Fariña’s ‘Diversity’ Dance
Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña last week offered a warmed-over casserole of a diversity plan because she doesn’t dare face the real problem: Too many city public schools stink.
Advocates are unhappy because she won’t force the “right” mix of white, black and Hispanic kids everywhere. But that’s a recipe for revolt by parents who’ve fought and sacrificed to get their children into good schools.
Nor is there any evidence that beancounting actually improves educational outcomes, which is what matters most.
In an open letter, Fariña claimed her goal is to help all kids via more-diverse classrooms. But her plan focuses most on diffusing English Language Learners, kids with disabilities and homeless children across the system.
That won’t begin to address the central injustice of the city’s schools: the huge numbers of black and Hispanic students trapped in failure factories.
Another big idea: borough-wide open admissions for middle schools. What will that do? Despite years of high-school open enrollment, Chalkbeat notes, “those schools remain starkly segregated by race, class and academic achievement.”
Even more nuts is the plan to diversify pre-K by busing 3- and 4-year-olds around the city. An extra hour a day strapped down in a vehicle: What awesome early-childhood intervention! Parents already nervous about handing toddlers over to strangers will just love having them far from home, too.
It’s all shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic, rather than finding a way to get more lifeboats — more good schools in the minority neighborhoods that lack them.
Fariña’s Renewal Schools program was supposed to do something about that; instead, it’s just enriched a host of consultants.
Meanwhile, she continues to battle the folks who are opening those good schools — the charter movement, which is eager to double in size if the politicians will just get out of the way.
“Each child has unbounded potential and deserves every opportunity to achieve,” Fariña preached in her open letter.
If she really meant it, she’d stop fighting to deny opportunity to so many of New York’s children.