Parents, Students, Teachers Unite: Confront Bosses’ Racist School Plan
BROOKLYN, NY, November 18 — “No matter how much you want to pretty this up, you can’t fool us; it’s racist!” shouted an angry parent towards one of several cronies the Department of Education (DoE) sent to pacify angry students, parents and teachers at a meeting of parents from two of the building’s schools.
As reported in CHALLENGE (10/28), our school campus, which now houses four schools, is slated to house a 5th one next September. This new school is in response to a mostly wealthy, predominantly white neighborhood’s desire for a school within the immediate area. The students currently attending all the schools are black, Latino and Asian working-class youth from surrounding neighborhoods.
The new school will only accept students who received the highest marks, 3s and 4s, on their eighth grade exams; require a writing sample; will not have special education students or English Language Learners; and will receive millions of dollars in start-up costs.
At a school leadership team meeting, a DoE representative said the new school will replicate a pre-existing screened high school, a highly sought-after school with a mostly white population. If this new school is as popular as the first one, it’s expected our school’s current population will be forced out to accommodate such growth and the wealthy white people will get what they’ve always wanted — black and brown students out of their neighborhood.