Here on EdVox we’re excited to bring you the latest news about education issues and policies affecting our communities. It can be hard to keep up with all of the events and happenings, so – in case you missed it… Here is a recap of the latest stories in NYC education news, starting with the oldest (Monday, February 6th):

Video by Justin Watson, student at Legacy HS

Dear Teachers and Principals of NYC,

On February 1st, 2012, students across New York City walked out at 2 P.M to protest school closures and other failed education policies. We, the students, called for this walk out because of many aspects. We pleaded for change and basically have been told no by the DOE. All summed up, we were tired of having to follow the DOE’s unfair policies. It was a completely student-run action fueled by the neglect that we have felt by the Department of Education. While many activist groups in NYC supported our actions and stood in solidarity with us, we were acting as a separate entity and trying to create a space for high school students. We rallied at Union Square and spoke out about our education and the policies that affect us. We feel that these policies are not helping and DOE data doesn’t display progress. Students, teachers, and administrators across New York City are affected by these policies and it’s time for a change. We want to stop many policies including closures of struggling schools.

We know that you were unable to walkout with us at that moment. However, please show your support for our action on this day by not giving us extensive punishment for this infraction. According to the Student’s Bill of Rights, there is a range of possible disciplinary responses and so we hope that you chose a response that does not negatively impact our education.

Please understand that we were not walking out on you. We walked out for you and we hope that one day, you will walk with us too. Thank you so much for your understanding. I would love to emphasize the fact once again that this was not against anyone besides the Department of Education policies that are failing us as a city and as a community.

~ The Students

As a parent of children at PS 161 – The Crown School, a resident of  Crown Heights, and a taxpayer, I am strongly against the proposal to truncate of the 6-8th grades at the Crown School and the policy of school closures in general, because it hasn’t shown be a policy that improves student outcomes. As parents and taxpayers we are entitled to access to a quality education right here in our community. I believe as many other parents do, that PS 161 is a good school and that given the appropriate resources our children can achieve and the school can give them the education they need to succeed. This is an issue not specific to just the Crown School.

For many years, PS 161 was considered the ‘Jewel of Crown Heights’ and was a top-rated school. But in recent years there has been a steady decline in test scores. The question that has to be asked is why did the school fall so precipitously? The DOE has presented data to rationalize its decision but to truly understand what is at work, we must take a holistic look at how the school came to this position. It is only by looking at this big picture can we begin to understand where things have gone wrong, and what we need to do to make it right.

In Crown Heights, many longtime residents talk about how great the school used to be. There are numerous stories about all of the graduates of the Crown School, including former New York City Comptroller, Bill Thompson. But we are now are living in a different time – the neighborhood has changed, there are different demographics and there have been specific policy changes that have directly affected PS 161. In the not too distant past, the school was a selective school where high-performing students from different parts of the district and Brooklyn were screened and invited to attend. So intuitively, it made sense that there was a cohort of high-performing students and that they performed well given a nurturing environment.

But there did come a time when the community took a look at this and said that it was unfair that there was a high-performing school right there in your own neighborhood but your own kids could not attend. This too makes sense – as a parent you believe your kids deserve access to quality education in their own neighborhood. As a taxpayer, why should you have to make a decision to send your children to a school much further away or possibly even out of your school district when there is a good school literally next door?

So the decision was made that the Crown School go to a lottery system where children from the school zone would get first preference to attend. But here is where the problems begin. With a lottery there is inherently a dynamic of winners and losers.  Some winners considered admission into the middle grades of PS 161 their golden ticket and some of the losers were active and involved parents who simply disappeared. But especially important here is when the selectivity component that made it a ‘good’ school suddenly goes away, what is left? The answer is you have PS 161.

