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Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
December 12, 2006 Tuesday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section B; Column 4; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 3
LENGTH: 594 words
HEADLINE: Lafayette Among 5 High Schools to Close
BYLINE: By ELISSA GOOTMAN
BODY:
The Department of Education said yesterday that it would close five failing
high schools, including Lafayette High School in Brooklyn, where teachers and
students have sparred bitterly with the principal for months.
Four of the schools, including Lafayette, are being run by principals who
graduated from the New York City Leadership Academy, a privately financed
training program created by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Department officials
said that despite those principals' best efforts, their schools had proved
unsalvageable.
The other schools to be closed are Samuel J. Tilden and South Shore, two
other large Brooklyn high schools, as well as two small schools in Manhattan,
Urban Peace Academy and School for the Physical City. The schools will phase out
gradually over three years starting next September, when they will not take new
ninth-grade classes.
The large schools will be replaced by collections of small schools with
about 400 or 500 students each, a signature strategy of the Bloomberg
administration, which has closed or is in the process of closing 17 other large
schools across the city.
Education officials said that the schools to be closed had notably low
four-year graduation rates, did a particularly poor job helping students who
were already behind as incoming freshmen, and proved exceedingly unpopular with
prospective students.
The three large schools have all had safety problems. Extra police officers
and security guards were put into each of them after each school was named an
''impact school,'' although South Shore and Lafayette were taken off the list
after improving.
David Cantor, a spokesman for Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, said that
during the 2006 high school admissions process, South Shore was considered the
least popular school in the city, with only 1.2 applications for every available
slot, a figure that could have easily included students listing the school as
the last of their 12 choices. At Tilden, he said, 43.5 percent of students
scheduled to graduate in 2006 did so.
But the closing of Lafayette is the one that will probably draw the most
attention. For decades after it opened in 1939, Lafayette, in Bensonhurst, was a
gem of a neighborhood school, with alumni including Larry King and Sandy
In recent years, the school's performance and safety record plummeted; 44.4
percent of the class of 2006 graduated on time. Among other troubles, the school
was the subject of a 2004 consent decree between the city's education department
and the United States Department of Justice, which found evidence of ''severe
and pervasive peer-on-peer harassment of Asian students.''
In a last-ditch effort to turn things around, Jolanta Rohloff was named the
principal at Lafayette in time for the 2005-6 school year. She quickly angered
many of her teachers, who complained that they felt belittled after she offered
them extra money to decorate hallway bulletin boards, pushed recent immigrants
into English-only classes and overruled grades that some teachers gave students.
Efforts to reach Ms. Rohloff at her school and through e-mail messages yesterday
afternoon were unsuccessful.
Mr. Cantor said yesterday that Ms. Rohloff had ''performed extremely well
in highly difficult circumstances.'' He said the principals of all five schools
would remain as principals, although they could be reassigned to other schools.
The preponderance of Leadership Academy graduates among the five, he said, was a
factor of the ''extremely tough'' assignments that the academy's graduates are
often given.
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GRAPHIC: Photo: Famed alumni at Lafayette High School in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn,
include Larry King and Sandy Koufax. (Photo by James Estrin/The New York Times)
LOAD-DATE: December 12, 2006
LEVEL 1 - 1 OF 1 STORY
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
September 7, 2005 Wednesday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section B; Column 1; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1336 words
HEADLINE: Back to School And Waiting For Politics To Settle Down
BYLINE: By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
BODY:
The New York City public schools open tomorrow effectively in a freeze-frame,
with the fate of the nation's largest school district tied to electoral politics
and, ultimately, the outcome of the mayoral contest in November.
With Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg running strong in the polls, school
administrators are both upbeat and intent on not stirring up trouble as the
city's 1.1 million schoolchildren return to class.
''I think they are very, very confident,'' said David Rogers, an author on
the history and politics of the school system. ''I think this is going to be
more of the same.''
While there are no risky new ventures, many initiatives will proceed as
planned. Fifty-two new, small high schools will open, and a similar number that
opened last September will double in size as each of them adds a new freshman
class.
Stricter promotion rules and extra help for failing students, which were
previously adopted for third and fifth graders, are being expanded to include
seventh graders as part of a $40 million push by the administration to improve
middle schools.
There are also some election-year initiatives, including a new job
counseling program, mostly for students working toward an equivalency degree,
and an expansion of programs for gifted students, especially in neighborhoods
where such programs were scarce.
And yet potential thunderclouds remain. The expansion of small schools,
for instance, threatens to aggravate overcrowding in large, traditional high
schools.
On the labor front, the city's 83,000 teachers and more than 5,000
principals, assistant principals and other supervisors are starting their third
year without new contracts. Many educators are expressing frustration, if not
outright fury, after more than two years without a raise.
There is also rising anger among parents over the increasing focus on
standardized tests. Because of a conflict between state and city officials, the
city's third, fifth and seventh graders will likely have to take two sets of
reading and math tests this year.
Gov. George E. Pataki and the State Legislature continue to fight a court
order mandating more than $5 billion a year in additional aid for the city
schools. An appellate court will hear arguments in the case later this month.
And despite a sharp increase in reading and math scores last spring, nearly
half the city's students cannot read on grade level and exactly half perform
below grade level in math.
Still, after three years of near-constant tumult as the Bloomberg
administration has reshaped nearly every aspect of the system, the city schools
may be on the verge of unprecedented stability in leadership.
Chancellor Joel I. Klein has pledged to stay for a second term if Mayor
Bloomberg is re-elected, which would give him seven and a half years, the
longest tenure of any schools chief since William Jansen held the post from 1947
to 1958.
While an upset of Mr. Bloomberg would doubtless bring major changes, a
Bloomberg victory could bring a different uncertainty: unfettered control of the
schools for a term-limited, lame-duck mayor.
''They will have a lot of power,'' said Mr. Rogers, the author of ''110
Livingston Street: Politics and Bureaucracy in the New York City School
System.'' ''A tendency they had anyway toward not listening and not reaching out
could well be reinforced by an election that from their perspective, validates
what they are doing,'' he said.
Asked in an interview whether he was looking forward to the freedom of
managing the schools in a second term, unencumbered by political concerns,
Chancellor Klein flashed a broad smile.
''There is certainly the opportunity to continue to do very important
things,'' he said, adding: ''I was smiling because I kept thinking about that
Bobby McGee song, right? 'Freedom's just another word for nothing left to
lose.'''
Even some critics of Mr. Bloomberg's education policies say they would
prefer that he be re-elected and make corrections rather than have someone else
turn the system upside down again.
''The system is hemorrhaging in some ways,'' said Merryl H. Tisch, a member
of the State Board of Regents and a Democrat, who is supporting Mr. Bloomberg
for re-election despite finding fault with his handling of the school system.
''There has been absolutely no discussion at all about trying to fix
special education, which is responsible for a third of the budget, and bilingual
continues to be a quagmire,'' Ms. Tisch said.
