NYC Public School Parents: The current sad state of Murry Bergtraum High School - the result of 10 years of DOE failure

NYC Public School Parents: The current sad state of Murry Bergtraum High School - the result of 10 years of DOE failure:

The current sad state of Murry Bergtraum High School - the result of 10 years of DOE failure

John Elfrank-Dana

John Elfrank-Dana has been a teacher and chapter leader at Murry Bergtraum High School for many years, as well as an adjunct professor at Fordham University.  He blogs at Labor's Lessons where this was originally posted.

Murry Bergtraum High School has been in the press yet again. This time in response to a NY Post article two weeks ago about the school's so-called "Blended Learning" program. The article today was about a bunch of letters students wrote  in defense of the program and school's administration, but many were riddled with grammatical errors. It makes one wonder how the administration let this happen, as we know it was orchestrated from the school's principal-appointed Brand Manager.

Why weren't the letters at least proofread before they were sent to Chancellor Fariña as well as the NY Postreporter, Susan Edelman? This madness is symptomatic of the larger failure of education reform in the city.

It's important that we not forget the background that got us here.

Set up for Failure: Murry Bergtraum has been a school that has been set up for failure since the early days of the Bloomberg administration. High academic and social need students were dumped on the school throughout the closing process of other schools. Bloomberg wanted the small schools to have a good shot at success so students whose family had no plan were sent to large schools like Bergtraum and Washington Irving.Diane Ravitch cogently explains how Bergtraum has become a nerve ending for the failed Bloomberg and Klein educational policy.

Lack of Security: In the last three and a half years the school has been under siege from