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."
>
>
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>