THIS IS NOT A JOKE!

From New York Post, June 25, 2004 -- WONDERFUL news for New York City par ents: Schools Chan cellor Joel Klein is opening a high school called the "Peace and Diversity Academy" in The Bronx.

The brochure says students lucky enough to be admitted will be able to take courses on: peace, diversity, cultural identity, cultural awareness, bias, conflict resolution, discrimination, prejudice, social action and leadership, and � why not? � war.

All at the same school!

At another new Bronx school, kids will be able to take "Hip-Hop & Citizenship."

Wonder when the students will have time for math and English . . .

Welcome to New York's small-school movement, a theater of the absurd where taxpayers spring for front-row seats and the proceeds go to leftist political groups more interested in ideology than education.

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From New York Post June 28, 2004 --
IT'S hard to believe that almost half a century has passed since Bern stein and Sondheim composed "Gee, Officer Krupke," satirizing our therapeutic society's response to juvenile delinquency and gang warfare. For those who don't recall, gang members examine the "root" causes of their criminal behavior by in turn appealing to the police, the court, the psychoanalyst and finally the social worker.

But not the schools - because, back then, no one imagined that our schools would become the comprehensive clinic for all the social ills that afflict our youth. Today, however, all the clichés that Bernstein and Sondheim lampooned are enshrined in New York's public schools, at the expense of real educational goals.

Consider: In the midst of the most radical overhaul of New York's schools, and the bold attempt to end social promotion, the central schools office at the Tweed Courthouse recently informed us that "rehabilitated" high school students [from violent offenses] would serve as reading mentors for failed third graders this summer. At session's end, they'll get a $500 stipend.

Huh. The last contract with the United Federation of Teachers extended the school day to allow for the required staff development for our new scripted reading program. Tweed prepared CD ROMS for our English teachers; a vast host of coaches spent the summer learning the new curriculum. Now we learn that kids with the worst discipline and academic records are to be "role models" and tutors after a few months of behavior modification in a Second Opportunity School - SOS being the euphemistic name for the schools of last resort for our most violent offenders.

So was all that staff development a waste of time and money? Or has simple common sense gone out the window when it comes to dealing with our most difficult discipline problems?

This month, a student suspended from Washington Irving HS for choking a dean and throwing him to the ground had to be readmitted because the postponement of his hearing denied him timely "due process" and his "right" to an education. Not to worry, the Department of Education would have a school aide accompany the student to his classes until the hearing is held. Who knows, perhaps another role model in the making?

Meanwhile, the failure to ensure proper safety for the Asian student minority at Lafayette HS has resulted in yet another consent decree between the Justice Department and the city schools. That's the second consent decree this year, and it guarantees another round of endless regulations and court oversight - on top of the consent decrees already in force.

These decrees don't simply apply to one school; they create precedents for the entire system, and live on in perpetuity. Do they make our schools better, safer, and more efficient? Mostly, they establish permanent boards of inquisition, add to paperwork - and give activists a license to meddle. Perhaps worst, each is a "sword of Damocles" hanging over administrators' heads, intimidating them from taking any initiative that might result in a lawsuit.

Couple court oversight with federally-funded counseling and peer- mediation services, and you ensure the ongoing presence of behavioral problems in our schools, with very little to show for it but increased costs and diminished educational performance.

Imagine that the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center was permanent, and every year we'd add decorations without removing the old ones. How long would it take before the branches started bending and breaking as the tree collapsed from the weight of the ornaments?

That, in a nutshell, is our school system - and the Bloomberg/Klein administration has shown that it can decorate the tree with a vengeance.

The "pushout" consent decree at Franklin K. Lane HS has ensured that guidance counselors citywide will no longer hint that a 19- or 20- year-old with no hope of getting a diploma should consider alternatives like the GED or Job Corps for fear of a lawsuit.
. . . .

Well, you get the point.