Three Queens high schools — Law, Government and Community Service and Business, Computer Applications and Entrepreneurship in Cambria Heights as well as Flushing — remain on a list of 24 schools the city has targeted for closure.
They received a “D” on the DOE’s annual report card. The city Department of Education recently released the 2011-12 progress reports for city high schools. They combine attendance rates, school surveys, performance on standardized tests and progress toward graduation.
The final decision will be made early next year and must be approved by the city Panel for Educational Policy.
Low scores are reason for concern, but closing and reopening schools with new names and teachers was a bad idea last year when it was challenged in court by the teachers union. It continues to be bad.
For more than a year the department has failed to persuade Queens communities why closing schools makes sense. If a school is failing, find the problem and fix it. This may require changing the school’s leadership, but closing the school should not be an option.
Schools are part of communities. DOE bureaucrats fail to understand the impact that closing Flushing HS and reopening it with a new name would have.
If the DOE continues down this path, Queens taxpayers will pay for lawyers to defend a policy they oppose.
The people of Flushing want their children to get the best possible education, but closing a school that has been part of the community for generations and reopening it with a new name no one will remember doesn’t make sense.
Tell the mayor to save Flushing HS and its teachers.
Backing Off Stop-and-Frisk
We were pleased to learn that the number of stop-and-frisks conducted by city police is in decline in nearly every Queens precinct. The policy, designed to remove illegal guns from the city, was well-intentioned but a failure.
There is no indication that stop-and-frisk reduced gun violence and gun-related crimes have not increased in areas where the campaign has been cut back.
According to New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman, stop-and-frisk has a 90 percent failure rate.
