'Closing Schools' is Big Business

First, a little seemingly unconnected history from a history teacher. Bear with me for a moment. 

You've probably never heard of Jacobo Arbenz. He was a pretty cool dude. In the 1950s, after being elected president of his country,  he tried to give over one million acres of farming land to the peasants. The CIA then moved in with a 'black-op' to overthrow his Guatemalan government. When that didn't work, they just bombed the capital. Arbenz  fled and gave up his presidency -and the peasants never did get that land.

What could lead a foreign government to stop a man from giving away free land to poor peasant farmers?

The answer is money. You see, that land had already been owned by Dole Fruit (which was, at the time, known as 'el pulpo' (the nickname for the United Fruit Company).  After complaining to two close friends in the US government that its private, for-profit banana plantations had been taken away (and given to poor peasants all things),  the CIA launched 'Operation PBSuccess'. Plan A of the this operation called for rebels to try to overthrow the government. Plan B was to bomb the capital until the government fell apart. Plan B worked and Arbenz learned an important lesson; that in the United States, 'Bananas' is big business. (see here)

Thanks for letting me talk about history for a while.


Over the past decade, the City of New York has identified roughly 20 schools per year as 'failing' and has closed them. To justify these closings, the city has pointed to data showing that the schools are falling far behind and must be closed (in the name of putting students first).

That a large part of this data has been greatly questioned (see here or here for just two of Gary Rubenstein's brilliant pieces about that data) doesn't seem to matter. That communities and other stakeholders have, in the past, tried their very best to stop these closures (see here) doesn't seem to matter either. Every time they meet, the PEP (the mayor's rubber stamp education committee) votes the way they're told and the schools have been closed. This year, that number is twenty two (see here). That means that twenty two schools are slated for closure at the end of this academic year (see here for Francesco Portelos' awesome post about last week's PEP).

What could lead a local school district to ignore the complaints of so many stakeholders and close, instead of fix, neighborhood schools?

The answer to at least part of that question is money.  What fails to make the headlines each and every year (even on Gotham Schools)  is the sheer amount of money involved in closing a school and opening another -and doing this many times over each and every year.

For instance:

Every book owned by the closing school must be destroyed and new books purchased for the opening school(s).  For a large high school with 2,000 students, this number might be as high as 12,000 (an average of six books purchased for each student). That's 12,000 perfectly usable books which are destroyed only to be purchased again with tax payer dollars as the new schools in that building open up. Why is this the case? Well, because books are owned by the school not by the district.  If there is no school, then there is no legal use for the books. They must be destroyed and new books must be purchased. (Funfact: Chancellor Walcott was so impressed with the person who caught this rule (a principal of one of these closing schools) that he put her in charge of closing schools across the city.)

Every piece of computer hardware owned by the closing school must be destroyed and new computers purchased for the opening school(s). Imagine the cost of laptops for students, and Smart Boards for teachers, then desktops and laptops for teachers and support staff, a new License for CASS, new machines for the the library to catalog the books (which yes, should all (by law) have to be replaced). That's a pretty significant number.

The same holds true for every piece of software. Think of just some of the software that is used for a school. With the exception of Office, Adobe Writer and Photoshop, the licenses are not city-wide, they are classroom or school-based. If the school closes, the licenses are no longer valid. The software must be replaced and re-purchased (with new taxpayer dollars) by the new incoming schools.

Copy (and Riso) machines. These are also licensed to the school. Two things about this type of equipment, 1) Like books,  they must also be turned in and new ones must be purchased 2) The often used model of installing four smaller schools into one larger one requires a few more of these machines to be purchased than the old school needed to have, so this actually equates to new business for that industry. I have a friend who works for one of these copy companies who's supervisor once told him that the school closings had provided enough new work to save his job from layoff.

Furniture must be inventoried and anything identified as 'old' must be discarded. Of course, new furniture will have to be purchased by the new school. While this is largely left up to the leaders of the new school, and doesn't always happen, it's well worth mentioning here.


Oh, and let's not forget consultants to help with new, inexperienced teaching and leadership staff. It's commonly known that much of the staff of the closing schools are let go and, in New York anyway, turned into glorified substitutes. As they take their decades of experience with them, new staff is brought in to take their place and must be trained. They need supports in order to learn their new job.  Those supports come partly in the form of teacher training consultants; an industry that has been identified by this Hechinger Report/Schoolbook piece as "big business" all by itself. It used up $97 million of tax payer dollars during the 2010-2011 school year alone.

Is that big in a school budget that runs as high as New York City's? Probably not (I figure it to be less than one percent of the annual city education spending). But that doesn't mean it's not big business.

And the 'new' stakeholders in the school closing movement -the copy machine and book publishing companies, the furniture and software providers, and those consultants (who may or may not be for profit, but who's leaders still command a salary comparable to for-profit CEOs)- are having their way against the wishes of natural stakeholders -school and community leaders, parents and teachers, honest academics and politicians.

In fact, you might say that they're running the table.

Personally, I don't think they should be allowed to have anonymity as well, but anyone outside of social media just doesn't seem to care that, in New York City, 'Closing Schools' is big business.

