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Thursday, October 28, 2010

NYC Public School #Parents: Richard Barr on the 47 proposed school closings

NYC Public School Parents: Richard Barr on the 47 proposed school closings

Richard Barr on the 47 proposed school closings

It is appalling to look at the list of 47 schools targeted for possible closure, as well as to think of those already closed in the last few years by this regime.

When you attend a closing "hearing" for one of them as I did for my alma mater, Christopher Columbus H.S., or if you attended the P.E.P. "hearing" at Brooklyn Tech. for 19 at once, and you see every person who works at one of these schools, or attends one, or sends their kid or kids to one, get up and say "don't close this school" and you see the bureaucrats who have unfortunately been given power over this public school system remain unmoved, unpersuaded, acting like they could care less about what the people they are supposed to be serving, or managing, want, or say, or think, it can turn your stomach and break your heart.

When you think of people who have been made temporary custodians of an enormous public school system which is, I believe, in its third century, acting like they have the right to just do away with so many of that system's pillars, with no obligation to maintaining them, it makes your blood boil. People who said "put us in