Petition to Expand Arts and Letters
This one just dropped into the inbox…a group of parents in Fort Greene and Clinton is urging the DOE to expand the Urban Assembly Academy of Arts and Letters, currently a middle school at P.S. 20, to include grades K-5. If you’d like to learn more about it or sign the petition, click here. Update:…
This one just dropped into the inbox…a group of parents in Fort Greene and Clinton is urging the DOE to expand the Urban Assembly Academy of Arts and Letters, currently a middle school at P.S. 20, to include grades K-5. If you’d like to learn more about it or sign the petition, click here. Update: As a commenter points out, not everyone is in favor or the proposed expansion. The Local ran a story on Thursday about it.
Hi All,
I am a reporter covering education in Brooklyn, and I am interested in what people are saying about P.S. 67 and Community Roots. I am writing a story about P.S. 67’s lack of a library, and would love to speak to anyone on this forum who has information about the school and this situation. Anyone who is willing, please email me at elizarh@gmail.com or call me at (617) 320-8123.
Thanks so much,
Eliza Ronalds-Hannon
(617) 320-8123
@famous – CR is not exclusive, because it doesn’t exclude in any fashion except by random selection.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/exclusive
The idea that ‘involved’ parents’ kids should have their options artificially curtailed to make up for the lack of action from ‘uninvolved’ parents isn’t really defensible.
@heather – negatively portraying the credibility of a wide swath of parents by labeling them education experts, yet holding strong opinions about what doesn’t work? Not sure how that works.
I have a child at PS20, and I’m in favor of the UAAL expansion. Please disregard anyone implying or making blanket-statements that all PS20 parents are against the expansion.
Also, why on earth can’t the extremely successful Community Roots school incorporate the failing PS 67 school? Or at least offer open acceptance to all of its students?
So… after this, I went and reread me some Jonathan Kozol, which was really depressing, considering the book I was reading was talking about schools in the late eighties.
And, here we are talking as if it’s perfectly okay to divide limited resources to give those that have more and those that don’t less.
“You are wrong about Community Roots being an exclusive school.”
The citywide average for free lunch is 70% and at CRCS it is 30%.
15% of the city’s public school population is white, yet over 30% of CRCS is white.
They also have no students who aren’t proficient in English.
What’s more, every child at this school has a parent who advocated for them by filling out an application.
How is this not exclusive?
The school sharing a location with them has classrooms with 39 kids in them. They lost their library. Meanwhile, Community Roots has a boat building class with its own room.
Any new playground was almost certainly paid for by funds from both schools.
Community Roots Charter School can congratulate itself on adhering to a progressive model, its parents can congratulate themselves on sending their children to a school that is more diverse than St. Annes, but don’t for a second claim that CRCS is meeting the needs of a typical group of public school kids or that the Community Roots model holds the secret to solving the problems of public education in this city.
Washington: you are wrong about Community Roots being an “exclusive” school. I’ll agree that lotteries are problematic (it isn’t really a “choice” if the school has a 6% acceptance rate), but Community Roots is truly an inclusive and extremely diverse school, in all respects, and it does a tremendous amount of outreach to the local community. The parents and staff go overboard to collaborate with P.S. 67 (see the new playground, beautiful garden, book fair, etc., all shared among the three schools that are co-located in the building). Would it be better for the people living in the projects to have P.S. 67 — a failing school — as their only option? I personally know people who moved their kids from 67 to Community Roots and are amazed at the difference — it’s just a shame that all families aren’t given the opportunity to give their children a decent education. That’s an argument for EXPANDING charter and lottery school options.
That petition is so thoroughly lacking in any sense of commonwealth — a concern that ALL our children get good schooling — that it is offensive. I may well apply for a slot in Arts & Letters when my child is old enough. But expansion of these options just can NOT come at the expense of the neighborhood public schools open to all. Let’s support P.S. 20’s new principal and make that a fantastic local school, so that parents who fled (creating more space) under the old administration want to come back. Let’s get good zoned middle schools for our kids too. AND go ahead and let the lottery/chosen/ selected options continue, but having them take resources from the local schools just creates a terrible division in our community.
I am late to the party on this one…. but a few things
1. P.S. 11 is a great school. I never got the impression that the focus was discipline. Lots of cool after school activities.
2. I hear good things about the education at Urban Arts and Letters. But I am getting not so good vibes about how they inter-relate with PS 20 and district 13 kids in general. If the DOE has set up a situation where two schools have to share a building, it would seem that there should be an attempt to create good will and some synergy. At the District 13 meeting one PS 20 parent pointed out that Arts & Letters accepted only 2 students from PS 20. Since District 13 is short on quality public middle schools it would seem more appropriate to expand Arts & Letters middle school program. As it is Arts & Letters accepts applications from other districts including District 15, futher restricting District 13 students from attending. Partically troubling since District 13 kids can’t get into District 15 schools.
Well, alright. Now that sounds like civic, if not completely civil, discourse.
My apologies Jon if I was too hard on you.