Success!

Unsurprisingly, the application for Success Charter to co-locate in the K293 building at Court and Baltic passed. There was no democratic process involved in making this decision. Mayor Bloomberg supports it so, despite the majority of our community being opposed, it passed.

I was unable to attend the meeting last night at the Newtown High School in Queens. However, during that time, I did happen to pick up a copy of the Daily News where I was dismayed to read an article by Jenna Sternbach, a local mother of three, who supports the charter. In it, she explains her reasons for being a proponent.

She admits that she is zoned for a great public school, but said she simply “does not see the kind of structure and learning opportunities that I thought could bring out the best in my children.”

She wants options. Nowhere does she consider the options she is taking away from others. While she did travel to the Upper West Side Success Academy to tour their facility, it does not appear that she bothered to take a short walk to tour the Middle and High Schools for Global and International Studies. If she did, perhaps she would have learned what is meant by those 700 “vacant seats.” These seats are determined by the DOE saying that children – most of whom qualify for and need free lunch – can eat it at 10:30 in the morning, or 2:30 in the afternoon. That it is fine and okay for Physical Education classes to be held with 110 children all together in the gym at one time. That science, art, music, or any teacher does not need a room of his or her own. They can travel around with their supplies on a cart. Principals don’t need offices. Teachers don’t need staff rooms. And, in an “at risk” student population, it is okay to pack 45+ children in a classroom, even if many of those children won’t have a place to sit down. Special education teachers and services can be conducted in hallways and stairwells. It is okay that the school would lose its newly earned Mac Lab and valuable library time. Again, these are children who probably don’t have computers at home. The school currently stays open on the weekend so they can come in and do their work. So they can succeed.

But her children will have a “block room,” she crows! Her children will be in non-chaotic classrooms where they will thrive! Assuredly, they will eat their lunch promptly at 12:00, and have science in a room specifically designed for that purpose – every day!

Only Ms. Sternback cannot understand why it is that our Community Education Council said that “the school, if opened, should be allowed to recruit only from poor families and children of immigrants.”

“Well,” she says, “They surely need help, but that would leave middle-class families like mine with the same limited options I described above.”

Not that she believes in segregating kids. Even if hers did score high enough to qualify for a gifted and talented program, she is not sure that she believes children should be separated that way.

Yes, Ms. Sternbach’s options are limited. Why should she have to send her child to her zoned school, even if it has a great reputation? And her husband simply will not consider a move to the suburbs! If only everyone could just “lower their temperature” and understand Ms. Sternbach’s position: “Anyone who wants to deny (families like mine) another public option does not represent my interests or my children’s.”

There is a time pressure here. Ms. Sternbach’s oldest is now four years old. I wonder if he got into public Pre-K? If not, I assume she and her family can afford to send him to private? Ah, but you see, not all families can. I know she understands. After all, she stated that she and her husband were not sure they could afford to spend $90,000 a year to send all three of their children to private school “assuming we even wanted to go private, which is not a given.”

There was a proposal to open a free public early childhood center in the building. Did she hear about that? It would only take up six classrooms, and then people who couldn’t actually afford private Pre-K could give their children the same advantage as I assume she is giving hers.

Yes, Ms. Sternbach concludes, “Let’s lower the temperature…and increase the opportunities for everyone to send their children to great public schools.” (And on that list I would put the schools for Global and International Studies, and the STAR Academy for children with autism, but not for long.)

So congratulations to Mayor Bloomberg and Eva Moscowitz! They successfully created and utilized a corrupt system to push their agenda through. It wasn’t hard. No one else actually gets to have a say. And congratulations to them for successfully manipulating public opinion to believe that they are champions of the very populations they are actually throwing under the bus! I assume that they think all of this makes them successful politicians, business-people, or – God forbid – educators, but it does not. It makes them failed human beings.