[lbo-talk] Intersection of class, race, and philanthropists in the New York City public schools.

joanna 123hop at comcast.net
Tue Jun 6 20:50:26 PDT 2006


This is one of the most sickening things going on right now. I see it happening in Oakland. It's the hijacking of public moneys to support elite institutions. Its the claim that public money belongs to the best and brightest and if there isn't enough to go around, too bad.

Fuck the meritocracy! May they choke on their ass kissing barf!

Yes, I know I'm out of line and over the edge.

Joanna

Ira Glazer wrote:


> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/06/nyregion/06school.html?pagewanted=print
>
>
> June 6, 2006
>
> Parents of the Gifted Resist a Call to Share a School Building
>
> By Elissa Gootman
>
> There they were, parents and students from the New Explorations Into
> Science, Technology and Math school, banging drums and shaking maracas
> in front of Cipriani Wall Street to disrupt the black-tie benefit
> where Schools Chancellor JoelI.Klein was speaking.
>
> There they were again, hundreds representing NEST, as the school is
> known, passionately chanting "Save the NEST" in front of City Hall.
> And there they were, hoisting "Don't Tread on Our School" signs on a
> wooded patch of East Hampton near the Ross School, a private school
> founded by Courtney Sale Ross, the wealthy widow of a former Time
> Warner chairman.
>
> In the two months since parents at NEST learned of the city's plans to
> place the Ross Global Academy, a new charter school also founded by
> Ms. Ross, in their building on the Lower East Side, they have filed a
> lawsuit, hired a publicist and printed buttons and postcards. The city
> has not budged.
>
> Now the battle over NEST, which has about 730 students, has become a
> tale about the intersection of class, race, parents, politicians and
> philanthropists in the New York City public schools. It pits the
> mostly middle-class parents who have nurtured NEST, a
> kindergarten-through-12th-grade school for gifted and talented
> children, against Ms. Ross, a multimillionaire with homes in the
> Hamptons and on the Upper East Side whose supporters say she is
> creating a school to help the poor.
>
> "They're trying to destroy our school," cried Arianna Gil, 12, a NEST
> seventh grader, at the Cipriani rally, as she handed out gift bags
> embossed in silver lettering with the NEST logo and filled with
> publicity materials. She warned of "complete chaos" if the Ross
> charter school moves in.
>
> NEST parents and staff say that there is no room in their building for
> the Ross school, and that its arrival would force them to increase
> class size and cut some foreign-language classes and cherished
> programs like single-sex classes for math and science. But the city's
> Department of Education says that there is room for nearly twice as
> many students as currently attend, that the sharing arrangement would
> last only two years and that many parents have lost sight of the fact
> that NEST is a public school.
>
> As the city has created dozens of new schools, many have been forced
> to cohabitate, despite opposition. Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott said
> he respected the NEST parents' "voicing their issues" but added,
> "We're going to have to agree to disagree."
>
> Within the school system, NEST is an enclave. One recent morning, the
> walls were lined with photography projects and student-produced
> restaurant menus — in French. Kindergartners played in the courtyard,
> while inside, a high school English teacher in a blazer gave an
> impassioned lesson on how to write a formal essay. The PTA office
> buzzed with activity.
>
> According to city statistics, 52.6 percent of NEST students in the
> 2004-5 school year were white, compared with 15.1 percent in public
> school citywide. At NEST, 18.9 percent of students qualified for free
> lunch, compared with 57.4 percent citywide. The school admits students
> based on factors including test scores, interviews, classwork and
> observed play sessions.
>
> NEST's principal since before it opened in 2001, Celenia Chevere, has
> helped found several other notable public schools. NEST parents have
> donated or raised more than $600,000 to refurbish the building at 111
> Columbia Street, formerly home to a failing middle school.
>
> Trying to keep the Ross school out, parents have been aided not only
> by their children, but also by Sheldon Silver
> <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/sheldon_silver/index.html?inline=nyt-per>,
> the speaker of the State Assembly, who describes the school as a jewel
> of his district.
>
> As part of an assignment, students wrote letters to this reporter,
> warning of dirty hallways, overcrowded classes and a Ross takeover of
> the NEST cafeteria, with its round tables and purple neon sign.
>
> "I don't understand why she has to ruin one of the best schools in New
> York City," Alyse Hunt wrote of Ms. Ross, whose husband, Steven J.
> Ross, was the architect of the merger of Time Inc. and Warner
> Communications. "This whole situation right now is already disturbing
> our education by having to go to rallies and making posters while we
> are supposed to be learning."
>
> Both sides in the struggle cry elitism. Even before NEST opened, some
> politicians and community activists complained that it screened out
> poor, black and Hispanic students and was not serving the
> neighborhood; only a third of NEST's students live in the local school
> district.
>
> "The NEST school wants to operate as a private exclusive school, and
> it is not willing to accept what is a reasonable ask of them as part
> of existing on taxpayer resources," said Garth Harries, chief
> executive of the department's Office of New Schools. "I think it's
> about a school community that has a disproportionate share of public
> resources fighting to maintain control and exclusive access."
>
> In a letter to NEST parents, Mr. Harries said he suspected that staff
> members at the school had violated admissions rules by scrambling to
> admit an extra 65 students for next September to beef up enrollment
> and lay claim to more space. The department has called for an inquiry
> by the special commissioner of investigation for the city schools.
> NEST officials have denied the charge.
>
> NEST staff and parents say their school's plight is an example of the
> chancellor's disregard for the middle class.
>
> Emily Armstrong, a mother who helped start NEST, described the Ross
> school in a letter to Mr. Harries as a "vanity charter school" and
> accused Ms. Ross of having toured NEST "as if she were shopping for
> classrooms at Bloomingdale's."
>
> "It was sickening to me and the other parents present to see you and
> other Department of Education employees kowtowing and kissing up to a
> Hamptons billionaire," Ms. Armstrong wrote. "If D.O.E.'s goal is to
> drive the middle class away from the public school system, they are
> doing a damn good job."
>
> Yesterday, for the latest hearing in the PTA's lawsuit, filed in State
> Supreme Court, Judge Robert D. Lippmann's small courtroom was filled.
> This time, the NEST parents were joined by the platinum-haired Ms.
> Ross, dressed in an elegant taupe pantsuit, and a few dozen parents
> whose children had been admitted, through a blind lottery, to the Ross
> charter school. Some arrived in a bus arranged by Ms. Ross's aides.
>
> Brooks R. Burdette, a lawyer for the charter school, drew gasps from
> NEST parents when he said of the charter school parents, "They are
> some of the more colorful faces in your courtroom."
>
> "What am I? What am I?" an outraged NEST parent, who is
> Indian-American, said during a break in the proceedings.
>
> Ms. Ross says she has spent tens of thousands of dollars recruiting
> "underserved" students; according to her staff, of the first 128 to
> enroll, 7 percent are white.
>
> In an interview last week at the airy SoHo offices of the Ross
> Institute, a nonprofit organization that Ms. Ross hopes will help
> start other charter schools around the country, Ms. Ross, 58,
> accompanied by her publicist, said Ross Global would be "a school
> where each child is going to have a chance to discover their passions
> and have a better quality of life."
>
> "I was optimistic we could work it out," she said. "And you know what,
> when school starts next year, I'm still optimistic."
>
>
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