Message to Farina and de Blasio: Undo the Damage

"The schools of Baghdad and Kabul will recover sooner than the NYC school system under your management." ... Norm Scott to Joel Klein --- quoting my self from a c.2004-6 PEP meeting.

Eterno and Epstein: Revoke Jamaica High School's Death Sentence... NEW YEAR APPEAL TO INCOMING MAYOR AND CHANCELLOR: SAVE THE COMPREHENSIVE HIGH SCHOOLS, ICE Blog.

I love to quote myself. Carmen Farina was sitting next to Klein, I believe, when I made that statement at a PEP meeting sometime between 2004 I think. Not long after Farina was quoted chastising someone who referred to me -- and I'm paraphrasing here -- "you're talking about someone who compared us to the Taliban."

That's not what I meant at the time, but if you really think about it, weren't BloomKlein educational terrorists with an avowed aim to destroy what existed? Well, they did allow girls to go to school.

With de Blasio and Farina now in charge, they have a hell of a lot of work to do undoing the damage. The true test of the deB/Farina administration will be how they treat schools ravaged by the Bloomberg policies.

As I've pointed out numerous times (Farina With Support of Real Reformers Has Chance to End 12 Years of Toxicity), Farina over the past few years has made a stand of sorts by supporting the PS 15 community in Red Hook after they survived the invasion of the body-snatching PAVE charter school. I only wish deB could take back that $25 million Bloomberg gave to PAVE for their own building in Red Hook where another school was not needed.

I know a lot of other bloggers are talking about the testing and evaluation and even salary issues but to me the key is what they do with these horror story, power hungry principals out of control. They could start with Linda Hill at IS 49SI -- everyone knows she's not capable of running a school like that, but they turn the other way and persecute Portelos instead for challenging her.

Another issue is the phased out schools still alive - barely. Jamaica HS is one such and below James Eterno (who is still there) and Marc Eptstein, a former faculty member, make a case for keeping the school alive.

Diane Ravitch posted it on her blog with this intro:

Marc Epstein taught at Jamaica High School in Queens, New York City, for many years. The school is under a death sentence, which means the end of many programs that served children with different needs. Here he makes a plea to Mayor de Blasio to save some of the doomed schools.

A De Blasio Clemency?

And James Eterno sent out this appeal.

Hi Everyone-

My colleague Marc Epstein has written an excellent plea for clemency for Jamaica High School and other closing schools.  You can read it at Diane Ravitch's blog.

http://dianeravitch.net/2013/12/30/will-mayor-de-blasio-grant-clemency-to-doomed-schools/

I have copied it at the ICEUFT blog.

http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/new-year-hope-for-new-mayor-and.html

Now we need your help to make the public aware of this issue. 

Please spread the word and click on comments on either blog to add your voice.

Happy New Year!

James Eterno