This is not to say that The Crown School is no longer a good school or no longer viable. There are many talented and concerned teachers, there are some motivated parents, and we have some fantastic students. The DOE itself has gone on record as saying that there are many positives at PS 161. But PS 161 does not exist in a vacuum. Many of our children have working parents who cannot afford after-school care and in some instances are on their own until an adult comes home in the evening. They live in a neighborhood that is dealing with a burgeoning gang problem. Their parents in many cases are first-generation immigrants who are hard-working and well-intentioned but not necessarily equipped to assist or deal with the whole educational process. And like all other kids they are dealing with the cultural distractions of music videos, the internet, and video games, not to mention puberty. All this coupled with a school budget that has lost over $700,000 over the last 3 years alone, insufficient social supports, oversight and controls by the DOE, and policies that ‘hamstring’ administrations from dealing with some serious issues, have created that ‘perfect storm’ of circumstances that keep our children from succeeding.

But PS 161 is making efforts to turn things around and the groundwork has already been laid out. We have a brand new principal, a new district superintendent, a new network leader, new parent leadership and a new sense of urgency in the community. But in our Educational Impact Statement (EIS), the DOE’s took the position was that this was not sufficient to make a quick turnaround with the emphasis on being on rapid results. This makes no sense as now you are sending the children to another location in the district where they will have the exact same thing – a new principal, a new district superintendent, a new network leader, and new parent leadership. Why is there an expectation of rapid results in that scenario? After almost 10 years of mayoral control and the closure of over 100 schools, the DOE’s own statistics show that only 13% of children of color are graduating ‘college-ready’ from our public schools. If only just a little over 1 in 10 are college-ready, is there really any place to hide? Are the alternatives that the DOE is promoting really improving outcomes if after 10 years of a mayoral school reform policy, only 24 percent of our eighth graders were proficient in math and 24 percent were proficient in reading citywide? Using this standard, shouldn’t we be having a dialogue about overhauling the DOE and whether mayoral control was an awful mistake?

What is clear is that the current policy of closing schools has not worked and that it muddies the waters around educating our children. The DOE’s policies and processes outline how to close failing schools but do nothing to identify the real obstacles to learning and performance to enable them to succeed. They trumpet ‘parent choice’ where, in principle, parents can choose to send their children to what they perceive to be ‘better’ schools. But this is only an option for some. For those parents whose children who score well on standardized tests, the choices are abundant between charter schools and schools with selective admissions processes. But if your child struggles academically or when the spaces at the charter schools fill up, what real choices are left?  Lower performing students and students with special needs get ‘warehoused’ in the local zone school with insufficient supports, where they later face being stigmatized as being in a ‘failed’ school. The policy of school closures and truncation has caused schools and communities to actually consider turning against our own children by shipping them and their problems somewhere else because they are bringing our numbers down. The illusion of choice has made parents scramble to fill seats in what are perceived as good schools and not meaningfully engage their local schools.

And why is this done? Because it would require a real effort on the part of the DOE to try and make sure that there is access to quality education in all schools. Not to argue specifically about charter schools, but what they do present to the DOE is the opportunity to shift the onus on who is accountable. By effectively ‘outsourcing’ education, the DOE does not have to deal with union issues, they can circumvent many of state regulations imposed on the public schools, and they can trumpet any success and be not immediately held responsible for failure. While this is obviously a great deal for the DOE, it does nothing for those students who have real issues and obstacles. Parents and taxpayers have only one real choice and that is that our students have access to quality education in all of our communities. That means that the DOE should be bringing in additional resources to assist struggling students, developing specific community-based solutions, providing the appropriate training and oversight to school staff, creating capacity in our communities to promote learning, lobbying for changes to state and local regulations that hinder our abilities to educate our children, and forging substantative partnerships with parents and other community stakeholders. That is the only real choice. Instead, the DOE through its policies is effectively to be opting to get out of the education business.

