GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Why are Queens schools a target this year? Too many large high schools to fit the ed deform model. Idea is to claim turnaround works — “see, we got rid of teachers but kept students.”  But that will be a lie just as all the small schools in the initial round were kept safe for years. What they are doing is forcing the unwanted kids in these schools into schools they want to destabilize for the next round of school closings. I posted a letter from Bayside HS PTA VP on ednotes: here is an excerpt that the press that covers closing schools must take into account for any fair and balanced reporting (NY Post and FOX exempted). Here is data that blows up the DOE policy (they are also helping favor charters schools by making public school parents in poor communities sign up on line for pre-k and k while charter parents can do so in the school.)

“Using
Bayside as an example, the school received 13,244 applications from
7,900 individual students for 2012-13. Note the school is currently at
158% of capacity. Our SLT committee ranked 54% of the applications for
the 510 seats including over 200 special education students. It was a
lot of work to do this fairly. 

OSE
sent offers to only 11.6% of the students that we ranked in any
program. They then sent offers to an additional 155 students we never
ranked- including 88 offers for our zoned program to students who don’t
even live in the zone! They were holding seats for their own purpose. 

This is one major reason why this community wants this zoned program to end this kind of abuse by the DOE. 

Now
the DOE is running a second round of applications in which it actively
solicited 1700 more applications from students not living in the zone
to come to Bayside. Almost all of these 1700 are zoned for the schools
the Mayor has decided to close: Flushing, Bryant, Adams, Richmond Hill,
Jamaica, Long Island City, and Newtown as well as from Bowne and Van
Buren. Parents are running from these schools in droves and threaten to
overwhelm Cardozo, Bayside, Francis Lewis and Forest Hills in the
process.”