NYC Educator: What About the War on PUBLIC Schools?

NYC Educator: What About the War on PUBLIC Schools?:

What About the War on PUBLIC Schools?

Everywhere you turn it's poor Eva Moskowitz. How can mean old Bill de Blasio treat her so shabbily? After all, the woman has to scrape by on 499K per annum, and that's only 99K more than President Obama earns. It was certainly poor judgment for Carmen Fariña to say the kids were on their own, but she's since bent over backwards to accommodate.

Yet for 12 years I've watched school after school close. I don't think there's a single comprehensive high school left in the Bronx. All over the city neighborhood schools have disappeared, replaced by little academies, or charter schools. When one school fell, they'd move the high-needs kids to another, and soon it was a game of dominoes.

When Sandy hit my town, we gathered in the local high school to hear our mayor, and a lawyer from New Orleans told us about handling reluctant insurance companies. Do you suppose some neighborhood will gather at the new Michael Bloomberg School of Basket Weaving to discuss some community issue?

I've faced Mayor Bloomberg's war on public schools. Like hundreds of other community members, I spoke at PEP meetings. I spoke at school closing hearings. I watched a two-minute stop watch tick the seconds away as I spoke truth to Mayor Bloomberg's minions, who ignored me, parents, clergy, students, politicians, and countless other teachers. I don't recall any news reporters