Parents at 161 have already been working on identifying school needs. What our school truly needs to be successful is the additional resources for remedial programs and tutorial assistance for those students who are struggling. The Crown School should be made an attractive educational option by expanding our Gifted & Talented program and implementing an enrichment program to compliment what they are learning in the school. The school should have an expanded safety presence and also get technical assistance with setting up after-school programs. Many of these reforms are needed on a system-wide basis as this is what is truly required to improve student outcomes.

There can be no defending of failure. The decision to close or truncate a school is a serious one and one that should be the last resort. In meetings with the Department of Education and in public hearings parents and community leaders have stated time and time again that this is a problem that did not happen overnight. There are issues in our schools that need solutions and we must be realistic that they will not come overnight as well. It is only through thoughtful analysis, planning and implementation of real solutions that we can help our children achieve. The real question the story of PS 161 forces us to ask is whether the Department of Education is really interested in education our children? We must stop closing schools and shuffling our children around and begin the real work of fixing them. The time is now for New York to demand real the education reform to give our children what they deserve and not just pay lip service.

Elected officials ask: What happened to the kids who didn’t make it into the new schools?  Is “warehousing” of high-needs students at other schools dooming them to fail?

(New York, NY – January 31, 2012)  Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Comptroller John Liu, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and former Comptroller Bill Thompson joined together at City Hall to demand the Bloomberg Administration release data showing where “lost” high-needs students at closed schools ended up following a report which indicated that those populations are over-represented in closing schools, and under-represented in the new schools that replace them.

The elected officials echoed the criticisms of parents and advocates who say the new statistics in a report by the Coalition for Educational Justice (CEJ) and New York Communities for Change (NYCC) reveal a major flaw in Mayor Bloomberg’s defense of his closing schools policy, and proof that he has failed to improve education quality equitably.

“The only thing more unfair to students than consigning them to a struggling school is consigning them to a struggling school slated for closure.  Students left at these schools are given little to no support by this Mayor.  It’s time for to this Administration to come clean about the real outcomes these students face,” said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.  “As a public school parent, I don’t want to hear more spin or doctored numbers. Parents deserve the real facts on what is happening to the thousands of high-needs students abandoned by this Administration.”

“We need a public school system that raises up all of the City’s students, not one that leaves behind those most in need of help,” Comptroller John C. Liu said.  “Parents, advocates, and electeds have long suspected that the DOE was replacing long-established schools with new schools that have smaller proportions of special needs students and English language learners.  We call on the DOE to provide their analysis of where students displaced by closed schools actually end up.”

“Closing a school should be a last resort, not the easy answer to our City’s educational challenges,” said Manhattan Borough President Stringer.  “Year after year, the administration’s bankrupt school closure policy unsettles students and communities. Now, Mayor Bloomberg plans to close nearly 60 schools—many of which were opened under his administration.  We are here today to send a clear message to Mayor Bloomberg: closing schools isn’t an easy fix, it’s throwing in the towel on the children of New York City.”

“The Department of Education is playing a dangerous shell game with our schools and our children,” said former Comptroller Bill Thompson.  “Closing a school is an unfortunate necessity at times but it should be a last resort and we need to have a sound educational plan for those students. That contrasts with the policy of this Administration to close schools without regard and warehouse our most vulnerable students.”

“For more than a decade the Bloomberg Administration has set our neighborhood schools up to fail and locked parents out of the process,” said NYCC Parent Leader Michelle Chapman. “The people paying the price for these policies are the kids with the highest needs, who are conveniently missing from the DOE’s statistics on small schools.  I want to know what is happening to these kids.”

“It is not okay that Mayor Bloomberg is shifting our highest needs students around like a shell game,” said Zakiyah Ansari, Advocacy Director for the Alliance for Quality Education.  “The Mayor is responsible for the education of all of our children, and must be held accountable for his failed policies because only 13% of African American and Latino students are ready for college after 10 years of his leadership.  We demand to know where the Mayor is warehousing our high-needs students, and, more importantly, what he is going to do to fix the problem.”

