A charter school organization published a report on how dangerous public schools are in New York City since Bill de Blasio became Mayor and changed the student discipline code. Interestingly, the report left out data from charter schools I wonder why? While I believe the report is politically motivated and made to show how dangerous our public school are becoming, the data presented is concerning to say the least. The report was summarized in an articleHere.
Topping the list of Queens schools was the once great Martin Van Buren High School in Eastern Queens where a weapon was found on a student every 11 days. You would think that the students would be more wise. However, Martin Van Buren has become the"dumping ground"for unwanted"over-the-counter" students" with Jamaica and Springfield Gardens High Schools closed and the small Bloomberg schools were able to exclude self contained students and English Language Learners, claiming they do not have the resources or wraparound services to accommodate them. The result is that the large comprehensive high schools like Martin Van Buren are over-represented by "high needs" students, many with discipline issues. Joining the list are Long Island City, Richmond Hill, Flushing, and August Martin High Schools.
The Bloomberg schools were not exempt from the list as the second highest weapon possession was Far Rockaway Campus Queens High School for Information, Research, and Technology (QIRT) with a weapon recovered every 14 days. What's more concerning is that some of the middle schools were found to be on the top ten list with the worst being IS 61, the Leonardo DaVinci school in Jamaica at number three with a weapon possession found every 15 days.
Why did the report exclude charter schools? Well its probably because the rise in weapon possession and drugs would be greater for the charter schools according to Councilman Danny Dromm (D-Jackson Heights), chairman of the Council’s Education Committee, blasted Families for Excellent Schools, who blasted the report for putting out negative reports about public schools, but failing to show an increase in violence at charter schools.
“They’ve had a much bigger increase,” Dromm said in a Tuesday interview.
While the exclusion of the charter schools from the report is politically motivated, the data presented for the Queens public schools is very disturbing and the weapon issue shows how potentially dangerous some school are and the blanme lies squarely on the De Blasio Administrations lax student discipline policy.