She said she hoped Mr. Bloomberg would also address questions about what
she called an expensive privately financed training academy for principals that
has had mixed results, as well as the problems parents have navigating the
school bureaucracy.
Mr. Klein said the administration was always willing to make improvements.
''One of the things we would definitely want to do, we do it all the time, is to
look at what things could be better,'' he said. ''There are things that need
correction.''
But Mr. Klein also said he was pleased with the administration's record so
far. ''I have pointed out many, many times that the situation when we arrived
was unacceptable, that it would take a decade to truly transform and that I
think we have made significant improvements,'' he said.
While some political analysts have suggested that the mayor might push
harder to reach a contract deal with the teachers to win their union's
neutrality, if not an endorsement, in the mayoral race, Mr. Klein said he
remained steadfast in his demand for concessions on work rules.
''My view is clear: I'd like to have a contract,'' he said. ''But my view
is equally clear that in the absence of meaningful school reform, I, at least,
am not going to support it.''
Mr. Klein specifically complained about the contractual right of
''excessed'' teachers -- those who lose a position for any number of reasons,
like a decline in enrollment -- to claim a vacant position anywhere in their
community school district, even if a principal wants to hire someone else for
the job.
''It's unfair, disruptive, irrational and it should be changed,'' he said,
adding that teachers should be able to find jobs without forcing themselves on a
school. ''If you can't find a slot in our school system,'' he said, ''I think
it's a pretty good indication that you shouldn't be here.''
Mr. Klein boasted that one sign of success was that fewer teachers,
principals and other administrators left the system in the past year. But union
officials countered that this was because in the previous two years, large
numbers of veterans had retired in frustration.
Jill S. Levy, the president of the Council of School Supervisors and
Administrators, the union representing principals and assistant principals, said
the administrative ranks were now decidedly younger and less experienced.
''They hardly have the foundation and experience to do anything but to
concentrate on staying alive in this system,'' Ms. Levy said. ''They are
exhausted already.''
Randi Weingarten, the president of the teachers' union, said teachers were
demoralized by the lack of a new contract. ''People range from being dispirited
to infuriated,'' she said, ''particularly since the mayor is running upon the
teachers' record. It's teachers in the classrooms that do this work.''
Given the political landscape, Ms. Weingarten said she expected the
administration to play it safe this fall. ''It's not surprising that they are
not taking any chances this year,'' she said. ''They want to have a smooth
opening.''
Eva S. Moskowitz, the chairwoman of the City Council Education Committee,
said her office had received a number of calls with traditional early September
complaints, including those of students not yet assigned to a school.
But Ms. Moskowitz, herself a candidate for Manhattan borough president,
said there had not been the level of activity that accompanied the start of
school earlier in Mr. Bloomberg's term.
''Everything is sort of in a holding pattern,'' she said.
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GRAPHIC: Photo: To prepare for classes, teachers took pointers yesterday from a
reading specialist, Ernie Maginsky, with back to camera, at the Future Leaders
Institute in Harlem. (Photo by Librado Romero/The New York Times)
LOAD-DATE: September 7, 2005
LEVEL 1 - 2 OF 41 STORIES
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
September 5, 2006 Tuesday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section B; Column 5; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1516 words
HEADLINE: Back to School In a System Being Remade
BYLINE: By ELISSA GOOTMAN
BODY:
New York City's 1.1 million public school students return to the classroom
today with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg entering a new phase in his overhaul of
the education system -- pushing to change the management culture and prove that
mayoral control of the schools is yielding sustainable gains in student
performance.
For the first time this fall, 321 principals, more than a fifth of those in
the system, will no longer answer to a superintendent and will have greater
authority over their budgets, staff and instruction. In exchange, they have
agreed to meet performance targets and could face dismissal in two years if they
fail.
Partly to give those principals more money for their schools, the city has
cut the number of jobs in the school bureaucracy by 328, worth $87.5 million in
savings. Many of those jobs were in the 10 regional offices that Mr. Bloomberg
himself created. Consultants are still looking for ways to make more than $100
million in additional cuts.
The experiment with principals is taking place even as the city is bitterly
at odds with the principals' union over a contract, which expired more than
three years ago. Thirty-five new small middle schools and high schools are
opening, bringing the total created under Mr. Bloomberg to 184.
New programs for struggling high school students are also starting. Next
summer, the city plans to give all schools progress reports with grades of A
through F, based largely on an analysis of student test scores.
Additionally, 12 new charter schools are opening, a movement that Schools
Chancellor Joel I. Klein would like to see flourish, saying the schools, which
are largely free from city oversight, embody principles of autonomy and
accountability that he wants for the entire school system. But the city will
have to plead its case for more charter schools with Albany, which until now has
refused to lift the statewide cap of 100 charter schools.
''When we came into office, I think conventional wisdom was that you could
not do anything to improve big-city public school systems,'' Mayor Bloomberg
said last week, ''and I don't believe that that's the zeitgeist out there
anymore.''
Still, the challenges are formidable. Critics say that the mayor is overly
concerned with structure as opposed to teaching and learning, that the emphasis
on standardized testing has become too heavy and that he barrels ahead without
building a constituency for his policies.
This term, Mr. Bloomberg will be judged not against the failures of the old
system but against his own promises and early successes.
''This is the time when a lot of his ideas will come to roost, and we'll
begin to assess how much sticking power they have and what impact they're
actually going to have on the way children learn,'' said Joseph P. Viteritti, a
professor at Hunter College. ''He's got a limited amount of time to make happen
what he said he was going to make happen. The results are still not in.''
On state reading and math tests, scores have risen in the city, as they
have statewide, but middle school performance remains problematic. In 2005, 59.5
percent of city fourth graders were considered proficient in English, while 77.4
percent were in math. Among eighth graders, by contrast, 32.8 percent were
proficient in English and 40.8 percent in math. The overall four-year graduation
rate, by city figures, has risen from 50.8 percent in 2002 to 58.2 percent in
2005. The mayor's own staff members concede, however, that the number is still
appallingly low, particularly among black and Hispanic students. The state,
which counts graduations differently, puts the city graduation rate even lower,
at 43.5 percent.
Since he came into office, Mr. Bloomberg has put education at the center of
his mayoralty. In his first four years, he won control of the schools and
overhauled the bureaucracy, supplanting the city's 32 community school districts
with a centralized network of 10 regional offices and the Board of Education
with a panel whose majority he controls.
He moved the school system's headquarters from Brooklyn to the Tweed
Courthouse, in City Hall's backyard, and established test-based promotion
criteria in the third, fifth and seventh grades. He started closing large,
failing high schools and replacing them with small schools, and he raised more
than $300 million from private business.
