Billionaire Bloomberg to Convert 26 Public Schools Into Charters

Bloomberg has initiated plans to close another 26 public schools and add more than 100 new private charter schools. Most of the school closures are slated for black and Latino neighborhoods. Former schools chancellor Joel Klein, who closed over 90 schools, resigned last year in the wake of revelations that tests had been deliberately “dumbed” down in order to make Bloomberg’s education plan look more effective. Cathy Black, Klein’s replacement, is poised to continue on the same trajectory.

The Bloomberg/Klein ed deform plan, heavily funded by Wall Street, has the primary goal of privatizing public schools in New York. One of their tactics was to create smaller schools and force the surplus students into predominantly lower income schools, exacerbating overcrowding. By neglecting to provide sufficient funding to those schools impacted, graduation rates and test scores worsened, thus providing the justification for closing these “failing” schools and replacing them with private charter schools.

New York Collective of Radical Educators (CORE) and the Ad Hoc Committee to Stop School Closing and Charter Takeovers are calling for a rally on January 27^th to stop the school closings.