School Closures Threaten to Destroy Neighborhoods, This Time in Cleveland | janresseger

School Closures Threaten to Destroy Neighborhoods, This Time in Cleveland | janresseger

School Closures Threaten to Destroy Neighborhoods, This Time in Cleveland

Right now in Cleveland, Ohio we can watch the latest battle in a war that has spread across the nation’s big city school districts.  It is a fight about the definition of a high school—a misunderstanding between the technocrats who have imposed something called “portfolio school reform” school choice and the families who want their children to have a high school experience in a neighborhood where they feel comfortable.

Cleveland’s Collinwood neighborhood was defined through much of the twentieth century by the huge New York Central railroad yards. And today’s high school battle in Cleveland is between a mayoral appointed school board and the families, teachers, and community residents who understand a neighborhood high school tradition defined by the football rivalry between the Collinwood Railroaders and the Glenville Tarblooders. Glenville, one of two remaining comprehensive high schools in Cleveland, is the school into which today’s mayoral-appointed board of education is folding Collinwood.

Portfolio School reform was formalized in Cleveland in December of 2012 in a four-year transformation plan that emphasized school choice, innovation, and student-based budgeting. High school in Cleveland is all about school choice—with the money following the students who choose a particular school. Cleveland’s high school choice book advertises small schools featuring specialties:

• New School Models—early college, international high school, aerospace & maritime, college & career, and environmental studies.
• Academies—business careers, tech, and environmental studies.
• New Tech—four schools which are part of a national New Tech Network.
• Two comprehensive high schools.

Cleveland’s high school choice guide identifies 18 of the high schools across the these categories as innovative. These schools are designated by their specialization: early college, CONTINUE READING: School Closures Threaten to Destroy Neighborhoods, This Time in Cleveland | janresseger

Debunking the Myths of School Closures | Schott Foundation for Public Education - http://schottfoundation.org/node/3762