Chapter 41: Me Myself and I

Me, Myself and I

Chapter 41: Covering Your Ass in the DOE

The Coverage

On Monday of this week - March 11, 2013, for future reference - the PEP - Puppets for Embarrassing Policy - voted to close the school in which I've been teaching for the last 9 years.  They voted in Brooklyn Tech, of course - what could be more obvious - to close a school in the Bronx.  In spite of a vociferous crowd of more thn 500 and a parade of adorable children aged 6 - 14 pleading for their schools, the members of the PEP voted to close 22 schools across the city with one fell stroke.  The vote of 8 to 4 reflected the knee-jerk puppet voting block appointed by Bloomberg and blinded by the Bloomberg money blinders.  The best thing about the meeting was the fact that Deputy Chancelor for School Closings, Marc Sternberg, was booed enthusiastically for every lie he tried to tell.

My school's report card grade over the last 6 years went like this:

A ... B ... C ... C  ... D ... CLOSED

During this time there was virtually no change in faculty or administration.  There were 2 signifiant changes, however, that were the direct cause of our demise - and I use the term "demise" strictly by the bogus definition of the Bloomberg Reform School movement.  Let's not firget that the people who what to close a school are the very people who are "grading" it.  That's like putting Bernie Madoff in charge of the Federal Reserve.

CHANGE ONE
As pointed on in an article in the UFT newspaper of Feb. 28, 2013 (page 3), the school's report card grade plumetted as the DOE poured special needs students (non-English speakers, Special Ed. students, over-age / under-credited kids)  into the school at an ever increasing rate:

Jonathan Levin HS got an A on its School Progress report in 2007-2008, a B in 2008-2009, and then two C's and a D.  Over that same period, its peer index - a composite measure of "need" - worsened, declining from 2.3 in 2006 to 1.35 in 2001.  The citywide average is 2.16

I won't belabor the obvious.  For, example, no school can graduate in 4 years a student who enters high school as a junior speaking no English.




The Coverage

CHANGE TWO
The so-called "Common Core State Standards."