Now Mr. Bloomberg and his hand-picked chancellor, Mr. Klein, who is poised
to become the longest serving chancellor in decades, are starting to lift some
of the top-down controls they imposed. They are also seeking to show sustainable
results and build enough momentum to keep their precepts in place well beyond
the Bloomberg mayoralty.
''There's a sense of permanence and that the volatility that was
distracting and difficult during the first four years is hopefully behind us,''
said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, an
association of business leaders.
Chancellor Klein said last week that he was intent on moving the school
system ''from a culture of excuse to a culture of accountability.''
''Our parents will come to see that the information they're getting, the
quality education their kids are getting, the sense of what it's like at the
school, is going to change,'' he added. ''And I think our parents will insist on
sustainability.''
Mr. Klein and the mayor are also seeking to transform the physical
landscape with a $13.1 billion capital plan, the city's most ambitious school
construction proposal to date. This year, the public school system is opening
eight new buildings, including several former Catholic schools. One of the
beneficiaries is the Urban Assembly School for Applied Math and Science, which
will finally get its own science lab after two years of improvising.
''We cut open frogs, we cut open fetal pigs,'' said Kenneth Baum, the
principal. ''Imagine doing that without a sink and keeping everyone safe and
clean.''
When it comes to teachers, the city has taken steps toward merit pay,
allowing ''master teachers'' to earn more money by mentoring less experienced
colleagues. Mr. Klein attracted 102 new math, science and special-education
teachers by offering housing subsidies of up to $14,600. Under federal law, the
city is required to ensure in 2007 that all its teachers are licensed in their
subject areas. Mr. Klein estimated in an interview that the city was still a few
thousand teachers short of that goal.
Mr. Klein has begun efforts to court parents, a sore spot of the first
mayoral term, when a number of them complained of feeling shut out. He has begun
meeting regularly with the executive board of the Chancellor's Parent Advisory
Council, a parent organization that has been sharply critical of some of his
policies.
''They're actually doing some good things, but the perception of the parent
communities is that they don't care about their opinions, and that's really a
problem,'' said Elisa Hyman, executive director of Advocates for Children, a
nonprofit group.
Mr. Klein said his emphasis on data would enhance parents' understanding of
their children's schools. The new school report cards, for example, will not
simply judge this year's third graders against last year's, but the progress
individual children make over time. So a popular school could receive a poor
grade if its students come in at high levels but fail to make strides.
The most experimental move of the new school year is the effort to give
principals more authority, part of Mr. Klein's effort to move from a ''culture
of compliance to a culture of performance.''
The change is taking place at a time when the chancellor and the unionthat
represents both principals and assistant principals are openly feuding. Last
week, Mr. Klein fired off a letter to the city's principals implying that 44
assistant principals who lacked jobs were so weak that no school wanted them.
Jill S. Levy, president of the union, the Council of School Supervisors and
Administrators, said the assistant principals were out of work not because they
are incompetent but because their schools have been closed or restructured. She
has accused the chancellor of demoralizing principals by forcing them to go more
than three years without a new contract.
''Empowerment is essential and critical, but I think empowerment without
the appropriate resources and support may be detrimental,'' Ms. Levy said. ''At
some point one has to look at stability, and right now you can't really perform
in a system that's so unstable as not to know what's coming down the pike.''
Some school system veterans say the chancellor is unshackling principals at
a moment when many of them are young and inexperienced, and may not know how to
purchase services and supplies. But Nancy Gannon, principal of the School for
Democracy and Leadership in Brooklyn, said this was the moment she and many
others had been craving.
''Before I became a principal, what I heard from so many principals was,
'Well, if I could do it my way, I could do X or Y,' '' she said. ''Finally all
bets are off.''
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GRAPHIC: Photo: Joseph Cox, a sixth grade humanities teacher, setting up his
classroom in the new Bathgate Educational Complex in the Bronx. The $52 million,
140,000-square-foot building will house four schools this fall. (Photo by Marko
Georgiev for The New York Times)(pg. B4)
LOAD-DATE: September 5, 2006
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
June 28, 2006 Wednesday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section B; Column 1; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1316 words
HEADLINE: Small Schools Show Concern Over Proposal To Swap Land
BYLINE: By ELISSA GOOTMAN
BODY:
The Julia Richman Education Complex, a massive brick building on East 67th
Street, is a veritable pilgrimage site.
It is here that they come -- delegations from Stanford University, from the
Baltimore City Public School System, from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
-- to see the country's premier example of a large, failing urban high school
turned into a peaceful campus of successful small schools.
But now, the city is considering a plan to hand the Julia Richman building
over to Hunter College in exchange for a larger parcel of land that the college
owns more than 40 blocks south. Since word of the proposal slipped out in recent
weeks, principals, teachers and parents at the small schools have mobilized
against it, saying it would destroy a delicate educational ecosystem and a
potent, phoenixlike symbol of possibility.
''You wouldn't take Carnegie Hall and move it to Queens,'' said Ann Cook,
co-director of Urban Academy, one of the small schools in the Julia Richman
complex. ''We're not widgets.''
Jamie Smarr, an assistant to the deputy chancellor for finance and
administration for the city school system, said Hunter first approached the city
last summer about trading Julia Richman for its Brookdale campus, on East 25th
Street and First Avenue. He said that the discussions were still preliminary,
but that the small schools would benefit from the arrangement because Hunter,
which hopes to build a science and health center near its main campus on East
68th Street, would construct a modern building for the small schools downtown.
''This is an opportunity to get a brand-new, state-of-the-art building,''
Mr. Smarr said. ''I think a lot of the concerns are about fear of change.''
Administrators, parents and residents of nearby apartment buildings say
their fears are justified. Neighbors say that the area needs more public
schools, not fewer, and that the proposed science center could be a hulking
tower that would cast a shadow over their apartments and nearby St. Catherine's
Park. Parents say uprooting Julia Richman would send a discouraging signal to
the dozens of small schools that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has created in
recent years, using Julia Richman as the model.
And a growing chorus of critics say Hunter should be ashamed of even
considering uprooting a crop of successful schools, noting that it would never
displace its own publicly financed elementary and high school, on East 94th
Street.
''The news is spreading like wildfire,'' said Elizabeth Rose, who lives in
an ivy-covered building across the street from Julia Richman. ''When you see
what the city is doing to other schools, you get very concerned about what they
might do to your child's school.''
Julia Richman opened more than 80 years ago, and was for many years a
prestigious high school for girls. It fell apart during the 1970's fiscal
crisis, when the city laid off thousands of teachers. By the early 1990's, the
school was called ''Julia Rikers,'' as in Island, and had a 37 percent
graduation rate, the lowest in Manhattan. School lore has it that unruly
students were kept in cages until the police arrived.
School officials hatched a plan to replace Julia Richman with a collection
of small schools, and by 1996, six new schools had supplanted the old one.
