Last night's Panel for Educational Policy meeting

As predicted, the PEP (Panel of Eight Mayoral Puppets plus borough appointees) voted to approve ten school closings and several co-locations and expansions of Success Academy Charters into public school space.

See video of the Caped Real Reformers (parents and teachers ) singing "What a Wonderful World it would be" and students at Metropolitan Corporate Academy, one of the schools being closed, perform, ""DOE don't care about us" at last night's PEP meeting. More video of the evening's events at NY1, including Chancellor Cathie Black's annoyed response to the vociferous crowd.

Some lyrics:

They don’t know how to teach history,
they don’t know how to teach biology,
They don’t know much about science books,
they don’t know much about the cuts we took,
but they do know how to close down schools,
we’re fighting back you know that we’re not fools,
What wonderful schools they could be.

They know a lot about charter schools,
and that they think that merit pay is cool,
..Parents, teachers, students know there’s more
They know there’s more than just test scores
What wonderful schools these could be.

My comments last night:

Choice is not real choice if someone else’s child is being squeezed out into hallways, closets or basement rooms. Choice is not real choice if someone else’s child is being forced into larger classes or you are closing their school, against their will. Every time you close or co-locate a school you are creating more overcrowding and more disruption of someone else’s education. Every time you close or co-locate a school, you are undermining choices for all parents and their children, and imposing your own will on a community. Clearly the people whose lives are most affected oppose these proposed closing and co-locations. I urge you to listen to their choices, and to vote against these proposals.