"Went to the Panel for Educational Policy meeting in the Bronx last night. Noticed a few things:
1. “Mismanagement” may be a good description of how the DoE operates, but it makes a lousy chant.
I think mismanagement is far too weak to describe much of what they do… but listening to the smaller stuff at the PEP, mismanagement seems present in all the little stuff. School closings? Intentionally destructive policy, meant to harm kids, hurt teachers, disrupt neighborhoods. They are not closing schools out of mismanagement, but mismanagement pervades the entire process all the same."
I think mismanagement is far too weak to describe much of what they do… but listening to the smaller stuff at the PEP, mismanagement seems present in all the little stuff. School closings? Intentionally destructive policy, meant to harm kids, hurt teachers, disrupt neighborhoods. They are not closing schools out of mismanagement, but mismanagement pervades the entire process all the same."
I bet some linguist or speech person could explain how the stress pattern (short-long-short-short) makes a lousy chant. Bad rhythm. Hard to understand. Just not punchy.
2. Closing schools is on the agenda. Even if the PEP pretends it is not.
The audience was loaded with kids, faculty, parents from closing schools. Columbus had the most. But Monroe Academy of Business and Law was there. SCRL. New Day. A bunch of kids and a few faculty from Global Enterprise. FDA. And school closings were a major part of public comments. They seeped in during the middle of the meeting. And they were all that came up at the end. School after school, student, teacher, parent, principal got up to challenge the DoE. A few challenged “school closing as policy” – most made the case for keeping their own school open.
Two UFT VPs spoke,