NYC to close three more underpreforming schools.

[Progressivism]

http://ny1.com/8-queens-news-content/109859/city-to-close-three-more-underperforming-schools

City officials announced Thursday that three more schools will be closing due to poor performance, in addition to four schools selected a day before.

The latest schools on the chopping block are Jamaica High School in Queens, the School for Community Research and Learning in the Bronx and Academy of Collaborative Education in Manhattan. The latter opened in 2006.

Wow, I moved back to NYC less than a year ago, and I am currently in the Ninth Grade.I was assigned to Jamaica High School based on my zone and the fact that the nearest high school was full.After doing some research, I decided to homeschool instead.I personally think these kind of schools should be improved by giving support to its feeder schools,instead of closing it.

Edit:They also closed a school where three Nobel Prize winners,including Richard Feynman, went to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Rockaway_High_School
http://ny1.com/8-queens-news-content/46802/list-of-failing-city-schools-drops-to-record-low
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/queens/2007/12/07/2007-12-07_far_rockaway_high_to_close_its_doors.html
http://www.farrockaway.com/farrockawayhighschoolclosing.html

There is a long list of FRHS graduates who should be remembered. Baruch Samuel Blumberg won the 1976 Nobel Prize in medicine. Richard Feynman won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1976. He was involved with the Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic bombs and ended World War II.
Burton Richter won the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics. There are not many high schools that can claim three men who won Nobel Prizes in the sciences. Now, there is one less.

[NV Whino]

1. What constitites "under performing"?

And why not work to improve rather than close them and overburden other schools? Bad decision, I think.

And welcome to DU!

[tonysam]

2. If Bloomberg/Klein have their way, the overaged teachers from those closed schools

will be fired, seniority and tenure be damned.

[alp227]

3. And after they're closed, the state will build some more prison cells

Because the kids will have nothing to do, so chances are they'd have to be sheltered to keep society safe, right? Otherwise, the affected students can find a job as a corrections officer, I guess.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. What's an "underpreforming" school?

[FBaggins]

5. That's the $64,000 question.

Though let's not pretend there is no such thing.

In this case the mayor has already announced that he intends to close 10% of city schools in the coming years... that sounds more like "failing" is an arbitrary decision to meet a goal.

Now... on the face from 1000 miles away it looks like some of these first seven ARE "failing". Can't attract students... no teachers report good order/discipline... only 1/4 of the students even feel safe in school... and the graduation rate is not only horrific, but it substantially below the other schools in the immediate area (making it more likely that it's the school and not the demographics) - all after years of trying to fix these problems.

OTOH, some of the schools are only a few years old. You can't possibly judge a school after such a short time and it would be an unjustifiable waste of funds to go through all of the capital outlays and then give up three years later.

Why... it would be as ridiculous as taking an otherwise solid-performing young girl and threatening to label her special needs just because she failed a math test. :-)

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Look very closely at that word: 'underPREforming'

Kind of ironic in a thread on an education topic, don't you think?

[FBaggins]

7. I get a little kick out of that too.

:-)

That spec-ed thread had a number of teachers who made some entertaining errors too... but, while it gives me a little tickle, it really isn't fair to make a big deal about it because this format is "chatty" and not formal. I make tons of typos and can't even remember that DU has a little spell check button.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. Which special ed thread?

[FBaggins]

9. The one where we went round and round

with you insisting that there is not spec ed funding formula that provides funding based on the number of kids labeled disabled.