The Buffalo City
School District is “relaunching” five under-performing” schools
next September. They are announcing it now so that they have
sufficient time to sell the parents and students the lie behind each
of the schools.
The lie?
Bennett High School
is being relaunched as a school with a focus on computer science and
engineering. Students will focus on computer programming and other
software applications. This will prepare those “lucky” enough to
attend to be able to walk into careers that are focused on computer
science and engineering. From what I have read, many of the 43
North competition companies are focusing on software and programming.
Graduate from Bennett & join a 43 North company.
The South Park High
School Solar Pathways program will allow those that graduate from the
school and its program to walk across the stage, receive their
diploma, and then walk right into Solar City – the “local”
company that is helping with the program.
The Bioinformantics
and Life Sciences Research Lab, located on East Delevan, is a
college prep school that it teaming up with SUNY Buffalo and Buff
State, and Empire Genomics to prepare students for the burgeoning
medical campus and medical industries that are coming to Buffalo and
WNY. Graduate, go to UB,get your degree, and walk right into a
medical research job in downtown Buffalo.
Lafayette High
School, which is noted for its struggles with ELL students (that's
English Language Learners) is going to be transformed into a school
that serves the immigrant population and prepares them for degrees in
international business, law, and teaching. What a better use of an
immigrant's native language. Teach them how to act as front men (and
women) for US corporations that want to build factories in their
countries and exploit the cheap labor costs and non-existent
environmental regulations.
And East Community
High School will teach its students about law, corrections and
security, and public safety. Presumably to help with all the law
enforcement issues that Buffalo and Erie County is having?
And in all (or most
of these cases the taxpayer is footing the bill for educating
students that are going across the stage and right into the private
sector. It's almost like the schools are attached directly to private
industries that the Buffalo Billion is bribing companies to come here
and start.
And the students
that used to attend these schools? Anyone that researches these
schools will notice that they are all the “turnaround” schools –
they were performing so poorly on state mandated exams (that have no
validity anywhere in educational theory) that either Buffalo did
something with them or the state was going to come in and take them
over. So Superintendent Kriner Cash took the schools and made them
publicly funded private schools that march students across a stage
and right into the open arms of private corporations. Except East,
East graduates will be policing the streets and keeping the city and
county “safe” from trouble makers.
And the students
that were attending these schools and not meeting the expected
standards? They will be shipped off to other schools where they
might make it or drag down the school's rating so that the
Superintendent can make those schools publicly funded private
ventures.
No where in this
privatization plan is there anything that looks at the students that
are failing, asks why they are failing, and works to address or
remedy their situation. Instead they will be shuffled around Buffalo
where the district hopes that, at best, they will be able to be
swept under the rug and lost in the shuffle or drag the school down
so that the state forces a change.
Or to be less than
kind, sacrificial pawns in the chess match of school privatization.
So this plan draws
the best and brightest out of the schools that they are attending and
puts them into programs that prepare them for specific careers after
school. It replaces the high performing and highly interested
students with under performing students that will drag the school
down.
I'd say I smell a
rat, but I have had pet rats and they are quite intelligent animals
that are very clean.
This is something
worse and it will only serve the interests of the corporate class
that is looking to privatize and take over the Buffalo City School
District any way it can. If not by outright coup, like what
happened in New Orleans after Katrina, then by more subtle and
secretive means.
Either way, the
public schools are being privatized and students are losing out.
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