Sharing the building now are the pre-kindergarten through eighth grade Ella
Baker School, where some parents who work in the neighborhood send their
children, along with a program for autistic children known as P226M, and four
high schools. They are Talented Unlimited, a performing arts school; Urban
Academy, known for working wonders with students who have not succeeded at other
high schools; Vanguard High School, which like Urban Academy avoids traditional
standardized tests and where the principal has painted his office bright purple;
and Manhattan International High School, for recent immigrants.
''It's got real roots in the community now,'' said Sherry Jacobs, who lived
blocks away from Julia Richman for a quarter-century and remembered crossing the
street to avoid walking too close to the old school. Mrs. Jacobs and her husband
raised $110,000 to build the small schools a library, the destruction of which
would be ''heartbreaking,'' she said.
More than 1,000 Julia Richman parents and staff members have signed a
letter calling for the school to stay put.
''As all close observers know, a school is never just a physical structure,
there's a culture to every educational setting,'' the letter says. ''How can the
Department of Education consider uprooting an exemplary educational complex, one
of the true gems of the system, which has received nationwide recognition and
won numerous awards?''
Some Julia Richman supporters are directing their fury at Hunter and its
president, Jennifer J. Raab, who was chairwoman of the city's Landmarks
Preservation Commission under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.
''It's very disturbing to me that Hunter College would dislocate young
children in order to accommodate a program for themselves,'' said Jacqueline
Ancess, co-director of the National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools
and Teaching at Columbia University's Teachers College.
Ms. Raab's office referred calls to Meredith Halpern, a Hunter spokeswoman,
who said many of the details would be worked out at a meeting in the next month
or so attended by Hunter and city officials. She described the plan as ''one of
the best things to happen to the Hunter community.''
Matthew Goldstein, chancellor of the City University of New York, said that
it would be ''fabulous for Hunter'' if things worked out, but that a lot would
depend on the finances involved.
Asked if the proposed science center would be 16 stories or taller, as some
in the neighborhood say they have heard, Dr. Goldstein responded, ''Oh, no no
no,'' adding, ''This is so speculative.''
City officials said the plan hinged on whether Hunter can come up with
enough money to build both its new science center and a new building for the
Julia Richman schools, which Mr. Smarr said would cost at least $100 million.
Mr. Smarr said parents, students and staff members would be involved in
designing the new school, which would not open before September 2011.
Dr. Ancess, who has studied the Julia Richman complex, said the small
schools would suffer if moved, no matter how posh their new quarters.
''You feel very deeply connected to your home, you have a sense of safety,
you know the place, you make an investment in it, you decorate it,'' Dr. Ancess
said. ''They've designed that building, they put their blood, sweat and tears
into it, and they're just supposed to walk away like they didn't?''
Michelle Fine, a distinguished professor of psychology at the CUNY graduate
center who has also studied Julia Richman, said demolishing the building would
be ''dispiriting'' to Mr. Bloomberg's newer small schools and would set back
their efforts to weave themselves into the fabric of their own neighborhoods.
''The Julia Richman complex epitomizes what the mayor hopes to create
citywide, that is a building that was once producing enormously adverse
educational outcomes that has now been resurrected intellectually, spiritually,
morally, aesthetically,'' she said.
Critics also deride the secrecy they say has shrouded the plan. School
officials say that they learned of it from local politicians, not Hunter or the
school system, and that Mr. Smarr met with them only after they requested more
information.
''I have no confidence from all the secrecy that's gone on that they even
think parents and teachers and students could be involved in the design'' of a
new building, said Herb Mack, the principal at Urban Academy.
Mr. Smarr said that officials were not being secretive about what he
described as ''an opportunity to do something very special.''
''It's a free school,'' he said.
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GRAPHIC: Photos: Ella Baker School, for elementary school-age children, part of
the Julia Richman complex on East 67th Street. Below, Jesse Collins, 18, left,
and Dakota Russell, 16, at Urban Academy, and Louis Delgado, right, the
principal at Vanguard High. (Photographs by Ruby Washington/The New York
Times)(pg. B9)
LOAD-DATE: June 28, 2006
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
April 28, 2006 Friday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section B; Column 4; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 7
LENGTH: 525 words
HEADLINE: Annenberg Grant to Help Smaller Schools
BYLINE: By ELISSA GOOTMAN
BODY:
The Annenberg Foundation said yesterday that it would donate $20 million to a
nonprofit group working to bolster New York City's small middle and high
schools, which are a hallmark of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's effort to turn
around the troubled system.
The group, New Visions for Public Schools, has helped create 112 of the
more than 200 small schools that have opened throughout New York City since
1993.
''I think that there's both anecdotal as well as hard evidence now that
small schools are producing some very good results for students and teachers
and school staff alike,'' said Dr. Gail Levin, executive director of the
foundation. ''These small schools are here to stay. We want to be part of the
story that allows them to stay.''
In recent years, Mayor Bloomberg has opened 149 small middle and high
schools. The small schools, which generally have fewer than 500 students, are
one of Mr. Bloomberg's chief strategies for improving the city's high school
graduation rate of about 53 percent. To support this effort, Mr. Bloomberg has
raised more than $117 million from philanthropists, most of it from the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation.
The new small schools are modeled in part on an earlier generation of
such schools created in the 1990's with $25 million from the Annenberg
Foundation, the family foundation of the late Walter H. Annenberg, a former
ambassador to Britain, and his widow, Leonore. Those older small schools have
generally not benefited from the money raised by Mr. Bloomberg for the newer
small schools, and critics of Mr. Bloomberg's small schools effort have
asked whether the new schools will suffer when their private money dries up.
The most recent Annenberg grant will help sustain existing schools, rather
than start new ones.
''We went through an extensive development process with them when they got
these schools up and running,'' Richard I. Beattie, chairman of the New Visions
board, said of the earlier small schools. ''You want to come back if you can,
and here we have the ability to do so, to regenerate them, pump them up again
and give them some additional resources.''
Robert Hughes, president of New Visions, called the Annenberg grant a
''significant grant for sustainability.''
The money, to be given over eight years, will be used to help recruit
teachers, improve teacher retention rates, provide coaches to principals and
help parents become more involved in their children's schools. There will also
be a push to help schools use data effectively and share their best practices.
''The shaping of schools is an evolving effort,'' Dr. Levin said. ''It has
taken many years to get to this point, and we feel as if the work is not
finished, not actually by a long shot.''
Small middle and high schools are a stark departure from the 3,000-plus
mammoth high schools that they are in some cases replacing. The new schools,
many of which are linked to nonprofit and community groups and are centered on
themes, from law to sports to ''social justice,'' are thought to be more
intimate and manageable, erasing the possibility that students can slip through
high school unnoticed.
