Parents, students and City Council member Margaret Chin rallied yesterday in opposition to a plan to move a second school into University Neighborhood High School’s building on Monroe Street.
Parent leaders learned about the proposal in the last week or two. Earlier this month, the DOE announced the creation of three new early college and career technical education high schools. Although the locations were not disclosed, Education Department officials have signaled that the school envisioned on the Lower East Side would be a partnership with the American Association of Advertising Agencies. A press release noted that, “Studying marketing and design inside the classroom, students intern in areas such as advertising, media management, and creative technology at the Association outside of school.”
Parents at University Neighborhood High School say there’s no room in their building to add the new program. There are around 300 kids in the old building at 200 Monroe Street. The building lacks a gym, lunch room and auditorium, plus classrooms are undersized. The new school would likely need to accommodate somewhere between 250 and 300 students.
Yesterday Council member Chin said. “there is no room at this school. it’s not a good decision by the DOE.” The Education Department is expected to formally announce its plan tomorrow or Friday. A public hearing would be required leading up to a meeting of the Panel for Education Policy in October.
DOE continues to treat kids as beans to be poured into jars and not human beings that need realistic space to thrive.
Ah… the American Association of Advertising Agencies…what a great partner for a school! This association has interesting members with interesting histories. comScore deceptively collected data from unaware users on their web purchases, etc.
The association also lobbied against and ultimately torpedoed proposed voluntary guidelines to protect children from unhealthy foods, coming up with their own “voluntary” guidelines:
“…a bitter fight in Washington …pitted food and nutrition advocates against a large and well-funded food lobby that ultimately convinced regulators to soften guidelines. All but killing the feds’ voluntary guidelines,..”
“Preschoolers see an average of more than 11 food ads per day, despite food companies’ promises not to advertise to very young children, and one out of ten of those ads appear on just one show – SpongeBob SquarePants” – Rudd Report.
We are now wholesale allowing the profit crazed corporate sector to determine even what school is going to mean- to the complete detriment of our children’s ability to use education find their own thinking. All children should have the chance to learn real skills that are needed -for jobs that make a world we all want to live in. Learning skills from people who deceive children and unsuspecting web users – not my idea of a partner for educating children.