This is how to save public schools

I was walking on West 84th and saw a group of teens acting out. I was wondering where they went to school. After further investigation I discovered they go to Louis D. Brandeis High School, a school that takes in some of the city's most disadvantaged students. Shockingly after more research, I found out the school struggles and will be closed very soon. My question is when will the city realize that grouping up poor disadvantaged students isn't going to help them succeed? It will just increase the performance gap in the city.

Ruby Bridges recently celebrated her 62nd birthday. Ruby Bridges became the first African American child to desegregate an all-white elementary school in the South. While we've made some strides in this country regarding segregation in public schools, more than 65,000 students in the Bronx are in failing schools. There are more than that number of students who are in failing schools in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens.  What's happening is black and spanish students are being shut out of getting a quality education because of their economic  level.  To add to the problems our mayor wants to close charter schools which are the only option for kids in underserved schools.  

The problem is that schools in New York City are separated by race and not equal. Michael Mulgrew, President of the United Federation of Teachers, when you de-segregate public schools then you can bash charter schools.  Maybe we need to re-visit Brown vs Board of education and force schools to accept more minority students that live nearby.  This solution was discussed in an editorial in the Wall Street Journal on August 28.

This is in response of Michael Mulgrew's Be Our Guest column on March 18, 2016.  Its shocking that even though schools were desegregated in the 1960's, it still exists and it exists in Manhattan, one of the most diverse cities in the nation and the world.  The worst examples of this are PS145, which is almost entirely black and Spanish, where as P.S. 199 on West 70th Street has scores twice as high as the city average and most money than most schools combined. The majority of the students at PS 199 are white. Yet P.S. 191 has the complete opposite make up and their test scores are far below the city average mainly because of the disparity of money between PS 199 and PS 191.

The same disparity in race can be seen in PS 84 Lillian Webber which has 60% population of black and Spanish and only 35% white, yet the school around the corner PS 333 has 64% white 27% black and Spanish.  One might ask why two schools, PS 84 and PS 333 have such different racial make ups, and the answer lies is PS 84 accepts all students and PS 333 has a lottery which is closed to the public so they can pic and choose the students that attend their school without any oversight.   You might expect a school named after ‪#‎BookerTWashington, who was an African American educator, author, orator, and advisor to presidents of the United States, between 1890 and 1915, ‪#‎btwhspva to have at least the same amount of black students as white students, but just like others in zone 3, the school, MS54, located on West 107th street has 65% white students and only 10% black and 14% Hispanic students ‪#‎D3equity, ‪#‎D3equityineducation.  This is also true about schools below 95th Street on the Upper East side, which are all white.

Natalie Russo, the principal of ‪#‎PS145 put together a great panel on the lack of diversity in Manhattan's district 3 public schools. Michael Alves, Controlled Choice Pioneer, Lisa Donlan, District 1 Parent Leader, Rene Kathawala District 3 parent leader, Clara Hemphill Inside Schools Editor and Kim Watkins, Community Education Council district 3 were very informative. Also thank you to Councilmen Mark Levine for attending. 

Dr. Russo is nice enough to select students from anywhere in zone 3, even students who were zoned for PS 87 but weren't given a spot there.  But when those students leave pre K they go to PS 87, PS 452, PS009 the same schools that didn't have a spot for them in pre k, leaving Dr, Russo's school, PS 145 under its capacity and therefore not entitled to certain funds.  The ironic thing now is that PS 87, PS 87, PS 452, PS009 aren't even selecting some students for kindergarten who were zoned for those schools and therefore they need to either attend PS191, a low funded school or forget going to public school. I suggest those students remain at PS145 and help Dr. Russo get the funds she needs to improve the school. 

You have schools like PS199, PS333, PS87 and PS452 that accept few if any black and spanish schools, so those minority students are put into low performing school like PS145 (which is a great school for pre k but then when students leave after Pre K the school loses money and the students suffer), PS 191 (a terrible school), PS185.  What needs to happen is that schools like  PS199, PS333, PS87 and PS452 need to de-segregate and if they can't do it on their own, the city should take all funds designated to those schools that have donors who have given those schools millions and give the money to schools that need it.

My solution is to ban donations to a specific school like PS199, PS333, PS87 and PS452 and evenly distribute the money to every NYC school.  Schools should all get the same money no matter where they are.  That's what public education means.

Another solution would be to revisit Brown Vs Board of Education and allow black and spanish students from schools like PS191, PS185 etc to enroll in schools like PS199, PS333, PS87 and PS452.