Glare!
by Ron Isaac

Classrooms are dark but students still find their way. The light bulbs, called ballasts, have burned out throughout my building. Replacing them had always been a simple matter. No sooner was a call placed to the on-site custodian than the job was done. New York City Schools Chancellor Klein has put an end to that. To streamline the system, he has taken simple repairs out of the hands of custodians and required the work be farmed out only to outside electrical contractors. Six months have passed, nobody has shown up, and nothing can be done. Flickering fluorescence and the sun alone brighten the printed page for the eyes of students for whom the illuminations of books are already fading fast, thanks to Klein's discredited but embraced "Balanced Literacy" mock-curriculum.

Lighting is no longer a problem in bathrooms that have been padlocked all day every day due to violence and vandalism that the Chancellor's regulations have effectively ignored.

Perhaps Klein will dispense constipating agents to students like those ingested by international drug "mules" to ensure self-control until the proper time. The one hundred percent statistical drop in toilet terror coupled with total student self-discipline will surely enable Klein's publicists to give him credit for a re-hauled educational focus.

Denied bathroom access and dimmed ceiling lights don't strike us as related to a lousy syllabus and hallway hooliganism, but they are all symptoms of the same wasting disease of cynicism and neglect.

At Daniel Beard Middle School, each day starts with ten-minutes of mandated "academic enrichment." This "innovation" is in keeping with Tweed's view that change for the sake of change creates the needed illusion of new ideas. All teachers are given the same material and script. It consists of a reading passage, usually biographical, followed by questions that are remarkably devoid of ingenuity.

Though the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln fall in February, a month that includes Presidents Day and the anniversary of the monumental World War II battle of Iwo Jima, we are not mentioning these or indeed any other notable people or events of meaningful history. Instead we are concentrating on Ramona Hernandez, who has "fast become one of the leading authorities on the Quisqueyana culture."

Next we have Emma Ortega, who "knelt at a shrine adorned with skulls...at pyramids revered by the Aztecs...to utter an unusual prayer. Save us from Wal-Mart." The next hero is introduced as " a forty-nine year-old Hispanic man named Jorge Pagan, who has HIV which causes AIDS and...was a professional boxer..." He goes on to punch in a wall and save a kid from drowning.

The details of being Hispanic and having AIDS bear no relevance to the narrative.

The reference was no slip or failure of literary flair. By subliminal persuasion it carries an impertinent message of pseudo-pertinence. Even in an unlit class, students can see the light.. They can distinguish the bloom of knowledge from the artificial flower of propaganda.

The teaching of anything, including propaganda, is incompatible with a chaotic environment. The Chancellor claims that his Student Discipline Code has been stiffened, is executed without fear or favor, and works. But reality speaks the terrible truth. Said one model teacher whose cry was heard live by an alarmed City Council at a public meeting, "words cannot describe the nonsense and abuse that has to be put up with to just stand in these classes. Forget about teaching!"

How is the Chancellor dealing with this Red Alert? He has created a week of "interactive theater instruction" for bullies. (At least he has not named a star after each of them and registered it in the Copyright Office) .He has instituted "impact schools" where the worst offenders are so regaled that their only regret is being returned to their original school. Recidivism is a certainty. That leaves the law-abiding students up the creek and lost in space. The climate that intractable troublemakers create is plain to any concerned member of the public who walks the halls uninvited, unannounced, and unescorted. Keeping this from happening seems the primary function of the safety agents.

More peace officers are assigned full-time to New York schools than staff the police forces of many medium-sized cities. Not least among the pressures they face is the re-classifying of crimes so that grave violations find their way into the "infractions" column. Such choreographing of the facts makes life easier for managers who equate public relations with education.

Chancellor Klein enjoys the full and blind backing of his master, Mayor Bloomberg, whose immense political and economic clout does the double duty of shielding them both while endangering, indeed cracking up public education. Holding this team accountable is like hitting a moving target that plays peekaboo all over the map.

The road to recovery is slick and rocky. