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Saturday, June 11, 2011

Queens Teacher: Separate and Unequal

Queens Teacher: Separate and Unequal

Separate and Unequal

Walcott’s Separate but Unequal School System

By Billy Wharton, Bronx County Independent Examiner

While the new New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott was busy denouncing the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) yesterday, charter schools continued their rampage through the City’s educational system. Two well established day care centers in Park Slope, Brooklyn are being muscled out of their current location in order to temporarily house the Brooklyn Prospect Charter School. Nearly simultaneously, Walcott was providing cover for 19 other charters who wish to open up similar turf battles throughout the city.

Brooklyn Prospect Charter School is a veteran of the school building takeover. Charter advocates prefer the more benign “co-location,” but the results are the same – a privately owned publicly funded charter comes in and a public school either is moved out or squeezed into an even smaller space. Brooklyn Prospect carried out such