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LOAD-DATE: April 28, 2006
LEVEL 1 - 10 OF 41 STORIES
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
February 2, 2006 Thursday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section B; Column 1; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 5
LENGTH: 501 words
HEADLINE: 36 More Small Schools Due In September, Mayor Says
BYLINE: By ELISSA GOOTMAN
BODY:
Thirty-six small middle schools and high schools, many with specialties
ranging from mathematics and technology to hospitality and tourism, will open in
September, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced yesterday.
The creation of small middle schools and high schools is central to Mr.
Bloomberg's plan to improve New York's high school graduation rate, which for
years has hovered just above 50 percent. The new schools, which will be
concentrated in Brooklyn and the Bronx, are the latest round of small schools
to be opened by Mayor Bloomberg with the help of nonprofit groups, colleges and
millions of dollars from philanthropies, including the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation.
The schools announced yesterday will start with 100 students in the sixth or
ninth grade or both, and will eventually grow to between 300 and 600 students --
a size that will, it is hoped, foster a sense of intimacy to make it more
difficult for students to slip through the cracks.
Among the new schools are the Academy of Hospitality and Tourism High
School, which will join a collection of small schools that have replaced
Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn; the East-West School of International
Studies, which will open in Queens and teach children proficiency in Asian
languages; and the DreamYard Preparatory School, whose principal, Rod Bowen,
said he planned to use visual arts and theater to make math and other academic
classes come alive.
''These small schools are having a big impact on their students, helping
them get the skills to succeed in college, at work and in life,'' Mr. Bloomberg
said, his voice reverberating through the auditorium of Junior High School 50 in
Brooklyn, which next year will share its building with the Academy for Young
Writers.
He added, ''These small schools have been a key part of our success in
closing the intolerable achievement gap between races and ethnicities.''
Thirteen of the new schools will be high schools, 13 will serve students in
grades 6 through 12 and 10 will be middle schools (sixth through eighth grade).
In the first years of the mayor's small schools program, most new schools
were inside the buildings of large, failing high schools because of a lack of
space elsewhere and a desire to phase out the old schools. Critics complained
that the sites caused crowding in the old schools and hampered the new ones.
Of the latest round of schools, only four will be in newly leased or
constructed buildings. The rest will share space with other schools. The
locations of four of the new schools will be announced soon, officials said.
In making the announcement, Mr. Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel I.
Klein said their small-schools effort had already borne fruit. Last year, they
said, ninth graders who entered new small schools were more likely to perform
below grade level than students at high schools citywide -- but small school
students, they said, attended school more frequently and were more likely to be
promoted to the 10th grade.
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GRAPHIC: Photo: Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg at Junior High School 50 in Brooklyn
yesterday, announcing a new round of small schools. With him were Schools
Chancellor Joel I. Klein, right, and Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott. (Photo by
Andrea Mohin/The New York Times)
LOAD-DATE: February 2, 2006
LEVEL 1 - 13 OF 41 STORIES
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
May 3, 2005 Tuesday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section B; Column 2; Metropolitan Desk; Getting Smaller To Improve The
Big Picture; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1875 words
HEADLINE: Trying to Lift Performance By Shrinking City Schools
SERIES: LEARNING CURVE: History Lessons
BYLINE: By ELISSA GOOTMAN and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
BODY:
The Central Park East Secondary School, one of New York City's first small
public high schools, was once a beacon of educational innovation. But in the two
decades since it opened, the graduation and attendance rates have plummeted to
below citywide averages.
Even the founding principal has not visited in years, saying she finds the
school's fate heartbreaking.
In Chelsea, the New York City Museum School, another pioneering small
school, is thriving, even as it struggles with financial difficulties.
Students there make regular pilgrimages to museums throughout the city, though
they spend less time on such trips than they did a few years ago.
One of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's chief strategies for transforming the
city's school system is the creation of 200 small schools, including 53
secondary schools that opened in September. But the idea is not new -- there
was an explosion of such schools in the early 1990's -- and a look at this older
generation of small schools shows that size itself has not been a silver
bullet.
There has been no long-term comprehensive study of the outcomes of New York
City's early small schools. But interviews with teachers, current and former
principals and parents indicate a wide range of results and suggest that even
the hallmarks of small schools -- better attendance and graduation rates --
are not guaranteed.
''If I look at the small schools that existed at that time, about half are
mediocre or worse than mediocre, and half are better than mediocre,'' said
Deborah Meier, the founding principal of Central Park East, who is now an
author, lecturer and consultant.
Some of the small schools fell victim to their own success, like Beacon
High School on the West Side, which, with more than 1,000 students, is no longer
so small. Some reaped praise for years, only to struggle when their founders
were replaced by administrators who did not quite get the school's mission.
In some cases, partnerships with community organizations fell apart. In
others, the private money that helped get special programs off the ground dried
up, forcing cutbacks.
These varying outcomes -- including the experiences of some small schools
that had to be closed -- offer cautionary lessons that some of the most vocal
champions of small schools say have not been heeded by officials leading the
current initiative.
''Every school reform comes as if it has no history,'' Ms. Meier said. ''We
just recycle a previous reform package, we give it a slightly different name,
sometimes not even a different name, and we don't go back to look at what
happened the last time we did this.''
Still, officials working on the current initiative say that a vast majority
of old small schools, if not ideal, are better than the large failing ones now
being replaced. At the big schools being transformed into small school
campuses, four-year graduation rates for the class of 2002 ranged from 23
percent at Bushwick High School, in Brooklyn. to 46 percent at South Bronx High
School. Citywide, the average was 51 percent.
In endorsing small schools, Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel I.
Klein have cited a wide body of research and local statistics showing that
smaller schools yield higher attendance, promotion and graduation rates. But the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has financed hundreds of small
schools across the country in recent years, has found some of the academic
results disappointing.
Michele Cahill, a chief architect of Mr. Bloomberg's small schools plan,
said that she and other city education officials had taken steps to ensure that
the new schools would fare better -- by improving principal training, requiring
rigorous curriculums, demanding high-quality teaching, building stronger
community partnerships and imposing strict accountability measures.
''We're doing it differently,'' Ms. Cahill said.
Robert L. Hughes, the president of New Visions for Public Schools, a
nonprofit education reform group that has been at the forefront of New York
City's small-schools effort for more than 15 years, said that the early
small schools suffered from inconsistent support. Among past chancellors,
Joseph A. Fernandez and Ramon C. Cortines were cautious supporters, while Rudy
Crew was a vocal skeptic.
This time, the city has created a special Office of New Schools, headed by a
chief executive, Kristen Kane, who reports directly to the chancellor.
But critics say much remains the same. The city's earliest small school
efforts included several ill-fated attempts to break up large, dysfunctional
high schools, a precursor to many of the troubles that the Bloomberg
administration has faced in its own effort to phase out big schools over the
last two years.
In 1994, for instance, the city turned Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn
into three schools. All were placed on the state's list of failing schools and
are now being phased out for poor performance.
At the four small schools created in 1994 to replace Andrew Jackson High
School in Queens, four-year graduation rates now range from 53.8 percent, about
the same as the citywide average, to a more impressive 75.5 percent.
