Despite strong opposition from public education rights groups throughout the City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is plowing ahead with a plan to close 26 public schools for the 2011-12 academic year. As a part of the public debate around the issue, the Independent Budget Office has released a comprehensive study of the schools slated for termination. What emerges is roadmap that leads directly into the growing trends toward two-tier education through school privatization.
Certain parts of the report have already filtered into the broader debate about the closings. For instance, the targeted schools are overwhelmingly attended by Black students. The IBO reported that, “The average share of black students in closing schools was 52 percent, more than 1.5 times the citywide average of 31 percent.”
The figures are precisely inverse for White students who make up 14 percent of the overall school population, but only 3 percent in the schools slated to close. Latino students are represented at an amount, 40 percent, equal to their overall place in the system. However, the question remains to be answered as to why, beyond being the most recent example of institutional racism, this particular racial mix is important (see below).
The proposed closed schools have also been something of a dumping ground for special education students. While the number of special education students in the school system as a whole remained flat from 2008-09 at 12 percent, the closing high schools experienced an increase from 16 to 18 percent. Similar extraordinary increases were seen in the number of students living in temporary shelter, students who were overage and those with lower percentile scores on standardized tests.
In short, the closing schools were at the epicenter of the economic crisis that ensued in 2008 and reflect the particular kinds of damage it did to communities of color in NYC. This crisis accelerated the already deteriorating conditions in the schools creating an opportunity for privatizers looking to intensify the dismantling of public education. At least this is what the more underreported data from the IBO report suggests.
The IBO also measured what they termed the level of “resources” provided to the closing schools. Here is where things become a bit tricky. Statistically, the closing schools appear to have had access to more “resources” than a typical public school. The schools had teacher-student ratios below the citywide average, were staffed by more veteran teachers, including many with advanced degrees, and operated with a utilization rate at 86 percent, well below the overcrowded citywide average of 106 percent.
However, the numbers above do not reflect an increase in the resources made available to the schools, but, instead, reflect a deep demoralization of the public school population that was turned into an exodus through the activity of the charter schools. Most of the schools slated for closure and, for that matter, most of those already closed, are clustered around the existing charter schools. The charters are experts at cherry picking the best students out of low performing public schools, thereby reducing these schools to warehouses for special needs students. In other words, the charters whittled away the system from the inside.
Parents, especially parents in the City’s beleaguered poor and working class Black communities have been drawn in by the charters. Black students now make up more than 60 percent of the enrollment in charter schools, far outstripping their 31 percent representation in the overall school system. (NYTimes, June 15, 2010) Conversely, Hispanic students are underrepresented in the charter schools. In short, the demographics of the closing schools are tailor made for the charters. Displacing all of the students at once will allow charters to cherry pick on a massive scale – weeding out the good from the bad test takers.
And the one-two punch of charter privatization will be followed by what might be a knockout blow. Of the 41 replacement schools being used to relocate the displaced students, eight are charters. More importantly, five of these charters will use the displacement to expand to a full complement of grade levels, thereby fully institutionalizing themselves as fixtures in the education system. And the expansion of charters most often means the reduction of space for public schools as many charters are housed inside of existing public schools.
Bloomberg supporters might point to the strategy of starting up smaller public schools and using those as sights for displaced students. Indeed, 22 small schools will be opened over the next two years. However, small schools alone are not the solution. The IBO also indicates that 1/3 of the schools slated for closing began as small schools. The newly created replacement small schools will still be surrounded by charters and operating with the universal task of educating all of the students of New York City, not just the best test takers.
If you are looking for a culprit for the schools closures you can forget Mayor Bloomberg and, for that matter, Cathie Black. They are just functionaries. Point the accusatory finger directly at the charter schools. Their presence created the conditions that accelerated the declines of the targeted schools. Their political muscle pulled the switch on the execution order.
Defending the public schools currently being targeted for closure is a necessary task. Yet, much more is needed in order to contest the growing power of the charter schools. We need a vision of public education that moves beyond the mere defense of flawed institutions. Such a vision should be given teeth by an uncompromising political movement that builds power at the grassroots level. Absent this, we can expect more closures as the charter schools continue to generalize themselves inside the system by employing their rapidly developing national profile to create even more local opportunities to privatize.
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Billy Wharton is a writer, activist and the editor of the Socialist WebZine. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, the NYC Indypendent, Spectrezine and the Monthly Review Zine. He can be reached at whartonbilly@gmail.com. Become a FAN on Facebook
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