Commission Conundrum
To The Editor:
The preliminary staff report of the Charter Revision Commission should raise serious concerns as to whether the Commission will be judged as representing the legitimate interests of the public or will it be known as the Bloomberg hatchet Commission.
As reported by The Queens Tribune in its July 15 edition (Term Limit Question May Make Nov. Ballot), the report seems to have concerns as to whether "more time is needed before a concise analysis can be made" as well as the objection of current and former elected officials, is akin to placing the wolf in charge of the hen house.
An apt description of those concerns would be best covered by a familiar barn yard epithet. By setting up these phony concerns the Commission is playing a long standing political ploy to dispatch the matter to the distant future, all to the applause of the far too many hack officials whose self interest exceeds that of the public.
That term limits, after much debate that was twice supported in public referendums makes it clear more time is not needed. That the Commission ignores the cabal orchestrated by Bloomberg and about 21 term-limited City Council members to overrule the will of the public, is not only a disgrace but a cogent reason to exclude from the issue the objection of all current and former elected officials.
Furthermore, if term limits and as indicated herein below, eminent domain, are not on the ballot, Bloomberg's charter revision is a cruel charade.
If the Commission does not place on the ballot a term limit proposal in a clear manner that would prevent self interested officials from over ruling it, as well as a proposal preventing a mayor and city council members beholden to fat cat real estate interests to exercise eminent domain taking private property for the benefit of private real estate interests, or at the very minimum giving the public the right to approve or disapprove the taking, the current Charter Revision Commission under Chairperson Matthew Goldstein, will be judged by history whether it have served the best interests of the public or that of hack politics.
Benjamin M. Haber,
Flushing
Illegal Collusion
To The Editor:
Open Letter to Mr. Michael Mulgrew, President, United Federation of Teachers:
This is in follow up to an e-mailed letter to you dated June 11, 2010, with the subject line, "Justice for Jamaica High School." With that letter, we forwarded a copy of a letter to a student admitting the student to Francis Lewis High School rather than to the student's choice of Jamaica High School.
Today we write in response to the agreement made yesterday between the United Federation of Teachers and the Department of Education. The plan submitted to the Panel for Educational Policy in January was for a phased closing of Jamaica High School combined with a phased opening and growth of three new small schools. Accompanying it was a flawed Educational Impact Statement.
This plan, approved by the Panel for Educational Policy, was presented as one integrated resolution. The Supreme Court of New York State, upheld by the Court of Appeals, has found the PEP votes for the approval of that resolution null and void and annulled the votes.
New York Education Law - Article 52-A, § 2590 - clearly gives the procedure for the co-location of new schools in an existing school. See also Chancellor's Regulation A-190, "Significant Changes in School Utilization", which clearly outlines the procedure which begins with a filing six months before the start of the school year and calls for an EIS, hearings, and a vote of approval by the Panel for Educational Policy.
The announcement of the UFT and the Department of Education's agreement to allow the placement of new schools at Jamaica High School in violation of New York State Law is reprehensible. It sends a terrible example to the students and staff. The action pairs the UFT with the DOE as co-collaborators to circumvent the letter and the spirit of community-based decision making.
I call upon you to reconsider your decision and extricate yourself from a course of action that is a flagrant act of defiance of the new Mayoral Control Law passed last summer. ”
Kevin J. Forrestal,
President, Hillcrest Estates Civic Association
Don't Eliminate Larger Schools
To The Editor:
Your article, "Small Schools Making A Difference" (July 15, 2010) misrepresents the facts regarding the conversions of large high schools to small ones. It does so because it simply repeats the results of a so-called "study" funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Bill Gates was very good at making money for the Microsoft Corporation, but in education he is a dilettante using our kid as his toys. Beginning in 2000 he has poured $2 billion into the conversion of large high schools into small ones, several in New York City. Then he funds a "study" that says they're working well which is the subject of your article. But they are not, and high schools in Queens, notably Jamaica High School, may well be Gates' newest experiment.
L. Haimson, an expert on local education recently wrote, "In recent years the Gates initiative has turned districts upside-down, at first establishing as many small schools as possible, creating thousands of new administrator jobs, eating up classroom space, and compelling the neediest kids who were excluded from the new small schools to travel long distances to attend even more overcrowded large schools in worse conditions than before, relegating those schools to failure. The small schools created in their place, with several schools sharing one building, were forced to fight fiercely over scarce space, losing science labs, art rooms, libraries, and intervention spaces in the process."
A recent article in Business Week, "Gates Bets Billions Reviving U.S. Schools to Mixed Results" (July 15, 2010) reports that a Wharton Business School study has found that Gates' promotion of small schools is based on a false premise. In fact, the Wharton study concludes, "big high schools, for all their problems, outperform small ones. Scale lets them offer more advanced classes, electives, and extracurricular activities."
The Business Week article goes on to say, "In November 2008, Bill Gates publicly backtracked, acknowledging in a speech in Seattle that 'simply breaking up existing schools into smaller units often did not generate the gains we were hoping for.'" Later Gates wrote, "Many of the small schools that we invested in did not improve students' achievement in any significant way."
Yet Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein doggedly follow that path, and Jamaica High School and its students will likely be their next victims. So too will be neighboring schools that are always asked to absorb the overflow resulting from these conversions.
Our large high schools should be improved, not destroyed.
Melvyn Meer,
Bayside
Home Shares
To The Editor:
Many Queens home owners have opened their homes to a shared lifestyle. These people, just like you, are living together with individuals, who are willing to share household chores, help with errands and contribute a portion of the monthly expenses, from approximately $400 to $600.
Home shares allow qualified share individuals, a comfortable, spacious home. The home owner, now has a platonic companion and an additional source to help them remain living in their home.
Larry Stanley,
Whitestone
Hardnosed Buffoons
To The Editor:
With the economy in such dire straits, there is absolutely no reason why unemployment benefits that have expired for millions of out of work Americans should not be extended.
Americans are out of work through no fault of their own, and are relying on these benefits to help pay bills and put food on the table as well as helping to pay rent and other expenses. The audacity of the Republicans who are blocking the extension of unemployment benefits is really sad. Perhaps if these windbag politicians were out of work, then they would fully understand what millions of once hardworking Americans are going through.Those unemployment benefits are well deserved by all Americans who are out of work.
The American people will remember these hardnosed buffoons in November at the voting booth.
John Amato,
Fresh Meadows