High-needs students – self-contained special education, over-age and other historically lower-performing students – make up a smaller percentage of student populations at many of the new schools founded by the administration.  The elected officials and advocates demanded DOE show data regarding the concentration of populations of these students, also including homeless, pregnant and parenting students, and students coming out of juvenile detention, in closing schools.  State Schools Chancellor Meryl Tisch called the shuffling of these students “warehousing” last year in a sharp rebuke of the mayor’s education policies.

Other student populations – particularly low-income students of color – have also not fared well under the Bloomberg Administration.  In fact, parents and students have labeled Mayor Bloomberg as “Mayor 13%” for his administration’s failure to prepare 87 percent of black and Latino students for college.  Just one-in-four students overall are prepared for college under Bloomberg, and just 39 percent of public high school graduates last year reported they would be attending four-year colleges the following fall.

De Blasio, Liu, Stringer and Thompson were joined by parents and community members organized by the Coalition for Educational Justice, New York Communities for Change and Alliance for Quality Education, and members of Advocates for Children, special education advocacy group Arise Coalition, the Urban Youth Collaborative and Class Size Matters.

MONDAY

• Meetings at schools target for “turnaround” by the City began this week: http://gothamschools.org/2012/01/24/closure-meetings-underway-at-schools-slated-for-turnaround/
• The UFT began running ads questioning the mayor’s education record: http://gothamschools.org/2012/01/24/ufts-new-tv-ad-buy-takes-aim-at-bloombergs-schools-record/
• One “A” school and six “B” schools are on the list of 33 turnaround schools set to be closed in June: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/brooklyn-maxwell-high-school-a-progress-city-ax-staff-article-1.1010745

TUESDAY

• In his State of the Union Address, President Obama said all students should be required to stay in school until they’re 18: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/education/obama-wades-into-issue-of-raising-dropout-age.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
• He also praised teachers and said America’s schools should stop “teaching to the test”: http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/01/25/obama-praises-teachers-calls-for-mandatory-attendance/
• Success Charter Schools CEO Eva Moskowitz is planning to open six new schools in 2013: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/eva-moskowitz-seeks-expand-success-academies-chelsea-upper-e-side-article-1.1011459

WEDNESDAY

• An independent report showed that new small high schools founded by the Bloomberg Administration have significantly higher graduation rates and english Regents scores and slightly better math scores than other schools in the system: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/education/new-york-city-students-at-small-public-high-schools-are-more-likely-to-graduate-study-finds.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
• Though the analysis was flawed and the comparison is unfair since the new schools admit fewer high-need students than other schools, according to advocates: http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/01/26/new-study-gives-small-schools-initiative-a-thumbs-up/
• The City and UFT are talking again: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/uft-city-restart-talks-teacher-evaluations-article-1.1011872
• The SUNY committee charged with approving new charter schools determined it could not block a proposal based on a community’s location concerns: http://www.ny1.com/content/news_beats/education/154862/suny-committee-does-not-block-controversial-williamsburg-charter-school

THURSDAY

• Elected officials and parents protested the City’s move to close the historic Wadleigh school in Harlem at a rally and hearing, arguing the school’s precipitous decline in performance over the last three years can be linked to lack of support from the DOE: http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/01/26/where-was-the-help-wadleigh-supporters-ask-education-official/
• A Gotham Schools report showed that some of the so-called “struggling schools” the Bloomberg Administration had targeted for turnaround actually do a better-than-average job of preparing students for college: http://gothamschools.org/2012/01/26/at-turnaround-schools-wide-range-in-college-readiness-rates/

