"A Student Play Criticizing NY School Reform Banned"...

[YvonneCa]

...Answer Sheet, Valerie Strauss. Text of play included:


http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/school-turnaroundsreform/a-student-play-criticizing-sch.html#more

Fourteen students from two New York City schools -- Jamaica High and Queens Collegiate -- wrote an impressive play about school reform under Chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, based on the classic play “Antigone.” They were rehearsing to perform the play -- complete with music, visual projections and lights -- when they were told that their principals had decided not to allow them stage it. The play, titled “Declassified: Struggle for Existence (We Used to Eat Lunch Together,” was banned.

[madfloridian]

1. That is absolutely scary to me. Smart enough to write a play....

controversial enough to be banned.

So much for education.

I just recced this and it did not even show.

[YvonneCa]

2. The play is pretty...

...insightful. ;)

[madfloridian]

5. Yes, it is.

I just read the script at WP. What a shame.

[toastbutter]

3. That's lame

I'd love to hear the principals try to defend this.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Fascism Anyone??? See #11

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm

[Hannah Bell]

6. that *is* an impressive play, working "antigone" into a modern-day story about school reform.

very clever. and literate.

students write a play demonstrating more than a passing knowledge of the greek classics (sophocles) but it's critical of the ptb & we can't have that.

yep, school deform is working.

great lessons the nyc DOE is teaching.

[Angry Dragon]

7. No one hears the cry in the wilderness

The Powers That Be care not for the suffering of the poor, homeless, the down trodden.
If it can not fill their pockets with coin then what purpose can it serve??

[Gabi Hayes]

8. I just saw that at this very interesting link:

http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/

I'm amazed that WaPost link is still extant, and hasn't gone the way of Dan Froomkin's political blog



perimeterprimate contains two others under the same aegis

http://thebroadreport.blogspot.com/


this one opens the lid on the Green Dot/Los Angeles Parents Union/Eli Broad connection, as well as the insidious parent trigger:

http://thebroadreport.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html

here's another from the Primate Link, which is a good one to counter the inevitable 'teacher kills, eats baby in fron of class' threads:

http://charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com/

[Starry Messenger]

9. k&r

[Tripod]

10. K&R

[Tripod]

11. Oops, double post.

[Rex]

12. My irony meter is off the chart!

Hmm to bury the principals alive or not, is the question.

[Starry Messenger]

13. "left out for the birds to feed on"

I finally got home to my computer and read the whole thing (I was on DU from my phone, sad but true)...hot damn! I hope that the play gets performed somewhere else with a large audience. That gave me chills.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. "Or maybe you are failing the school."

Ya THINK?!??!

This is excellent. Kudos to the students!!!

[blindpig]

15. k&r

[Canuckistanian]

16. k&r

[Reader Rabbit]

17. Maybe a private theater will provide them with a venue.

Here in Oregon, a school banned the drama department's play about bullying. The Portland Center for the Performing Arts offered one of their venues for the kids to put on the play. I think they only did a few performance of it, but they were all sold out. It was a fantastic play.

[Jkid]

19. Here in Oregon, a school banned the drama department's play about bullying.

Probably they don't want to be attracted of any bad publicity if someone actually discovered real school bullying.

[Reader Rabbit]

24. Admin claimed it was banned due to the language.

The play contained a number of realistic but socially, racially, and sexually derogatory statements in the bullies' dialogue about their victims. In context, there shouldn't have been a problem with the vocabulary, but a few parents complained about the "racist/sexist/inappropriate words," so the school administration did the usual cave-in to a small but vocal minority of parents.

[madfloridian]

18. Kick. Needs more attention

[Yavin4]

20. Someone On Broadway Needs To Stage This Play

And put some top actors in it. Nothing will shame the school system more than doing this.

[pscot]

21. K&R

[Jeffersons Ghost]

22. K&R, I like this line:

"The decision to ban the play shows a fear of upsetting authority -- not exactly the civics lesson you'd want kids to learn in an American school."

[madfloridian]

23. Here's some background on the 2 schools....from 2008

http://www.susanohanian.org/outrage_fetch.php?id=509

From a letter from Class Size Matters to a commissioner. Scathing.

"According to the New York City Department of Education Website, Queens Collegiate is starting up with 81 students in the fall. They will receive $884,544 to run their school for 2008-09. Meanwhile, Jamaica is projected to have 1,484 pupils and was slated to receive an allocation of $11,636,267 this year. After extensive lobbying by the Jamaica High School community, our budget has recently been increased to $12,263,497. While we acknowledge the Chancellor and his financial officers for increasing our allocation, a huge per pupil spending gap between Jamaica and Queens Collegiate remains.

When the supplemental allotment is included, Jamaica, a traditional comprehensive high school that has many more high needs students, will be funded at $8,264 per pupil while the new selective school, Queens Collegiate, will be funded at $10,920 per pupil. This means that per student expenditures will be $2,656 greater at Queens Collegiate compared to Jamaica High School. This amounts to 32% higher spending for a Queens Collegiate student. Even taking into consideration start-up costs for the new school, this still adds up to separate and unequal schools within one building.

The promotional literature being produced by Queens Collegiate advertises lower class sizes. If Jamaica had a per pupil allocation similar to Queens Collegiate, we could easily lower class sizes to under 23 instead of having class sizes as high as 34, the level that we are currently projecting; we certainly could improve the student to counselor ratio and enhance other support services as well.

Despite the clear need for smaller classes, and the new state mandate to achieve them, particularly in low-performing schools, Jamaica High School is being denied the funding that would make this possible. In addition, valuable classroom space that could be utilized to provide room for this is being taken away from Jamaica to house the new school

[Hannah Bell]

26. there's a lot of backstory on jamaica. klein had been trying to close it for some

time, they got a court order to stop it, nyc ed came back by steering students away from jamaica so they didn't get enough headcount (therefore funding).

a couple of radical unionists at jamaica.

[Odin2005]

25. I got detention for trying to do a paper supporting the legalization of pot.

This shit pisses me off!