New York City out to ruin a good school

NEST (New Explorations Into Science, Technology and Math school) is a school for gifted children in New York City serving grades K-12. Schools like NEST are exactly the kinds of schools that cities need to serve middle class parents and keep them from fleeing to the suburbs. But, as documented in a New York Times article, NYC school officials are trying to ruin the school by forcing it to share its building with a “charter school” for “underserved children,” which presumably means poor ghetto youth.

This is the reason why I hate liberals, they are always trying to destroy anything good. Liberals can’t stand the fact that some children are smarter than other children, and they want to fix the “problem” by ensuring that all children attend crappy schools.

The move to ruin NEST is abetted by a wealthy “philanthropist” who clearly would be benefiting the education of New York City children more if she would just spent her money on another summer home instead.

Comments

[J. Stossel]

This is the telling quote:

"But the city's Department of Education says that there is room for nearly twice as many students as currently attend, that the sharing arrangement would last only two years and that many parents have lost sight of the fact that NEST is a public school."

This, ladies and gentlemen, is just another reason why education should be treated as any other market commodity. "Public" is another word for "you pay for it but you don't own it".

I hate modern liberals too.

[Peter]

New York already has some elite high schools that admit students by competitive examination (Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech). No one has ever questioned the idea of keeping these schools physically and academically separate from the ordinary schools. Which makes this building-sharing push rather strange.

[jult52]

For discussion: "The public school system in the US is in the middle of disintegrating."

True or false?

[Half Sigma]

There's no "U.S. public school system," there are 50 state systems each with many school districts.

Most of the school districts are mediocre, but not disentegrating.

[tc]

I don't know much about NYC schools but from the article it doesn't sound like NEST will be "ruined". They're not being forced to accept new students, just to share a building.

[nancyspungenesq]

I wouldn't blame it on her being liberal, I'd blame it on her being rich and dumb. Bet she wouldn't have qualified for NEST.

I think a lot of educators resent gifted education not really out of liberalness/political correctness, but because they themselves aren't in that group. My perception of the average schoolteacher, at least out here on the Left Coast, is someone (usually female) who is slightly, but only slightly, above average in intelligence, and prefers students to be similar. (I know there are many exceptions.) They resent such students being given special treatment or resources. I think a lot of the conservative supporters of privatization secretly dislike the idea of valuing intelligence over money.

[RogueLefty]

A lot of it is liberal egalitarianism, although I wouldn't rule out a resentment component as you described above.

[The Superfluous Man]

I suspect that it's far more racial egalitarianism than strictly égalité, if at all. They seem to holler not about how SAT scores assume the shape of a bell curve, but about how the black one is behind the white one. If we were all say Anglo Saxons, or Han Chinese, would liberals still believe in compensatory education? In debates about IQ, the culture theorists often agree that genes can account for intelligence for an individual, but not an entire group, when group differences are just accumulated individual differences.

"No one has ever questioned the idea of keeping these [stuyvestant, et al.] schools physically and academically separate from the ordinary schools. "
Really? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuyvesant_High_School#Controversy And I'm sure there is similar sentiment about the other schools mentioned.

Consider the City University of New York. Wikipedia says "CUNY's record of graduating the highest number of Nobel Laureates of any public university in the world and its low tuition costs helped it forge a reputation as "'the Harvard of the proletariat.'" (I attribute this mostly to the top of the top ethnic group (by IQ), and that other elite universities limited the number of Jewish students.) But the point is, open admissions was enacted and the school declined thereafter. To be fair, the group that made it great, the Jews, were rapidly rising in prosperity and could afford better, while the quotas were loosening. But the university could still have retained some of its stature. (Possibly all of CCNY's nobel laureates are Jewish. For a couple, their religion/ethnicity is not stated.)

Nancy, right you are. The NY Times education supplement a couple issues back said that of 21 or 19 professions, teachers had the second lowest SAT score, below Agriculture majors. Teaching unions resent math and science teachers, refusing to let public schools pay them differently, as they are harder to lure, because they have better job opportunities. Instead, the unions demand benefits raises across the board.

"I think a lot of the conservative supporters of privatization secretly dislike the idea of valuing intelligence over money." If rich idiots disrupt a school, the school will increase the number of smart students, to better reputation and maximize profit. There's a balance to strike. Besides, I don't think the divide between money and intelligence is on average great enough to to worry over.

[SciFiGeek]

"Besides, I don't think the divide between money and intelligence is on average great enough to to worry over."

Two words: Paris Hilton.

My dad went ot NY public schools in the 1940's and 1950's. They prepared him very well for the world. He was still living in NYC in the 60's when the
liberals(socialists) began to wreck the public school system in the name of equality or whatever. Anybody who can afford it and many of those who can't send their kids to private or parochial schools. Many have also moved to New Jersey. I also agree very much with the statement above that may teachers resent smart students. These socialists hate anybody who is smarter and wants to get off the plantation so to speak. Try Fred Reed at Fredoneverything.com; he writes about the cesspools that are public schools better than anyone I ever read.

[calcuhater]

I've visited and observed classes at NEST on a number of occasions. From my experience, students there are not "gifted," per se, but rather they/their parents have chosen the school as an alternative to substandard options in their districts.
With respect to the overcrowding issue, I can say that the facilities seemed more than ample for the student population I witnessed.
More to the point, I believe, is that NEST doesn't seem to be substantially preparing students for the curriculum they will follow as they progress into upper grades. Coupled with their mission to actually BE a school for "gifted" students, this has resulted in an attitude of administrative intolerance to students who aren't up to snuff. The result: students are told to enroll elsewhere.

The mark of a "good school" is not that it takes a student population carefully selected based on previous academic/IQ assessments and graduates high achievers, but rather one that addresses and overcomes difficulties children have, developing and furthering their abilities and encouraging academic zeal.

Consider: Mott Hall, 138th & Convent, a community school serving students in West Harlem. Test scores are high, many students go on to "elite" public and private high schools - most funded by scholarships. Yes, there are admission standards and an application process, but once students are enrolled they remain and their particular concerns are addressed. It is possible to develop a certain "giftedness" in students, given an appropriate model and resources.

$.02

[Half Sigma]

Mott Hall's emphasis on chess no doubt scares away the low IQ students.

And the student body, being mostly black, benefits from affirmative action when applying to high school.

[calcuhater]

The Mott Hall student population is primarily Hispanic. And their reputation as a chess powerhoiuse is not forced upon students...