Cathie Black was booed at a public meeting at Brooklyn Tech last night.
Seriously?
Are you kidding me?
I didn’t see it myself, although I wish I had.
I was attending the PTA meeting at my own child’s school, where I mostly kept my mouth shut. But, then I went to the wine bar with some of the alpha parents and ended up volunteering for both the 5th grade movie night fundraiser and the family dance fundraiser. Whoops! Oh well.
Anyhooo…
Because of all that, I missed my chance to watch Cathie Black make her Brooklyn stage debut at the regularly scheduled PEP meeting.
The Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) consists of 13 appointed members and the Chancellor. Each borough president appoints one member and the mayor appoints the remaining eight. The Chancellor serves as an ex-officio non-voting member.
The meeting took place in the auditorium of Brooklyn Tech, one of the top 3 selective high schools in New York City, to which admission is granted only to those lucky thousands who manage to score highly on the SHSAT.
A pause for some googling: according to Wikipedia;
The Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT) is an examination administered to eighth and ninth grade students residing in New York City and used to determine admission to all but one of the city’s Specialized High Schools. The test is given in the autumn for admission the following school year. After the results of the test in October and November 2008, 6,106 students from New York City were accepted, out of 29,000 students, who applied.[1] Students have until the end of February to make their decisions.
The results of the SHSAT are ordered from the highest score to the lowest score. The list is processed in order by score, with each student being placed in their most-preferred school that still has open seats, and continuing until there are no remaining open seats at any school.[5]
The student’s absolute score does not matter as long as it is higher than the cutoff score, which is found by the results of all the students who took that score that year. For example, if there are 500 seats available at Stuyvesant the top 500 students who put Stuyvesant as their first choice scores will be admitted. The lowest score admitted is the cut off score.
The SHSAT tests for logical thinking and high ability in both English and mathematics. Both sections consist of multiple-choice questions. There is a time limit of 3 hours for both sections, with no break in between. The exam is only offered once a year, and can be taken in both the eighth and ninth grades if the student wishes.
And I’m back!
So Schools Chancellor Cathie Black was booed at Brooklyn Tech Wednesday night during her first appearance at a public meeting (not optional, part of the job description) held by the Panel on Educational Policy (PEP).
So, I’m watching the video of the event –and to be fair the video camera that took the footage available on youtube doesn’t have as good a seat as did the one turned on during last week’s meeting in Sheldon Silvers office– but one gets the sense.
Cathie Black looks small and scared.
She’s in Brooklyn after all. It’s one of the Boroughs where they keep the Black people.
I must admit that I too was a little uneasy when I first came to Brooklyn, coming as we did from the Northwest corner of the United States where most of the population practically glows in the dark. But, after about the tenth or twentieth introduction to neighbors of color who were way cooler than I could ever hope to be –that first week after we moved here… Race is an issue that comes up. Often it is more about class. Lets just say the topic of fair and even distribution of DOE resources came up at the meeting.
Brooklyn is it’s own thing–Like Texas! (As in don’t mess with!)
So anyway, in the video I watched today, Cathie Black looks pretty nervous in that cavernous space in Brooklyn Tech (a building My Kid first experienced as a 7-year-old second grader attending her first Brooklyn Borough-wide (FLL) First Lego League Robotics Tournament. Just sayin’)
Last night in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Cathie Black spoke carefully ploughing through to the end of her prepared text looking down at her words and pausing when she turned the page. The speech as written was vague and pointless failing to express any vision at all. It was filled with phrases such as:
“a comprehensive evaluation system”
“constantly challenging him or herself to get better every day”
“helping students thrive while also holding them accountable for results”
Cathie Black flubbed her words several times including before and during this sentence.
“If we are going to prepare our kids to succeed in this increasingly competitive world, we need to raise standards and expectations.”
Cathie Black gave a speech that would have failed to make it to the final round at a high school speech meet.
I would not be such a harsh critic of the poor public performance of Ms. Black if it didn’t seem as though –for no apparent reason– she has been handed the responsibility of running one of the largest and most complicated school systems in the United States; while at the same time –also for no apparent reason– my 10-year-old is expected to submit herself to an absurd series of tests and auditions and interviews just to take her seat in an 6th grade classroom.
In case you are unaware of the NYCDOE boilerplate language aimed at the parents of current 5th graders, here it is:
Information for Families
The purpose of this Middle School Directory is to help you learn about the middle school choice process and to identify those middle schools that you feel would be the best fit for your child. This publication contains detailed descriptions of each middle school that you and your child can include in your list of choices as part of the process – the schools that have a page in this Directory will be listed on the application. You will also find a list of middle schools that conduct a school-based application process for which your child may be eligible – these schools will not be listed on the application. If you are interested in learning more about these schools (for example: what percentage of the eighth grade graduates from this particular middle school school were accepted into one of the selective high schools?) and the individual, school-based process by which students are accepted, please contact the school directly for more information.
School Characteristics
Middle schools come in a wide variety of sizes and grade configurations such as:
o Small, themed schools
o Large schools organized into small learning communities
o Large comprehensive middle schools
Priority for Admission
␣ Students residing in New York City who have met promotional standards from elementary school admissions are assured entrance into a New York City public middle school (somewhere in this city of eight million people)
␣ Each student receives priority to attend a middle school (some middle school somewhere, anywhere) in the district in which he or she is zoned to attend middle school or in the district in which he or she attends a New York City public elementary school
Choices
We expect all of our schools to be academically challenging and nurturing learning communities that cultivate the diverse interests and skills of middle school students. (They aren’t.) Take the time to gather as much information (from gossip and blogs) as possible as you read through the school pages:
␣ Consider a school’s theme, emphasis, special programs, partnerships, sports, enrichment opportunities and services (some themes are in name only, some special programs are not available to all students, enrichment opportunities and services come and go with grant monies and budget cuts)
␣ Consider a school’s location:
o Investigate travel options and make sure you feel comfortable with the commute your child will be taking each day (Is the school anywhere near a subway stop, do you have a car?)
o Review the train and bus routes available to your child (6th graders are 11-years-old, some are only ten for the first months of the school year, In 2008, a New York mom and journalist, Lenore Skenazy caused a media sensation when she let her 9-year-old ride New York City’s subway by himself and wrote an essay about it stirring up controversy resulting in a Today show appearance and a book deal. Suffice it to say, not every parent is comfortable with every home to school commute.
o Remember that the Department of Education offers transportation to students based on specific criteria that are described at www.nyc.gov/schools/offices/transportation or by calling the Office of Pupil Transportation (OPT) at 718-392-8855.
(The official policy of the DOE states that middle school students are expected to take public transportation to school: Any student who is eligible for full fare transportation may be issued a full fare student MetroCard if that student requests a card or if yellow bus transportation is not available for that student. MetroCards are typically used by students in grade 7 and above (none of whom can receive yellow busing) and by students for whom yellow bus service is not available because, for example, the school does not have bus service, or there are not enough students for a route, or because the student lives beyond five miles. Student MetroCards are issued by the school transportation office.)
Oh, and if you have any more questions. You’re on your own –with nothing to go on but playground gossip and the stories told by those who have gone before.
Unless…
Perhaps, Ms. Black, is there something else you would like to share with the rest of us?