FRIDAY

• A report by CEJ and NYCC showed that fewer high-needs students were attending the Bloomberg Administration’s new schools, artificially inflating performance and likely increasing percentages of those students at other schools: http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/01/27/on-city-hall-steps-harsh-words-for-bloomberg/
• U.S. Education Secretary Duncan agreed with Mayor Bloomberg’s push for teacher merit pay, but added he thought starting salaries and bonuses should be much higher: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/u-s-schools-chief-trumps-bloomberg-pay-great-teachers-150k-article-1.1013011
• The City backed down somewhat from its threat to fire half of all teachers at 33 struggling schools, saying federal rules allow the DOE to fire fewer teachers by retaining new teachers hired within the last two years: http://gothamschools.org/2012/01/27/city-could-try-to-replace-fewer-teachers-at-33-turnaround-schools/

Parents, elected officials and advocates gathered on the City Hall steps

(January 27, 2012 – New York, NY)  About a dozen elected officials joined the City’s largest public school and parent-led organizations today on the steps of City Hall to release a report with new statistics detailing the failure of Mayor Bloomberg’s education reforms—particularly his school closings policy.  The group demanded immediate action to suspend and reverse failed policies.

The report provides evidence that key Bloomberg “reforms” such as school closings have not produced the gains that the Mayor has claimed over the past decade.  Elected officials and advocates today called the closings policy a failed tactic that just moves low-performing students from one school to another instead of educating them, inflating the success of new schools.  These high-needs students – self-contained special education, over-age and other historically lower-performing students – make up a smaller percentage of student populations at many of the new schools founded by the administration.  After ten years of this failed policy, New York City is left with a huge college readiness gap by race, income and school, the report concludes.

The final argument against the mayor’s closing schools policy came this year, elected officials said today, when the City moved to close 11 of its own schools started under Bloomberg’s watch—schools that had levels of high-needs students comparable to closed and older existing schools.

“Mayor Bloomberg’s Department of Education should be ashamed of the true college readiness of the Black and Latino students it prematurely graduates from the New York City school system,” said Assemblyman Keith Wright of Harlem.  “When only 13% of Black and Latino students are ready for college after high school, the future is bleak for our communities. No longer will we allow this Mayor to crow about his success at managing our school system, the time has come for justice in the classroom and if Mayor Bloomberg can’t deliver, we need someone who can!”

“The question of achieving superior education is the question of the 21st century,” said Council Member James Sanders.  “We should not allow ideology, dogmatism, or plain stubbornness to blind us from the fact that the current system is failing far too many students in New York City.  Let us be bold for the sake of our children and take a closer look at all on the issues in play in New York.  Let there be no sacred cows, and no apologies preventing us from providing every student with a quality education.”

“Closing down schools does not solve our problems,” said Assemblyman Jose Rivera.  “You solve our problems by investing in our schools and most of all in our students.”

Councilmember Jumaane Williams

“When it comes to college and career-readiness, Mayor Bloomberg has failed us,” said Council Member Jumaane Williams.  “When it comes to closing the racial achievement gap, Mayor Bloomberg has failed us.  When it comes to keeping schools open in our communities, Mayor Bloomberg has failed us.  The successes he has had are hard to celebrate because of the arrogance of this administration.  It’s clear that the “Education Mayor” has not lived up to his self-appointed name, and it is also clear that mayoral control has failed.”

“The reality today is that a high school degree is not enough for the average student to compete for the jobs that are being created, especially as our city continues to attract more technology-based jobs,” said Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez.  “However, it’s not enough to just say ‘you need to go to college’.  If we really want young New Yorkers to have the opportunity to get these jobs, we have to make sure that our schools not only prepare them to enroll in college, but actually prepare them to succeed.”

“Mayor Bloomberg promised us time and time again that he will successfully revitalize and improve of our vast New York City school system,” said Council Member Letitia James.  “However, Mayor Bloomberg has managed to dismantle community input into school decision-making, increase the number of charter schools within the system while closing out numerous traditional schools, and decrease the administration’s transparency and accountability for major school changes while our students are left to fend for themselves.  We as public officials are charged with the duty to ensure a proper education for our children and Mayor Bloomberg has undoubtedly failed our youth.  I stand strong with my colleagues and school communities in bringing these failures to light for hopes of a better tomorrow.”

