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For starters, 1,500 make their voices heard
Feb 4, 2010 3:42 PM
“Bloomberg and Klein are businessmen and do not really have the interest of children at heart,” said Chapter Leader Ebony Russell (left) from PS 371, a District 75 school in Brooklyn. With co-workers Freda Simpson (center), Barbara Staggers (right) and others, Russell turned out “to support our colleagues. District 75 schools aren’t in danger, but with the DOE, you never know who will be next.” Russell is steamed that the endangered schools were not given a chance by providing them with necessary resources. “The DOE can’t be run like just some city agency — we deal with kids!”
Chanting “instruction not destruction” and “keep schools open,” more than 1,500 students, parents, educators and community advocates rallied against school closings outside Brooklyn Technical HS on Jan. 26.
The rally was a final show of force before the Panel for Educational Policy, meeting inside the school, was set to vote on the Department of Education’s proposal to close 19 “failing” schools.
UFT President Michael Mulgrew did not mince words in his condemnation of the DOE’s plans.
“We cannot continue with an educational policy that closes schools instead of fixing them,” he told the crowd to thunderous applause. “Our job is to help, not harm.”
Mulgrew continued, “The DOE should be asking how it can help schools succeed, not showing up when they are on the verge of closing.”
Noting the size of the rally, Mulgrew said that the community and teachers had spoken and that the mayor and other elected officials should listen.
“What you have done over the last month and a half — you have made your voices heard,” he told the crowd.
Mulgrew and a team of UFTers canvassed the city in the last six weeks, offering schools that wanted it help in making their case, organizing rallies and speaking out against what they described as DOE mismanagement and failed policies.
Several allies from labor and politics joined them for the campaign’s final push.
Borough Presidents Scott Stringer of Manhattan and Marty Markowitz of Brooklyn told the crowd that their representatives on the panel would vote against the closures.
The DOE should “pretend that these schools are charters” and give them the funds they need to succeed, Markowitz said. “Our kids are worth every dollar.”
Richard Skibins, a health teacher at Brooklyn’s PS 123, made this poster when he decided that Joel Klein wasn’t healthy for kids and schools. “Under Klein, real education has been replaced by nonstop test prep and the schools being closed — with no rhyme or reason — are being replaced with charter schools, which have the ability to choose the students they want,” Skibins said.
Stringer, taking issue with the insularity of the DOE’s decision-making process, said, “If all stakeholders are part of constructing our schools, how can one person, Joel Klein, start closing them?”
Stringer said that his office requested documentation of the DOE’s criteria for closing schools, but still had not received it.
City Comptroller John Liu promised to use his office to hold the mayor and the schools chancellor accountable for their actions.
“We need to actually educate kids and stop playing musical chairs,” he said. “I’ve lost count of how many reorganizations the DOE has had these last years.”
A graduate of New York City public schools, Liu also took aim at the DOE for “pitting teachers against teachers, parents against parents, kids against kids” in a fight for the school system’s limited space and resources.
“That’s no way to run our schools,” he said.
Educators, who converged from all boroughs, spoke out in defense of their schools and those of their colleagues.
Anne Durley, a paraprofessional at PS/MS 146 in Queens, came to support colleagues at Beach Channel HS, which is on the chopping bock.
“There is no place for the children on the Rockaway Peninsula to go,” she said. “Klein and Bloomberg only consider the high-end children, not the children with special needs. The mayor is saying he’s for all the children in New York City. He’s an outright liar.”
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, New York City Central Labor Council President Jack Ahern and a host of City Council members also took the stage to condemn the DOE’s proposal and urge the panel to vote against it.
“I’m the parent of a 9th-grader and am representing all the parents and children of Brooklyn,” said Monique Lindsay, head of the borough’s PA presidents’ council. Standing on line in the cold no matter the wait to make sure she gets into the hearing, Lindsay told the New York Teacher that “parents are appalled and upset that the DOE is moving to close schools without keeping them informed about the process or getting their input.”
