NYC Panel On Education Votes To Close 18 Schools; Teachers Union, Occupy Wall Street Protest (VIDEO)

A crowd of 2,000 packed into the auditorium at Brooklyn Technical High School Thursday night to protest the city's plan to close 23 schools.

CBS New York reports, however, that despite the boisterous demonstration (which often drowned out the voices of Mayor Bloomberg, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, and other speakers), the Panel for Education Policy still voted to close 18 schools and eliminate the middle school grades at five others.

"People are getting fed up," teachers union president Michael Mulgrew told The New York Daily News. "They're sick and tired of schools being blamed for the failure of the city."

A large contingent representing the teachers union were joined by Occupy Wall Street protesters who carried signs, jeered and employed the "human microphone." At times, the crowd broke into chants of "You walked out," referring to failed negotiations between the city and the union over teachers evaluations.

Chancellor Walcott blamed the teachers union for disrupting the hearing. "There are important proposals up for discussion," he said. "If all the [teachers union] wants to do is bus in Occupy Wall Street protesters ... then we will just have to work around that."

In January, Bloomberg and Walcott defended their approach. From NY1:

"We have no choice because these schools are so ineffective, you have them at single-digit proficiency levels in some places," said Bloomberg.

"This process will continue and move forward, and so as the mayor indicated, we're very serious about this," said Walcott. "This is not a threat, this is not union negotiations, labor negotiations as far as these 33 schools."

The teachers who will lose their positions at the schools will still be part of the system, because union rules keep the mayor from firing them. They will serve as substitutes, costing more than $100 million a year.

Bloomberg said it is the cost of fixing education, but the teachers union said he is destroying schools, not saving them.

Since 2002, the Bloomberg administration has closed 117 schools and opened 396, according to The Daily News.

 

 

Comments

[Melissa Irlandez]

10:23 AM on 02/13/2012

100 million to keep ineffective teachers? Really? How about using 5 million to legally disband the unions?

[Venicelady]

05:32 PM on 02/13/2012

How about blaming the incompetent bureaucrats at Tweed ( including our current Chancellor) for the failures of the NYC school system instead of blaming those that work in the trenches?

After all, many of them are responsible for making the decisions, are also paid for by your dime, and haven't effected ANY useful policies towards turning around those "failing" schools except to close them.

[Melissa Irlandez]

06:53 PM on 02/13/2012

good point!

[Paul Is Right]

05:40 PM on 02/12/2012

You have producers and then you have protesters.

[Venicelady]

06:38 PM on 02/13/2012

Yes, we should look at the students in NYC schools as raw material that must be "processed" by those "producers" , the teachers, no matter what type of raw material they are given to work with.

After all, that WAS the original function of the public schools, to take those great unwashed masses and turn them into workers for the factories of the robber barons at the beginnings of the 20th Century. Really, no different than today....

[Paul Is Right]

08:18 AM on 02/14/2012

"Robber barons." Another great misnomer.

[Francis 63]

04:53 PM on 02/12/2012

Please, not B'klyn Auto. 1959

[leyvadaniel]

03:18 PM on 02/12/2012

The single worse mistake made by New Yorkers in recent times was to give Bloomberg a third term. We are all paying dearly for that mistake.

[Venicelady]

05:33 PM on 02/13/2012

I didn't vote for him, I voted for the other guy.

A shame that Bloomberg got his third term by the slimmest of margins.

[leyvadaniel]

05:34 PM on 02/13/2012

I gave him the benefit of the doubt for awhile...

[nuff swaid]

02:40 PM on 02/11/2012

According toYoav Gonen at the NY Post the City is closing the schools because they failed "Targeted Action Plans for Improvement"---that didn't exist(But were required by the State). Will the State postpone the closings until this is cleared up?

[Justmyopinion123]

09:16 AM on 02/11/2012

If it is more money they need then maybe it is time to charge the parents more tax or a fee per child. Why should I pay the same if not more when I have no child and my neighbor has four? I am not saying I should pay no school tax but those who benefit from the system should pay more. Maybe if our government did not waste all that money in the bail outs and stimulus BS there would be more money for these schools... Also the unions are sucking the system dry...

[FlyboyDave]

03:36 AM on 02/12/2012

Yeah, doesn't work that way. And in Texas, we have this law dubbed "The Robin Hood Plan" where they take money from wealthier school districts and give it to poorer districts.

So not only are you paying for your neighbor's kids to go to school, you're paying for some kid in a different district to go to school. But it's not more money that they need.

