Mayor Bill de Blasio‘s commencement speech to the 93 graduating students of Boys And Girls High School earlier this week, drew sharp and polarizing comments from advocates for charter schools and the teacher’s union.
The school is at the top of a list of 94 failing schools, and the de Blasio Administration targeted it for the city’s new Renewal Schools program, which provides extra teaching services and time, similar to measures that successful charter schools utilize.
But StudentsFirstNY Executive Director Jenny Sedlis, whose organization is closely aligned with charter schools, noted that student enrollment at the school continues to drop.
“The graduating students of Boys and Girls High Schools should be saluted for their achievement, but Mayor de Blasio and his Department of Education have failed to improve this struggling school,” said Sedlis. “Enrollment has plunged from 809 students in October to 487 by the DOE’s most recent reporting. That means roughly 40% of the students have left or have been pushed out in one year. The families in Bedford-Stuyvesant deserve a better school with high standards and quality teachers.”
Sedlis’ comments drew a quick and tart response from the Alliance for Quality Education (AQE), which is closely aligned with the public schools’ teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT).
In an emailed statement shortly after StudentsFirstNY issued their statement, AQE commended de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina for taking promising steps to improve Boys & Girls and other renewal schools.
“Sadly rather than recognizing these achievements, StudentsFirstNY, a hedge fund sponsored organization with an agenda of privatization and testing, is once again seeking to tear down progress in our public schools in order to promote their political agenda,” the statement read.
“The solutions for struggling schools are clear and are supported by research. It requires increased investment, quality school leadership and experienced lead teachers, high quality curriculum, social, emotional, and health supports for students and family and community engagement. Instead of supporting the improvement of these schools and the success of students, StudentsFirstNY and their hedge fund investors continue to be obstructionist and are committed to opposing every positive research-based reform in our public schools.”
De Blasio’s speech comes as his administration has continually stonewalled putting any gifted and talented programs for kindergarten to forth grades in any of District 16 public schools, which serves the area, despite the urging of Bed-Stuy City Councilman Robert Cornegy Jr. to do so.
Meanwhile, District 20 schools, which are mainly made up of Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst, have 10 or slightly less than a third of the borough’s gifted and talented programs.
This includes the Brooklyn School of Inquiry, which is one of the city’s five magnet gifted and talented schools drawing children from across the borough and city.
Seventy-one percent of the students attending this school are white, about 12 percent are Asian, about 8 percent are black and 4.3 percent are Hispanic. About 16.4 percent of Brooklyn public school students are white.
