The author is a teacher in New York City.
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On Jan. 26, New York City’s Panel for Educational Policy voted 9-4 to close seven middle or elementary schools and 12 high schools.
Outside the hearings, around 3,000 teachers, students and parents protested the planned closures at a rally organized by the United Federation of Teachers. The PEP hearings and deliberations were anything but democratic. Each borough president appoints one member of the panel and the mayor appoints the remaining eight. The sentiments of the community were consistently ignored throughout the process.
Five days prior, hundreds of teachers and students picketed in front of the house of billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg in opposition to the planned shutdowns. It is widely understood that these schools are being targeted in order to make room for new charter schools.
Among the more popular chants in the rally were “Shut down the DOE, not our schools” and “Phase Out Bloomberg.” The Jan. 21 picket was organized by the Grassroots Education Movement.
Members of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) brought teachers and students to both rallies and circulated literature calling for “Money for Education, Not War and Occupation!”
