What is hardest for me about the loss of my school is that, of course, it is far from perfect and there were many difficulties. That doesn't mean I wanted it to close -- why does nothing ever improve in the Dept of Ed -- it's either good from the start or it's banished almost on site. The DOE has never committed to my school -- they moved us around, made more and more demands on the students, cut teachers, made us feel like we were continually in limbo and then just closed us. Why didn't they just close us before our final move to one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Brooklyn? Were they hoping we would just give up on our own? Did they just mean to try to prove that this population of student is doomed to fail -- and about half of them did not. Half is not enough? Why not give the other half a program which might work for them? Why not TRY HARDER?
For me, personally, the battle has been coming to an end, but not for everyone and not for the school itself.
Someone said that the DOE is trying to erase institutional memory -- they close schools so no one remembers what was done and failed before and so no one can say that what the new fad is now was the same fad twenty years ago. The kids and the institutions in their neighborhoods remember only too well, unfortunately.
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