There's an interesting article I read recently about the most expensive district in the country. It's a district in Camden, NJ. In 2008, Camden was called "The Most dangerous city in america" by the FBI. It has a 38% graduation rate.

In fact, the 10 most expensive districts are all in NY or NJ, with one in MA and one in VA. But #2 is also in NJ, but it has a 74% graduation rate. But most of the top 10 list have 50-60% rates.

Contrast those with the least expensive districts, most of which are in Utah. They all have close to 80% rates, except for one in Idaho with a 60% graduation rate.

What's the point? You can't fix schools by just dumping more money into them. They have ineffective teachers, uninvolved parents, and disinterested students.

source: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2011/06/06/School-Budgets-The-Worst-Education-Money-Can-Buy.aspx#page1

[cmbaba]

05:45 PM on 02/12/2012

Statistically, and that's what you are working with in your response, schools in districts with higher property income tax rates have more money per pupil to spend and higher success rates as measured by various state tests and students going on to college. Sure, money alone doesn't fix the problem, especially if a particular school or school system struggles to manage itself. But by and large, schools with more money to spend, in affluent communities (read privilege) do better (and I'm not even talking about private schools like you'll find on the Upper East Side in NYC where base tuition is close to $40,000 per pupil not taking in account other donations requested throughout the year). And you can't compare $40,000 per pupil in a private school with $40,000 in public - the former sits in a class with 12-20 students while the latter in a class with 25-38+. And you can be assured the architecture in the public school will be reminiscent of 1940's America or if we're lucky, up to the 1970s. Don't even get me started on available supplies...

Income/money impacts success in schools and this fact is borne out over and over again, decade after decade in empirical, scientific studies. Yet this statistical truth which most researchers acknowledge as truth, is continually ignored in service to more rhetorical, political garbage served up as school reform.

[Karissa36]

07:22 PM on 02/13/2012

I live in Camden County, NJ, which is a very large County. It is a bedroom community for Philadelphia, PA, which is just over the bridge. We have many affluent small towns in this County, a few middle class towns, and then we have the city of Camden. To call it a slum would be kind. Half the row houses are abandoned.

One education reform plan after another, has been tried in the city of Camden, for more than 25 years. Their most notable achievement was when the Camden schools were caught blatantly cheating on the State mandated assessment tests. How blatant? Their alleged scores were in second place for all cities and districts in the Southern half of NJ. When the State sent Monitors into the schools to proctor the re-taking of the tests, their scores sank like a stone to the the absolute bottom.

In other words, the educational system in Camden is so inept, they can't even cheat in a remotely plausible manner. Corruption in the public schools, combined with just plain stupidity, makes it almost impossible to deal with this problem. They vote in their own School Board, we send them astounding amounts of our tax dollars, and nothing ever changes. For awhile now, Camden parents have had the option of sending the kids to Charter schools. These schools have done slightly better, but not much, in comparison to the funds paid.

[leyvadaniel]

03:20 PM on 02/12/2012

I agree with you 100%. This is the part where I get so angry at some religious leaders fighting abortion and contraception. They are all pious about their "pro-life" (whatever that is) agenda, while the rest of us have to pay for all those children.

[Crazyknightz]

05:33 AM on 02/11/2012

this is what Occupy is about coming out for the comunity who cares about the unions the fact is there closing down schools and not fixing the real problems and blaming the teachers this is the mayors fault.

[lyttosuhnshyne]

07:33 PM on 02/10/2012

As a future educator, I feel conflicted. It's interesting to see that the Mayor does not admit that his plan failed, so what does he do? Shuts the "drop-out factories" down. These students are still gonna be there, with or without the school... Should there be MORE funding and resources to support these students, not less.

The education panel is controlled by the Mayor... They are his little puppets posing as unbiased listeners to the public.

It makes me upset that his only solution is letting it all go down.

[Venicelady]

07:28 AM on 02/11/2012

Because the Mayor is a businessman, not an educator.

Prior to becoming a teacher, I worked in the business world- the solution for ending a failing business or branch of the business is to close it down. Personnel is let go, or placed in other branches of the business.

However, schools are not businesses- schools have no "product" to sell, schools do not make profits, and teachers are not salespeople, just as students are not widgets. The Mayor apparently does not have the capacity, or WILL NOT step outside of his businessman self to view schools as educational institutions, rather than as businesses. Further, has he considered what will happen to all of those displaced students?

Frankly, imo, the Mayor is creating a bigger future problem, rather than solving it. Short term solutions, rather than long term for NYC. When his third term is up, he'll still be extremely comfortable. Can we say the same for those that have been affected by his educational policies?

