I was going to use the final column to review the bad and ugly (there was little good) of education coverage, but with the start of summer vacation for my teacher readers I decided to pass. But I did write a newsy story on a Stop and Frisk march held last Saturday in Rockaway organized by Josmar Trujillo, one of the very interesting people I've met out here. More about the march and Josmar in a follow-up piece later or tomorrow.
Education News You Can’t Live Without
By Norm Scott
Published Friday, June 28, 2013
It’s
a lie. You can live without it and so can I. It’s that time again – the
last School Scope column of the school year. And it’s been quite a year
for Rockaway schools. The Wave has done a good job of chronicling the
struggles and recoveries so I won’t belabor the point, but let’s hope
summertime makes the livin’ easy for all our schools, especially those
that have suffered draconian and outrageous cuts by the Bloomberg
administration.
There have been quite a few changes at
The Wave itself. Howie is out, Kevin is in, I’m on a word count limit,
and I have to climb this long flight of stairs if I want to complain.
As
editor, Howie made the paper one of the only voices in the media
resisting the Bloomberg reforms. He made the politics of education a key
focus of Wave reporting with great insights into the successes and
disasters going on in the school system. In case you didn’t notice, I am
an ed policy wonk – duh – and have too much information for my tiny
brain to contain. Trying to share even a fraction of it with readers has
at times been unmanageable.
The Wave was out in front
on so many push button issues in education, especially when they started
closing schools in Rockaway. The School Scope column under Howie’s
stewardship was the reason I started reading The Wave in the first place
over 20 years ago. Or is it thirty? Having worked as a teacher in
Rockaway, Howie knew the ins and outs of District 27 and every Rockaway
school. When Howie retired from the school system to take a full-time
job at The Wave as managing editor he asked me to take over school
commentary, giving me the made up title of “education editor” and
issuing me press credentials, which I have used to gain entry to press
sections not only here in NYC but at events all over the nation. I waved
my WAVE press pass at Joel Klein press conferences, American Federation
of Teachers conventions in Seattle and Detroit, teacher street
demonstrations in Chicago, entry to the press tent at NBC’s Education
Nation and a large rally to defend public schools in Washington DC. Plus
all that jousting with DOE security when I cover Panel for Education
Policy meetings. When I introduce myself as education editor of The Wave
people seem impressed. And then they ask, “What is that?”
Having
taught and been politically active in District 14 in Williamsburg, I
realized I could never duplicate Howie’s great reporting on local
schools. So I have focused critiques on the national and the local
Bloomberg-led movement to reform schools, which I branded as “ed
deform,” and how the local UFT and national AFT were responding –
actually aiding and abetting the deforms in so many ways. I have pointed
the columns at people who work in the schools and might have some idea
of what I’m talking about. But even some of my teacher friends often
say, “Wha?”
I’ve been doing this column roughly twice a
month for the past 8 years. Or is it 9? Wait, I’ll check the archives.
Ooops. Out to sea. With all the things that happened, the loss of those
wonderful binders with 130 years of Rockaway history makes me very sad,
especially since I had procrastinated over writing a novel using those
archives for research. One more reason to just lay in the sun and do
nothing. Which I intend to do once I hit the SEND button.
In
fact I intended this final column of the school year to be a summary of
key stories in education over the year, especially the new teacher
evaluation system. I, and everyone else in Rockaway, have had a few
distractions, so at times it was hard to focus on external events. There
are so many stories, if I wrote about all of them this column would
have OCCUPIED this edition. Kevin has pretty much given me the OK to
write anytime there is a story to write about, even if outside the
education sphere, so I may pop back up during the summer. Otherwise have
a great one and see you back in the fall.
In the meantime you can
follow the fall of civilization on my blog ednotesonline.org.
http://www.rockawave.com/news/2013-06-28/Columnists/School_Scope.html
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