Stop School Closings! Stop the Drive to Privatize!
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closings of 17 publicschools. Soon the DOE plans to place many more so-
k.Since 2002, when the mayor was given control of public schools, more than 90 had already been shut downwhile ignoring the democratic voice and opposition of parents, community, students and school staff.Despite the fact that targeted schools, such as Maxwell High, have made marked improvements whileovercoming overcrowding and other imposed negative conditions, the City does not accept its responsibilityfor its failure to improve our public schools. It is the City that has failed to provide necessary funding,resources, facilities (e.g. libraries), adequate services for high-needs students (e.g. English Language Learnersand Special Education) and smaller class sizes. Instead, the City exacerbates the problems of ourneighborhood public schools with its policies of school closings. The resulting overflow of students, who donot find seats in newly established select smaller schools, must be absorbed by other already overcrowded
schools farther
a potential set-up for
Thus, like the domino-
for their closings. School by school, the City fulfills its long-term goal of turning-over all our public schools tothe private sector with charters.
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ls follows a racist pattern --charters are invading, dismantling and taking over public schools that service predominantly Black and Latinostudents.The discredited high stakes testing and school rating formulas continue to be unfairly used by the DOE to rateand punish school and teachers. But the City carries on with its contradictory and narrow-test-basedperformance reviews. To close schools and to find space for the private-charter takeovers of public schools,the City will
wishes, just like it did with Maxwell High. In otherinstances (such as with PS 241 and PS 123 of Harlem), the
-space formulas to declarethat schools have extra space, such a specialty and libraryrooms, for the imposition of a charter school there. Yearafter year, these charters slowly invade and demand toexpand with the DOE willingly complying by grantingcharter expansion rights. Charters eventually willconsume the entire public school building.The City, with it flawed school-closings policies, deflects its
sly, with mediahype, blames teachers AND THE TEACHER UNION for the
trash our valuedneighborhood public schools along with important longestablished school-community support networks andtraditions. With school closings, many educators
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