Despite stern and unrelenting protest from parents, educators and even Occupy Department of Education demonstrators, nearly 50 New York City public schools are slated for shutdown this summer, increasing the overall total of such targeted institutions well into triple-digits over the last decade and charting the course for what community activists are terming a “take-no-prisoners, no-holds-barred-fight” for the soul of their neighborhoods.
Hundreds upon hundreds of concerned and outraged protestors attended a raucous Panel for Educational Policy meeting recently near downtown Brooklyn where they implored and encouraged one another not to succumb to either the circumstances or the powers that be in sacrificing the collective educations and futures of their children.
“Give them the resources, give them the tutors, work with the parents to help them keep their kids accountable and we can turn these schools around,” pleaded Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz, ever leery of a process that will now see the schools shuttered, then reopened in the fall with some of the same students, but under a new name and a recast of administrators and faculty that could be as great as 50 percent.
“You’ve hired consultants who know nothing about our children to now guide them,” added NAACP local president Hazel Dukes, discouragingly pointing to statistics that show even with all the recent closings and reorganizations, only 13% of all public school minority students are graduating “college or career” ready.
“Use that money instead to give schools the resources they need,” Dukes added. “Give our kids a chance.”
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SOURCE: Blackamericaweb.com
Glenn Minnis