Councilmember Letitia James

“Mayor Bloomberg has had a decade to improve our schools and make us proud, but the fact is that his policies have failed,” said Council Member Steve Levin.  “Now we know that these policies have done the most harm to the Black and Latino students in our City.  Thirteen percent is a failing grade and there’s no excuse for it.  Now this Mayor wants to close schools and fire teachers in schools that have been rated “A” and “B” schools by the Department of Education.  I join with my friends at New York Communities for Change in calling on this Mayor to face the realities of our school system.  We have good teachers and we have good students.  It is the policies of Bloomberg’s Department of Education that have let us down.  Now is the time for honesty.  Now is the time to get our schools and our students on the path to success.”

“I believe the Department of Education should make every effort to prevent schools from closing and provide assistance to every school so every student is fully prepared to attend college,” said Council Member Mathieu Eugene.  “Closing a school can cause major disruptions in the educational life of students and their parents, and the Department of Education should work collaboratively with all schools to ensure that students are ready for college.”

“The latest information available about the New York City public school system shows once again that the administration’s claims of success are greatly overblown and plainly misleading,” said Assemblywoman Vanessa L. Gibson. “Instead the data clearly documents the disturbing reality that children from families of color, particularly African-Americans and Latinos, remain at the back of the bus when it comes to educational achievement.”

Parents from Satellite 3 and ABCD, both in Bed-Stuy and slated for phase-out/closure spoke out against Mayor 13%'s experiments

Parents and Students have labeled Mayor Bloomberg as “Mayor 13%” for his administration’s failure to prepare 87 percent of black and Latino students for college.  Just one-in-four students overall are prepared for college under Bloomberg, and just 39 percent of public high school graduates last year reported they would be attending four-year colleges the following fall.

I understand the importance of successful performance for holding the bar high. My eldest daughter Anisah graduated high school with an Advanced Regents diploma, graduated from Baruch College Cum Laude, B.A. Sociology, and last year graduated from Hunter Graduate School of Social Work with her Master’s Degree. She will begin her PhD in Criminal Justice in March 2012. My daughter Aliyah graduated valedictorian from her high school also with an Advanced Regents diploma and last year graduated from NYU with a B.A. in Africana Studies.

My four eldest daughters’ educational foundation began with a great Pre-K program and an elementary and middle school experience where there was no teaching to the test. It included the arts, great after school programs, poetry, hands-on curriculum and so many other great things.

As we all talk about having our kids college ready, the $2.7 billion in cuts with which our schools have been hit over the last two years, is definitely not going to get them there. I have two daughters that attend a really great high school in Brooklyn. When my first daughter started attending there 4 years ago there was a 6 week summer bridge program that she had to attend. The school understood that if our children were going to be ready for college in four years, they would need to have to pass Calculus as well as have access to a well-rounded curriculum. The bridge program was for all incoming 9th graders. If they hadn’t taken and passed the Math and Science Regents in 8th grade this was an opportunity for them to study and take the test in August and hit the ground running and be on track for college. The bridge program created an opportunity for the students to know and get excited about their new high school, meet classmates, staff and teachers. It worked. My daughter finished taking all of her Regents in 11th grade and will graduate this year. Unfortunately, because of the cuts my youngest daughter who began at Banneker last year was only able to experience a 3 week bridge program and it could only serve 150 incoming 9th graders. It was like a race to ensure that she received one of those slots because I understood how important it was for her to attend. I sent a letter and called the parent coordinator and emailed the principal making sure I got her name in their quickly. My daughter got in. She was fortunate. But what about the students who didn’t get in? It wasn’t that the school didn’t want to offer the program for 6 weeks or to all kids but they couldn’t afford to. There is something horribly wrong with that.