Research by, among others, Jacqueline Ancess of the National Center for
Restructuring Education, Schools and Teaching at Columbia University's Teachers
College, found that small schools suffered when forced to take root in large
school buildings, alongside other schools with conflicting cultures and
incompatible approaches to learning.
Commenting on the current effort, Dr. Ancess said she has been dismayed to
see small schools crippled by their placement in buildings with metal
detectors and a strong police presence. ''When they're put in a building with a
school that has an antithetical culture,'' she said, ''this is a recipe for
failure.''
Some successful small schools were forced to grow over time or to take on
a different mix of students, defeating their original purpose. In 1993, for
instance, Beacon High School opened as a college preparatory program, intended
for a mix of students with varying abilities. Enrollment was supposed to be
capped at 500.
But it quickly became one of Manhattan's most popular schools. To get in,
many top students exercised a special provision in city admissions rules
granting them automatic seats. Over time the school swelled to more than double
its originally intended size, and this year officials formally switched it to a
''screened'' program, meaning that only top students are admitted.
Middle College High School, on the campus of Medgar Evers College in
Brooklyn, had a similar experience. The school, which opened in 1993, was
supposed to have 640 students. It now has nearly 1,000, and its schoolyard is
filled with portable classrooms.
The school was designed to provide an intensive academic program for
college-bound students. But last September, the central administration sent more
than 100 of the city's lowest-performing students to the school without any
extra support.
Still, some small schools have experienced far worse problems. The Local
1199 School for Social Change opened in 1993 in partnership with the hospital
workers union, was so troubled that it had to be shut down. The union and New
Visions for Public Schools, which helped create the school, had clashed with
education officials, including Chancellor Crew, over staffing, admissions and
other issues.
In Brooklyn, Metropolitan Corporate Academy's partnership with the
investment bank Goldman Sachs was of no help this school year, when the computer
lab and the boys' bathroom were in such disrepair that they had to be closed
temporarily.
Another issue raised by the early small schools was how to define
''small.'' Experts still disagree.
Some of New York's earlier small schools with the best results had 200 or
fewer students. But the majority of new small schools will eventually serve
more than 400 students -- 108 per grade.
The Humanities Preparatory Academy, which enrolled its first students in
1993, has only 185 students, all of whom can cram into a single large classroom
for special occasions, like a recent awards ceremony in which students were
lauded for such attributes as ''commitment to humanity.'' During staff meetings,
the principal, Vincent P. Brevetti, and the school's 18 teachers sit in a
circle, deciding policies by consensus -- something that would be difficult
with a larger group.
One common thread among the more successful early small schools is a core
theme or mission. International High School in Long Island City, Queens, which
opened in 1985, has enjoyed consistent success, focusing closely on serving
recent immigrants. The school, which was intended for 460 students, has a
student body of 468.
Another example of success is the Museum School. Shortly after it opened in
1994, The New York Times reported that it ''could become the theme school par
excellence,'' and in many ways it is.
After lessons on Darwinism that incorporated trips to the American Museum of
Natural History, Devenia Brathwaite, 18, who said she hated biology in middle
school, decided she wanted to major in it in college. Laura Fearon, 18, who said
she was failing at the huge Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Queens,
transferred to Museum, and credits its intimate environment with her subsequent
success.
''Your teacher knows you,'' she said.
One March afternoon, a group of students boarded the subway for the Brooklyn
Museum, where they pondered Buddha sculptures, Last Supper paintings and Muslim
prayer rugs as part of a lesson on world religions.
But in recent years the school has wrestled with difficulties that are
emblematic of other small schools' struggles. Museum's founding co-directors
were both hired away to help create and support other small schools, resulting
in a rocky transition.
Then there was a reliance on outside money and resources. Just as today's
small schools are opening in partnership with nonprofit groups, like the
College Board and the Roundabout Theater Company, the Museum School teamed up
with several museums. Now that the school is no longer new, it receives less
attention from the museums, some of which are helping newer small schools.
''It takes real work to not only establish a new institution, but to
maintain the institution,'' said Pat Conway, a parent. ''The Department of
Education doesn't seem to be learning from the experience of having dealt with
our schools and learned that it really is more expensive to run a small school
than a large school.''
Still, if every new small school were like the Museum School, parents
would almost certainly be pleased.
The same cannot be said, however, of Central Park East Secondary.
''One by one, various quality-control issues at the school became harder to
uphold,'' Ms. Meier, the founding principal, said, citing increased enrollment,
the departure of experienced teachers and the watering-down of special programs
in reaction to a greater emphasis on standardized testing.
''I stopped visiting,'' she said. ''It was too painful.''
Learning Curve
Articles in this series are exploring the process and effect of opening
dozens of small schools this year in New York City. Earlier articles are
available online at education.
URL:
GRAPHIC: Photos: William Goris, a ninth grader at the New York City Museum
School, on a class visit to the Brooklyn Museum. (Photo by Marilynn K. Yee/The
New York Times)(pg. B4)
Christine Olson, above, teaching a global history class at Humanities
Preparatory Academy in Manhattan. Below, the New York City Museum School
students Elena Salomon-Uffer, left, and Janelle Rosario visit the Brooklyn
Museum. (Photo by Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times)(pg. B1)
LOAD-DATE: May 3, 2005
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Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
February 16, 2005 Wednesday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section B; Column 5; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 5
LENGTH: 361 words
HEADLINE: Gates Donates $28.5 Million For Support of Small Schools
BYLINE: By ELISSA GOOTMAN
BODY:
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is donating $28.5 million to create and
support small secondary schools in New York City, the foundation said yesterday.
The announcement brings the foundation's investment in the city's public
schools to more than $113 million, most of which has gone toward schools
designed for no more than 500 or 600 students.
Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein said the latest gift, along with $3.6
million from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation that was also announced
yesterday, brought the amount of private money donated to improve the school
system under the leadership of Mr. Klein and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to more
than $200 million.
''The good money knows what's happening in New York City,'' Mr. Klein said.
''This new small schools movement, you've heard about it, it's come to life
here. It is going to transform our city.''
The Gates gift will help Mr. Klein fulfill his promise to open 200 small
public and charter schools by 2007. But for the chancellor, there was also a
bit of an edge to the announcement.
While the Gates Foundation's executive director for education, Tom Vander
Ark, praised the mayor's efforts to transform the city school system and
aggressively create small schools, in interviews leading up to yesterday's
announcement Mr. Vander Ark also urged the city to adopt a broader plan to fix
its large schools. New York has made great strides in opening small schools,
he said, but that effort alone could not achieve the ultimate goal of raising
graduation rates citywide.
Also, a portion of the Gates gift earmarked for training principals was
given to a nonprofit national group called New Leaders for New Schools, rather
than the New York City Leadership Academy, a $75 million program that is
privately financed to train principals and was created by the chancellor and the
mayor. Mr. Klein is its chairman.
