Paraphrase "The more things
seem to change, the more they stay the same."
I wrote the follow article in March 2006. You decide if it is still relevant 10 years later.
Over
the last two years, while serving as Senior Superintendent of Alternative
Schools and Programs, I have visited New York City public school programs in
church basements, housing projects, homeless shelters, storefronts, suspension
centers, juvenile detention centers, and prisons. I ventured into places that few
department of education officials would dare go. Most pretend these makeshift
programs do not exist. Worse, they pretend that these children do not exist – out
of sight, out of mind.
The
school system’s response to children who do not fit is to place them out of
‘site.’ The familiar cry, “Lock ‘em up and throw away the key,” is more of a
reality than you might realize. The New York City Department of Education’s (DOE)
way of dealing with children who are described as disruptive is to treat them
like criminals. As states across this country have moved toward privatization
of prisons, this current administration has opted to follow suit and outsource
education. DOE establishes partnerships with community-based organizations
(CBO) to service children who have historically been failed by the system.
These children fall into the following categories: suspended, homeless,
pregnant, over-aged and under-credited.
By
outsourcing services for our most challenging students, DOE concedes it is not
willing to meet the needs of these children. In fact, the organizations being
bankrolled and contracted by DOE to serve these students cannot meet their
needs. These organizations will never admit it; to do so would be to bite the
hand that feeds them. However, they have told DOE officials they will not
service special education students. These students are considered too far gone
and beyond help.
Let’s
look at what was stated at a DOE press conference on November 25, 2002, in
regard to its master plan for dealing with school discipline:
“Removal from School: For committing repeated more serious
infractions, students will be assigned to newly created ‘twilight schools’ that will be
established in each borough. These new schools will include community service
assignments during the day – performing assignments with the Parks Department,
for example – and classes in the late afternoon and early evening.
Extended Removal from School:
Students who commit the most serious infractions will continue to be assigned
to an expanded program of Second Opportunity Schools. These
programs will be increased in capacity (from the current 300), re-configured to
separate middle school students from high school students, and the rules will
be changed to allow more students to be placed in these facilities.
As part of this initiative, and
thanks to the change in governance structure making the Department of Education
a Mayoral agency, a host of City agencies are now becoming part of a city-wide
effort to support teaching and learning. The New York City Police
Department has had a partnership with our schools for a number of
years. Now the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will
be working with schools to provide increased mental health referral services
for children involved in these incidents. The New York City Department of
Probation has offered to provide trained officers in key schools. The New
York City Parks Department will work with the Department of Education on
creating supervised community service assignments for children in twilight
schools.”
Here is a reality check:
Twilight Schools never happened and were quickly rebranded as New
Beginnings. New Beginnings by all accounts was an abysmal failure. It never
fulfilled its promise. Sixty students were to be removed from selected middle
and high schools and provided counseling services by community-based
organizations and rigorous academic coursework by licensed DOE teachers. With
the exception of a few notable sites, the majority of the sites failed to
deliver. Students and parents were sold a bill of goods.
Second
Opportunity Schools (SOS) are de facto juvenile detention centers. Students’
civil rights are being violated. Children are being held in these centers
without due process. There is no presumption of innocence. In addition, they
are subjected to inferior instruction. In fact, at some sites, children are
simply not receiving instruction. DOE central personnel’s current goal is to
warehouse these students, not unlike the methods used by the penal institutions
across this country. This creates an untenable situation for the program’s
administration and teachers. Furthermore, although there are a handful of dedicated
teachers in these sites, many are rejects from traditional schools themselves,
banished like the students they are told to serve. Once the students are placed
in SOS, they are forgotten by the system. Children are forced to remain at
these sites (not schools) well beyond their suspension sentences. Schools do
not want to accept them upon release, so the cycle of neglect and rejection
continues. The prevailing attitude is, “They should not have committed the
infraction in the first place. They get what they deserve.”
Interagency partnerships do not exist in any significant way. I had so
much hope for this possibility. Unfortunately, instead of interagency
partnerships, you have territorial city commissioners. In too many cases, they
do not communicate nor do they care to collaborate. For example, the New York
City Department of Probation wants absolutely nothing to do with schools. The
Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will probably admit it does not have
the resources or capacity to work with middle and high school students.