I doubt it.

[Karissa36]

05:50 PM on 02/13/2012

Schools are expected to produce results. Children's educational achievements are the results. Otherwise, the schools are just babysitters. This was a good move. It gives children a new chance at a hopefully better performing school. How is it best for the children to remain in a chronically low performing school? At some point, no matter what the reason, you just have to acknowledge that a school is not educating students, and make a change. Children can't wait for years and years to receive an education. It's not about Unions. It's about children.

[Escalonz]

12:21 PM on 02/11/2012

They are his little puppets

They have been rendered little puppets to the unions by powerful union contracts that have limited their power to deal with the problem, Money has always been the solution but has not solve the problem. With money becoming more scarce today it has become paramount to resort to the present crisis with more drastic measures; that being the closing of these loosing schools.
The teachers have had it there way for years and the result is what we have finally come to today. We desperately need the good teachers and the ability to dismiss the bad ones otherwise the present situation will continue unabated........................

[Escalonz]

07:32 PM on 02/10/2012

The unions are the problem and they won't admit it as it will jeopardize their comfortable contracts which insure mediocrity. No business could survive the inability of firing or laying off people for what ever reason so why does the union think they are any different? If the people enjoy paying for inferior school systems then so be it but it will continue to cheat their own kids of inferior education.
These unionized teachers and parents shown on the video displayed exactly what is wrong by their totally emotionalized state of mind and total lack of any logic whatsoever by refusing to listen to the board members. Union thugs will most likely be next on the scene and God knows what they will do. In the mean time the city must continue to employ teachers which are not needed due to the closures.
One hyndred million dollars needlessly wasted each year for the for seeable future? Go unions.............

[CabCurious]

02:09 AM on 02/11/2012

The unions are certainly not the problem.

Anybody who has spent serious time in THESE types of schools knows that. We're talking extremely poor, high at-risk families with high levels of ELL and SPED. The system is failing these school communities.

They've been shutting down large zoned schools in NYC for 20 years and it just shifts the problem around without ever solving it.

[Venicelady]

07:58 AM on 02/11/2012

"Just shifts the problem around without ever solving it".

BINGO- Typical ruse employed by most politicians and bureaucrats to keep self perpetuating themselves and THEIR jobs, IMO.

[Escalonz]

11:54 AM on 02/11/2012

high levels of ELL and SPED. ELL&SPED? Definition please.................

[sherlockhemlock]

05:23 AM on 02/11/2012

It's your mindset that "insures mediocrity."

[Escalonz]

12:33 PM on 02/11/2012

Only from the point of view of your illogical and generalized comment.

[lhaver]

06:55 PM on 02/10/2012

Keep fighting! Schools are not for the 1% to invest in. They are for the students, teachers and parents.

[Venicelady]

06:54 PM on 02/10/2012

The Mayor has had Mayoral control of the schools for 10 YEARS.

Doesn't he feel as if HE'S to blame for the current "failing" school situations, perhaps just a LITTLE bit?

[Allthosewhowander]

12:31 PM on 02/11/2012

I often wonder this kind of thing. Politicians, superintendents, and principals always pusht the "value added" manifesto in schools. After my school has regressed for the last 2 years, under a self promoting inept principal, I would like him to justify to the staff, just what kind of value has he added to our school and the community it serves.

[Venicelady]

04:41 PM on 02/11/2012

No doubt your principal has graduated from the vaunted Leadership Academy, where the fledgling and inexperienced teachers that want to become principals are schooled in the Jack Welch (GE) business models.

[murfiani39]

05:07 PM on 02/10/2012

the schools are in trouble because there is no funding 80 mil on sesis??? mils on administrators, buildings are broken, no funding for supplies, bashing teachers, no parental support, parents have no say in schools closings. reopening charters that are not doing any better but taking the money. start to fund education and it starts with the federal government to the state then to the city.. gov cuomo cuts money then the city looses and the kids and teachers suffer. This is a very big school district it needs to be funded appropriately schools can not handle anymore cuts fix education please our kids depend on it

[madcityy]

02:32 PM on 02/10/2012

NYC DESERVES THISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS,THE WHOLE CITY IS MORONS............

[bigjakeIII]

06:34 PM on 02/10/2012

they put up with ows for 4 months now they pay.

[silverstreet]

07:28 PM on 02/10/2012

One of the richest cities in the world has no money to educate its children.

Priorities. That's what OWS is all about: priorities. The needs of people -- education, health care -- are more important than Wall Street