to send their kids to that school?
This isn’t about de Blasio “killing public schools in black communities”. This is about making choices when someone is going to pay the cost. It is one school. And if you read the non-stop NY Daily News editorials and op eds – including one today – you will find that the current DOE has not gone out of their way to give charters what they want. But they do have to obey the law set in Albany.
And perhaps if the CEC knew they could close this school versus another with twice the enrollment, they chose this one. That doesn’t necessary mean the local CEC wanted to help charters. It could just mean they are considering ALL students and trying to make the best out of a bad situation in which Albany demands that NYC pay for charters.
If the DOE is forced to find a place for a charter, what is the reasoning behind putting a lot of efforts to convince parents to come to a school? To prevent it from closing? So that another school that already has more students closes instead? Should closures be based on test scores and not where there are large numbers of students and families who are already at the school instead of small numbers?
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Wasn’t “small schools” the excuse used to close big schools?
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Yeah, but I think that just meant cramming a bunch of “small schools” into the same building that housed the big school.
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Yes I know. That’s what happened to my school. It was a succesful 2000 student school turned into a catastrophic 4 small school building.
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“Why are charter operators focused on killing public schools in black communities, leaving them with no choice but a charter?”
This question may have to be addressed in a lawsuit. We have seen a similar pattern in other cities. The public schools get closed, and parents have no public school option. We have seen this in Newark, Philly and Chicago among others. This is also a typical tactic of gentrification designed to push black families into other neighborhoods to clear a path for developments. I am sure developers are salivating over the prospect of acquiring lovely brownstones with original features.
How can a state offer black families only charters? Since charters are privately owned, the state is not offering free “public” education to them as required by law. A charter is not a public school so maybe it is time to challenge this treatment in court. The second part of the discussion relates to civil rights. How can the state treat black children differently from white ones. If suburban students are entitled to free public education, why are minority children being treated differently? The NAACP should get their lawyers to challenge this unfair practice.
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I really hope they can keep this school open. The DOE will tell wealthier communities that they are entitled to their zoned school, but then moves to close the lone zoned school in a poorer community. It’s about time someone turn the tables on the charter industry and its “civil rights” claims. The same thing is happening in Harlem. The neighborhood is littered with charter schools, while zoned public schools are being consolidated/closed. I don’t understand how the DOE can maintain s straight face while pursuing such blatantly discriminatory policies.
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Although the zoned schools in wealthy communities are bursting at the seams, well over capacity. At least in Manhattan.
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I don’t see how that’s relevant. Charter schools with advertising budgets aren’t opening in wealthier districts.
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Wealthier districts are more involved. How many students opt out of destructive & pointless standardized tests in NYC. Very few. Charter operators cannot fool wealthier & better informed parents.
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Beth,
Oh yes, charters certainly are opening in wealthier districts. Some wealthier districts have more charters than the poor ones do. And if charters had their way, those wealthier district would have even more.
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segregation perpetrated in many ways: Big funding can now be had for separating kids through test-score-punitive “charters” where almost all students in a newly created school are not White, to Big Money being made available to those willing to create “magnet” type charters where almost all students carefully selected in are White…etc. and etc.
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@NYC Parent – That may very well be true, but I don’t see that where I live. However, when you go to Harlem, it’s just charters everywhere.
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@Beth,
I agree, charters are far more prevalent in poor communities.
It’s really hard to address this because of course, many families who are in the charters are happy to have a school that can eliminate the kids that detract from their own children’s education. Aside from the actual classroom experience, a charter can save an enormous amount of money if they have no financial responsibility for students who they can convince to leave. And charters get free reign in their methods to “convince” parents to pull their children.
And that makes it harder for parents who believe in public schools since those public schools now have a disproportionate number of students who are difficult and expensive. So their ability to address the needs of students who don’t need as much is likely going to get shortchanged because so many students need so much more.
That was the intention of the charter movement — to privatize the education of the easiest (and cheapest) to teach children and abandon the rest to public schools. They need a tipping point of ruthless and unethical charters to do it. There are some charters that don’t do this but eventually they will go the way of public schools.
I’d like to see the DOE put enormous resources into public schools that makes them so appealing that most parents would abandon their charters to attend. If the DOE had unlimited money, and in my perfect world, I’d announce that every child in Harlem who attended a neighborhood elementary school would be assigned his own private tutor who would work with that child every day to either help bring him up to speed or offer advanced learning for the kids who wanted it. I’d throw money so that every one of those public schools was gussied up to look shiny and new and their bathrooms and public spaces kept spotless. I’d announce that no K class would be more than 20 kids and no class after that would be more than 24. And there would be a teacher and and aide in every class and every possible extra you can imagine – instrumental and vocal music and group performances. Theater and science programs. Foreign language instruction. Problem kids would be taken out of the classroom to special cheerful rooms with psychologists and teachers who could address their issues and welcomed back with open arms to their classrooms as long as they were not disruptive.
That’s my ideal public elementary school and if the current underused public schools in Harlem were given that, I suspect that parents would flock to them. And maybe charters would be abandoned just as quickly as many public schools were.
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On the nose! Usually there is real estate involved in the decision. Look at the current NTA case in Chicago https://southsideweekly.com/cps-closing-nta-chinatown-south-loop-pdna-high-school/
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All of this on Bill DeBlasio and Carmen Farina’s watch, I hasten to point out.
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“All of this”??
Closing the school with the smallest population instead of one with the largest? Have you really seen de Blasio and Farina rushing to close schools? I haven’t. What do you think the renewal program was all about? Was it wrong to pour huge resources and money into failing public schools? Should he have just closed them and left PS 25 open instead?
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Huh?
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I just found the “all of this” to be very vague.
What exactly do you think happened on their watch?
A single school that has fewer than 16 students per grade was closed while other schools that perform worse but have more students remained open?
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