The grants were announced at South Bronx Preparatory, a small 6th through
12th grade school started by College Board, best known for its SAT college
entrance exam. The College Board will be the largest beneficiary, getting $11.85
million from the two foundations to open 16 schools.
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LOAD-DATE: February 16, 2005
LEVEL 1 - 19 OF 41 STORIES
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
February 2, 2005 Wednesday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section B; Column 5; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 873 words
HEADLINE: Small Schools In City Program To Grow by 52 In September
BYLINE: By LISSA GOOTMAN
BODY:
Fifty-two new small middle and high schools, many with themes like sports
management, coastal studies and ''arts, imagination and inquiry,'' will open in
September, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced yesterday.
Among the new schools are 27 high schools, 14 middle schools and 11 schools
that combine 6th through 12th grades. They would bring to 157 the number of
small public and charter schools the mayor has created in the last two years as
a centerpiece of his effort to overhaul the city school system.
''For too long, our high schools did not prepare even a majority of
students for graduation,'' Mr. Bloomberg said, calling the new schools ''a
crucial part of our strategy to close the achievement gap.''
Only seven of the new schools will be placed inside large high school
buildings, a practice that has bred tension at schools throughout the city. The
small schools -within-schools, each with their own principals, themes and
learning philosophies, have struggled to coexist with one another and with the
large traditional high schools that are their hosts.
It is not yet clear where 16 of the new schools will be located, which could
make it difficult for students to decide whether they want to attend.
Officials have assigned all but one of the schools to particular boroughs.
The largest number, 22, will be in the Bronx, while Staten Island will have just
one. Still, the fact that some of the school sites have not been announced fed
into a common criticism of the mayor's small schools plan: that it has been
pushed ahead too quickly.
''They'd have much more credibility if they said, 'We're starting 36
schools,' not 52 schools,'' said Randi Weingarten, president of the United
Federation of Teachers.
But Ms. Weingarten indicated that she was generally pleased with the effort
to place most of the schools in leased buildings, new buildings and middle
schools with extra space.
''It clearly appears that they have learned from some of their mistakes,''
she said.
Kristen Kane, chief executive of the Office of New Schools, said she
expected that at least 14 of the undetermined locations would be finalized
before March 1, when student applications are due. She also said the decision to
place so few schools in large high school buildings did not represent a policy
shift, but rather the reality that most of the space in such schools had already
been filled.
Ms. Kane said, however, that two large, deeply troubled Bronx high schools,
Walton and Evander Childs, will not accept ninth-grade classes next year. Both
schools have continued to exist with several small schools inside them; Walton
is expected to get a fourth small school next year, but officials did not say
which one.
Eva S. Moskowitz, chairwoman of the City Council Education Committee,
praised the mayor's efforts to take on the tricky issue of high school reform,
saying he deserved credit. But she suggested that his administration had
uncritically embraced the idea that new small schools were the answer,
although previous efforts to create small schools in New York City had yielded
mixed results.
''They have latched onto the small- schools movement as the answer to all
of our hopes and fears,'' Ms. Moskowitz said.
''Why is this movement going to work where the previous movements have had
at best uneven results?'' she asked.
At the news conference about the new schools yesterday, Schools Chancellor
Joel I. Klein recited statistics that he said showed that small schools were
better. Their average attendance rates of 91 percent are above the citywide
average of 83 percent, he said, while 93 percent of their ninth graders but only
68 percent citywide are promoted to the 10th grade.
''As the song says, 'We've only just begun,' but that's one heck of a
beginning,'' he said.
But some successful large schools have similarly high, even higher,
attendance rates, and promotion to the 10th grade is based not on a standard
citywide test but on the number of classes students pass.
Though eighth graders have already selected the high schools they would like
to attend next year, they can submit new applications listing the new schools.
The mayor's enthusiasm for small schools is shared by charities like the
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which gave $58 million to create the schools
in New York City. Yesterday, that enthusiasm was echoed by principals, students
and representatives of nonprofit groups who helped to plan the schools.
Clyde Cole, who will be the principal of the Urban Assembly Academy of
Business and Community Development in Brooklyn, said he hoped his all-boys
6th-to-12th-grade school ''really speaks to the entrepreneurial spirit of boys
of that age.''
Antoine Powell, 18, was part of a student-led group that planned the
Leadership Institute, a school that he said would ''give a sense of how to
survive in a community.''
Other new schools set to open include the Rachel Carson High School for
Coastal Studies and the High School of Sports Management, both in Brooklyn; the
Sports Professions High School and the Theater Arts Production Company School,
both in the Bronx; and, in Manhattan, the High School of Arts, Imagination and
Inquiry, which the Lincoln Center Institute will help run.
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LOAD-DATE: February 2, 2005
LEVEL 1 - 32 OF 41 STORIES
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
April 14, 2004 Wednesday
Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section A; Column 2; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1711 words
HEADLINE: City's Small Schools Uneasy Inside the Big Ones
BYLINE: By ELISSA GOOTMAN
BODY:
At Bronx Aerospace Academy High School, all 161 students wear blue uniforms
and well-shined black shoes. They have 13 laptop computers and, thanks to
private money, a $40,000 flight simulator to spice up lessons. They take field
trips to places like the New England Air Museum and have classes of no more than
28.
But the tiny Bronx Aerospace is inside the vast Evander Childs High School,
population 3,100, recently named one of the city's most unruly schools. There,
classes generally have 34 students, the maximum allowed by the teachers'
contract. There are no laptops. Field trips are rare. Jeans, tight for girls and
baggy for boys, are the preferred dress.
So it is not surprising that tensions have developed between the two
schools. Evander Childs students have banged on classroom doors at Aerospace,
torn down posters in its hallways and teased the Aerospace students, mocking
their uniforms and their marching, students and faculty members said. A few
times, the friction turned physical.
''It's like the bathroom in a big family: one bathroom, but there are five
members in the household,'' said Monica Ortiz-Urena, the principal of Evander
Childs. ''The biggest challenge is addressing the needs of the small schools
and my school with a balance.''
Next year, the balance is likely to be even more elusive across the city, as
dozens of new small schools take root within their large schools, each with
its own culture, philosophy about discipline, private financing and dress code.
New York City has been a nationwide leader in the small schools movement,
and replacing large high schools is a centerpiece of Mayor Michael R.
Bloomberg's efforts to overhaul the school system. He has vowed to create 200
small schools in three years using private money, including $58 million from
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has been underwriting small
schools for several years.
About 50 small schools predate the mayor's proclamation. Of the 200 he has
promised, 46 opened last fall, and 60 will open this fall. The new small
schools may appear richer than established schools because they get private
start-up money. Of the 60, all but a handful will be housed in large school
buildings. There is no other place for them to go.