The only outcome of the November 25, 2002, press conference was the
removal of students from schools. All other promises were hype. I’ll tell you
what Public Enemy told urban youth, “Don’t believe the hype.” Don’t be fooled
by the power of the messages. People in this city have been fooled; I have heard
learned people quote from these press releases as if they are true. No one has
bothered to do an analysis of all of the press releases. I dare you – you can
find them at www.nycenet.edu.
Pushing
children out of school is not a new phenomenon. What is new is the masterful
way it is being done. Here’s a specific example of how certain children are
being pushed out of schools. In 1995,
the board of education established a post-five program called Young Adult
Borough Centers (YABC). This program had three minimum criteria: Students must
be 18+ years of age; they must have at least 28 credits; they must be in their
fifth year of high school and have passed at least three New York State regents
examinations. Students attended school from 4 to 9 PM, four days a week. Friday
was an independent study day. This program was initially successful because the
students were relatively close to meeting graduation requirements. Under this
current administration, YABC has lowered the entry requirements. Students only
need to be 17 years of age with four years of high school and have 17 credits,
no regents required. These students face an uphill battle because many lack the
foundation to succeed in a less structured environment. In addition, contrary
to the rhetoric about rigorous curriculums, instruction is poor in most
centers. So, once these students are convinced by guidance counselors and
administrators to leave school, they can never return. Once they realize they
were sold a bill of goods, they are left to fend for themselves. Many decide to
leave the system altogether. Mission accomplished.
Since
this strategy worked so well under the radar, DOE officials probably said, “Let’s
design or rebrand another program. Let’s call it Learning-to-Work. We will
announce it as a new initiative and everyone will think it is something new. Oh
yeah, let’s mention that it will have a vocational component.” Schools Chancellor
Klein made the following remarks on March 10, 2005:
“Our newest vocational program, Learning-to-Work, addresses the need
for multiple pathways to graduation by providing overage and
under-credited students with enhanced academic supports, a range of real-world
work-related experiences, and other tools that they will need to complete their
education and thrive in the workplace.”
I
found out about this so-called initiative by reading the New York Post. I
received a call after the fact. I was not trusted with the ‘secret’ initiative.
It is crazy. The initiative is a ruse. It is another device to mislead young
men of color, primarily out of school. I told the chancellor and others the
initiative would not work. What was I thinking?
It never mattered. The announcement of the initiative was the goal, not
its implementation. I take absolutely no pride in being correct. In fact, I
would be thrilled to be wrong.
Finally,
in press conference after press conference, the public is told of the great
promise of having community-based organizations work with our challenged youth.
The theory is that the community-based organizations are grassroots and can
relate to the students and their plight.
Nothing could be further from the truth. There is nothing grassroots
about many of these organizations. The leadership does not live in the
community. The workers who work with students do not live in the community. The
only thing community-based about some of these organizations is the location of
their facilities. The real grassroots organizations do not want anything to do
with the department of education. They perceive the DOE as a corrupt
organization. In fact, department officials fear real grassroots organizations
because they do not rely on government funding and can speak the truth. Again,
others who are being bankrolled by government won’t dare bite the hand that
feeds them. They, unlike Daniel of the Old Testament, are eager to eat the
king’s meat.
On
November 17, 2005, the mayor and chancellor stood together at yet another press
conference to announce major education initiatives. People left this press
conference just as they left ones in the past, feeling really good about the
information they were fed. The words and backdrop were masterfully chosen. They
hit their intended target – the press. Unchallenged,
what was said at this conference was printed in papers across this city.
Readers believed it would happen, as they believed past promises have been
fulfilled.
As
City Hall, DOE central, and consultants go through another clandestine reform
of the original “Children First” reform, I know they will not deliver on this latest
promise to serve disconnected children. Their arrogance and disconnection preclude
them from doing so. Their arrogance precludes them from working with people who
may disagree with them. Their disconnection precludes them from listening to
people who live and work closely with children. Their arrogance precludes them
from respecting people who are poor and miseducated. In the final analysis, a system and its
protectors are incapable of putting “Children First.”
I
leave you to ponder:
“What
shall we do with children who do not fit the school system?” or “What shall we
do with a school system that does not fit our children?”
Bernard
Gassaway
Former Superintendent for NYC Alternative Schools and Programs
March
2006 ©
Joel I. Klein in a press release on March 10,
2005
