(NYC) Panel Votes to Close 10 City High Schools

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

After six hours of public testimony, the Panel for Educational Policy voted early on Wednesday to close 10 city high schools and open a new charter school in the heart of the Upper West Side.

The panel’s 13 members were deeply divided, and their decisions came after heated debate, punctuated by catcalls and jeers from the audience. In the end, though, the panel did exactly as the Bloomberg administration had expected. With that, it delivered another victory to the city’s efforts to rid the system of failing schools while expanding the size and reach of charter schools, which are publicly financed but privately run.

The votes capped a meeting that drew nearly 2,000 people to the Brooklyn Technical High School auditorium and included statements from some 300 speakers. Some of them screamed and taunted Schools Chancellor Cathleen P. Black, until she could not take it any longer.

“I cannot speak if you are shouting,” Ms. Black said after a member of the panel asked her a question and the crowd booed as one of her deputies offered to respond.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/nyregion/02panel.html

[Roland99]

1. Yay! More charter schools!

:eyes:

[nyc 4 Biden]

2. Video

please watch the NYC schools chancellor finally address the crowd at 1:47. amazing.

http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/133170/mammoth-meeting-ends-with-10-school-closures

[msanthrope]

3. That's called being a New Yorker....

Seriously, that was pretty obnoxious--even if she had just been yelled at for 7 hours.

Sadly, Paul Robeson closed. I hope he gets another, better school named after him.

[immoderate]

4. I graduated from Brooklyn Tech.

The auditorium is majestic, and would be packed with 2000 people attending.

--imm