The Executive budget falls short of the proposal the Board of Regents put forth to prioritize 73% of the school aid restorations to high and average need districts. Last year’s state budget promised an $805 million in school aid restorations for this upcoming year, but if $250 million is diverted into competitive grants this will leave only $555 million in allocated school aid. The $555 million proposed is only 2.86% restoration, not the 4.1% committed. This amount will not even keep up with inflation, so classrooms will see cuts once again.

A rural district such as Jordan-Elbridge in Onondaga County that lost $2052 per pupil over the past two years, would only get a $239 per pupil restoration. If the legislature does not fix this problem, once again the promise to our kids will be broken.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the $200 million added to the competitive grant program will mean that some of our children will be winners and some will be losers. Competition might be healthy if you’re training for a race or on a team but it’s not healthy or okay when you have rural parts of the state like Jordan-Elbridge competing with Scarsdale, or New York City competing with Syosset, or needy districts like Binghamton and Buffalo competing with each other for money desperately needed to ensure that all our children have an opportunity to learn. Test scores should not be used to determine whether or not students will receive the classroom resources they need to succeed.

I can’t imagine having my kids compete for dinner knowing that they are all hungry. It’s the same image; our children in these districts are in need of nourishment in the form of art, music, AP courses, after school programs, technology, etc. Who is going to choose which of them gets fed? Everywhere you turn people are talking about college readiness; these competitive grants will only ensure that SOME have the chance to be college ready. Healthy competition is when my youngest daughter who is in 9th grade asked my oldest daughter what her average was when she graduated from high school, and she said “I’m going to do better than that”. It is unhealthy when one or the other may be denied access to a guidance counselor because their school lost resources as a result of a competition.

As parents we have high expectations and dreams for our children — no matter if you are rich, poor, or an immigrant, we want better for our children than what we had. We want them to be successful, productive citizens and ultimately leave our homes and only come back to visit. Fact is, if they don’t get a good education, they won’t get a good job and if they don’t get a job, they are more likely to wind up in jail which the State always finds the money for.

We began last week by honoring the memory of Dr. King. I wonder what he would say if he knew we were considering making our children compete to get to the mountain top.

Zakiyah Ansari is the Advocacy Director of the Alliance for Quality Education

Or so I thought.

Because when I arrived at SUNY Oswego that fall, I found out how unprepared I was.

At Herbert Lehman, I was used to picking up what was covered in class easily. Once I got to college, however, I struggled at retaining all the information we were taught. It turns out that high school in New York City taught me how to pass a test, but in college they wanted me to show my critical thinking skills. I had never encountered that before; I was never given the opportunity to develop those skills. Instead of teaching me how to independently function and succeed in society, I was treated as a padded statistic by the Department of Education.

So, on top of learning new material, I had to study how to think critically rather than just how to take a test and pass it.

I was forced to spend a semester taking remedial classes despite my good grades and high test scores.  These remedial classes were not covered by financial aid, so I ended up paying out of pocket to learn things I should have been taught in high school. The City ended up cheating both me and the taxpayers.

Recently, I found out that I am not the only New York City public school graduate who was cheated and entered college unprepared. In fact, only 13 percent of African American and Latino students who graduate from NYC schools are college-ready on graduation day. Thirteen percent!

You often hear the Department of Education brag about our improved graduation rates in NYC. But what good does it do to graduate more students if only a handful of them are prepared for the future and the rest will end up forced to pay out of pocket for remedial classes — or just drop out?

We needed smaller class sizes, better resources and more support for teachers and students alike.

But instead of fighting for more funding and using existing resources to improve our schools, the mayor and Department of Education dismantled our neighborhood schools and wasted resources by starting new schools from scratch.

The schools aren’t getting better. This year nearly half of the schools on the DOE’s closing list are schools that were opened by the Bloomberg administration. And students like me, who worked hard in school but weren’t given the education we deserve, continue to flood into college.

It’s time we take a stand against Mayor 13 Percent and his failed educational policies by stopping school closings and getting schools the resources they need to make sure that students who want to go to college graduate college ready.