I'm Not White, I'm Caucasian

A recent post from one of the best education bloggers in the country, Jose Vilson asks the question "What If You're a White Teacher Teaching Black History?"

The premise of the title seems to suggest that Black History Month has some sort of rule book for teachers and that if we, we as "white" people, decide to teach it, we should just understand that it needs to be done 'right'. That premise is validated by the structure of the piece, which points us in the direction of ways to teach Black History (throughout the year) that he deems "appropriate". All in all it is, as usual, a good piece about an important topic written by a good writer.

While, as a blogger, I understand the need to be evocative when choosing a title for a post (and no one else does that as well as he), and I agree 100% that Black History needs to be taught throughout the year, not just during one month (which, after all, was the only thrust of this and another piece that he had written), I feel like I have to address a few issues I have with some of what I read.

1) There is no official way to teach it. Black History, I mean. Our district has no curriculum in place for doing so on the high school level (which is what I teach). Because of that, the way we go about teaching during this month is a bit confusing to begin with.

The task of teaching a topic like Black History might sensibly fall to a social studies teacher (hey that's me), but the state and city curriculum for high school social studies calls for ninth grade teachers to be teaching the Commercial Revolution right about this time. Tenth Grade teachers are told to be in the middle of teaching about the Cold War. Eleventh grade teachers are right around the topic of Containment and twelve grade teachers are teaching the basic principles of Means of Production. So with required curriculum either ignoring the topic altogether or pointing us in the complete opposite direction, exactly how can anyone suggest that there is a single 'right' way to teach this?

Here is a better question: How, in the midst of this mandated, test-oriented curriculum, do we address Black History (during this or any month) if it has been ignored by the curriculum and if it is not tested in any way? Because my state and my district are silent on the question.

That silence leads to a great deal of confusion -confusion that could be ameliorated by a few good, clear, instructive blog posts from some very wise teachers (cough). But all I read was an assertion, (that its OK if I teach it, as long as I teach it 'right'), filled with some circular reasoning (that I should go about the process of teaching the month by not teaching during just the month) and I don't mind saying that, for a teacher who would sincerely love good, sound advice on how to approach this topic, it is maddeningly frustrating to read.

I'm a twelve year teacher. I already know not to teach it during only February. Now what?

2) Writing a post and calling out "White" people as they approach teaching a month designed to honor "Black" people implies some type of separation between teachers that, in my opinion, isn't very productive.

The questions that should be raised by Black History Month cannot be for Black people only. They must be questions that are addressed by the society at large. Here is an example of what I mean: What were the achievements that were made by Black Americans? I think it is very important for the entire society to honor them. Here's another: Why did those achievements have to be made in the face of such harsh adversity throughout our history? I think every group in America needs to be able to address that question before they leave high school.

Like I said before, it appears that state and city HS curriculum both disagree with me. So in order for that to happen, a whole lot of people are going to have to come together around this topic. We're already abandoned by our curricular guides, left with a dearth (relative to all of the Common Core support we have) of local support from non profits and other government agencies for addressing these topics in our classrooms. Do we really need to be separated into groups with names like "white" by our own colleagues as we approach this topic?

Really?

(Rant): Is it just me? Am I a hippie to think that if we just -just for a few #%$& moments- stopped impressing ourselves with how cleverly we can point out our differences and instead deferred to our commonalities that we'd all be one hell of a lot better off? If so, just get me a pair of Birkenstocks and drop me off at the next hippie commune. But if not -if we have a responsibility to engage in true discussion that serves the purpose of advancing and enlightening (and if teachers have a greater responsibility toward that end than most)- then the implications behind that "white" people teaching "Black History" business wasn't very productive.

3) Look, I'm not white. I'm Caucasian. And no, I'm not being pedantic. There isn't anything right or just or pure or innocent about my (or any other) racial group. The term itself-white- was just advanced by racists hundreds of years ago as a way to conjure up those associations and encourage more racist behavior (see five paragraphs down if you don't want to read the whole thing. I won't mind). It was used by hateful racists for the purpose of advancing hateful racism and it needs, at some point, to go away.

Now if I were at the bar with friends or on the phone in casual conversation, I wouldn't very much mind hearing white instead of Caucasian. But to be clear, it feels a little different when I read it from a blog post -about race- penned by one of the best, and one the city's most read, edubloggers. Why? Well because race is a sensitive issue and, believe it or not, people still look to teachers for answers.

Were the answers he provided intended to validate our deplorable national tendency to look at a person's race first and all other aspects of our humanity second? Of course they weren't. In fact, I doubt they were intended to do much else than to make sure that people read what he had to say. But being a teacher who chooses to write about this issue brings with it a burden (to teach) and provides an opportunity to help colleagues who may need a point in the right direction with some help and I don't think the chosen title represented those aspects very well.

So Dear Jose,

I'm pretty good at what I do and I'm not so sure how to go about teaching this topic during this month. Tell me how best to approach the topic in my classroom, despite curricular restrictions, a lack of leadership and the usual racial polarization within which we live. Lead, and folks like me will surely follow. Otherwise, I think we're all going to have to let yet another February opportunity pass us all by without having this month as a key part of NYC's EDU discussion and I don't think that would be a good thing.

Sincerely,
'nuts