Small schools generally do not have admissions tests, but most do give
priority to applicants who attend informational sessions or fairs for such
schools, and some give priority to children from their boroughs.
Critics, including teachers, parents and students at large schools, say the
city's Department of Education is paying too little attention to the details of
the transition and to softening the disparities in resources and attention
between the new schools and the old, a particularly touchy subject when the
have-nots were there first. They wonder whether the city's large schools will be
destabilized in the process, dooming them.
''They will make it virtually impossible to run a large school so they can
say, 'See, you're failing,''' said Alan Ettman, leader of the teachers' union
chapter at Walton High School in the Bronx, now home to two small schools.
Michele Cahill, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein's senior counselor for
education policy, said the department is trying to help large host schools by
giving their principals the opportunity to apply for $6 million in grants, and
by encouraging representatives of all schools in a building to meet regularly,
as a building council. But the need for better high schools is pressing, she
said.
At schools like Aerospace, on East Gun Hill Road, it is virtually impossible
for students to slip through the cracks. All are members of the Air Force Junior
R.O.T.C. The principal, Barbara A. Kirkweg, a retired Air Force captain, gives
parents her home number, and attendance is 95 percent.
''Clearly we need to pay attention to how the staff and the students in big
schools are experiencing this,'' Ms. Cahill said. But she added, ''There has not
been enough opportunity for students who are going to high schools that are
graduating fewer than 50 percent of their students. Small schools that are new
and created to be academically rigorous are one way of getting there.''
Some supporters of large schools say their virtues are being overlooked. One
is Robert Leder, the principal of Herbert H. Lehman High School near Westchester
Square in the Bronx, which has more than 30 sports teams, dozens of clubs and an
array of dances, shows and elective classes not found in the small schools.
Inside his building, Mr. Leder now has 4,200 students, 180 attending what
are essentially three small schools with their own directors. Mr. Leder said
he quickly laid down the law for them, saying all students would have to follow
the same prohibitions on hats and portable CD players.
''I said, 'You can develop any culture you want when you're in your own
building, but you're not in your own building.'''
But Mr. Leder said he has been told he cannot force the small schools to
start their days later to accommodate Lehman during the busy morning hours.
''They share our facilities, but their rooms are sacrosanct,'' he said.
''It's gyms, cafeterias and science labs that become an issue.''
At John F. Kennedy High School in the Bronx, near the Manhattan border,
close to 5,000 students attend the main school and two small schools. Some
teachers are fighting a plan to turn a third Kennedy program into a school next
year, possibly forcing Kennedy's auto shop to be turned into classrooms.
One evening, a couple of dozen teachers held a protest, carrying placards
reading ''Save Our Auto Shop'' and ''Mini Schools, Maximum Harm.''
Carolyn Eubanks, a mathematics teacher, said some small schools are more
selective, leaving Kennedy to accommodate more students with special needs.
''The small schools aren't selecting the kids who most need to be
selected,'' she said.
Carol Robinson, president of the Kennedy PTA, said the squeeze on space is
making it hard for Kennedy to recover from years of problems.
''When Bill Gates donated this money, it was not his goal to disenfranchise
some children,'' Mrs. Robinson said. ''But that is what is happening.''
Todd Venning, 17, a Kennedy senior who is captain of the track team, said,
''They come in with this attitude of, 'We're the future, we're going to phase
this school out.'''
Three small-school students joined the Kennedy track team, Todd said, but
they were not welcomed.
''We basically just told them that we just don't appreciate their
small-school situation,'' he said. ''It's like they have their stuff and they
use our stuff. And we have limited stuff, and can't use their stuff.''
At DeWitt Clinton High School, just south of Van Cortlandt Park in the
Bronx, the alumni association lobbied the Department of Education to remove the
one small school planted there this year, the Celia Cruz Bronx High School of
Music.
''What they were doing was taking one of the strengths of Clinton, which is
a music department, and they wanted to break it out of the school,'' said Robert
Esnard, a former New York City deputy mayor who graduated from Clinton in 1956
and is treasurer of the alumni association. ''There is nothing wrong with
small schools, and my view is there's nothing wrong with big schools if it's
done right.''
Next year, Celia Cruz will move, probably to Walton.
Bushwick High School in Brooklyn is being replaced entirely by small
schools. The transition has not been easy for its students, who sometimes
arrive at school to see buses lined up outside, waiting to take the students at
one small school or another to some coveted destination.
''People kind of forget about the old school and focus on the new
schools,'' said Alex Urquilla, 18, a Bushwick senior. ''I don't know why they
get special treatment and Bushwick doesn't. It's like they're getting all the
attention.''
Robert L. Hughes, the president of New Visions for Public Schools, a
nonprofit group that has created many of New York's small schools with Gates
and other private money and is now creating more, described the problems as
growing pains.
''We're struggling to transform an archaic structure that prevents teachers
and students from doing their best work,'' he said. ''I think culture clashes
are going to be inevitable during the transition, and it's incumbent upon
everybody sitting at the table to work to resolve them.''
For small schools, it can be a challenge to create a culture of rigorous
discipline and intimacy within a cavernous, crowded building. Some parents worry
about sending their children to big school buildings with bad reputations, even
if they are in separate classes. Students at the Marble Hill High School for
International Studies, for example, must start their days by walking through
metal detectors because the school is inside Kennedy.
Idella J. King-Anderson cherishes the close relationship her daughter Tishma
Anderson, 15, has with her teachers at Discovery, a small school in Walton,
near Jerome Park Reservoir, and appreciates the frequent contact she has with
teachers and counselors, who call home to inform her of Tishma's successes as
well as her difficulties. But she said she wished there were more separation
between Discovery and its host.
''I think they should have security there where it divides them up,'' she
said. ''Just like they have security for Walton, they should have security for
Discovery.''
Last fall, an Aerospace teacher, Griffina S. Blake, won a $3,800 grant for a
project to bring together Aerospace and Evander Childs students, to make a video
about the relationship between small and large schools.
''I was hoping that maybe if we could foster this understanding, in the long
run we could have less of that hostility,'' Ms. Blake said.
At a project meeting one recent afternoon, things quickly grew heated, with
some Aerospace students saying they thought their presence improved the school,
and Evander Childs students saying Aerospace's privileges stung.
Ms. Blake managed to quell the debate by turning it around. Instead of
focusing on their differences, she asked the students whether this question --
How have small schools affected security at Evander Childs? -- should be asked
of their classmates as the video camera rolled. Finally, they agreed.
URL:
GRAPHIC: Photo: Desiree Williams, a Bronx Aerospace Academy student, films
Kamaal Ryan, right, of Evander Childs High School, as he interviews Marisa Diaz,
also of Bronx Aerospace, about having a school within a school. (Photo by Ruth
Fremson/The New York Times)(pg. B9)
LOAD-DATE: April 14, 2004
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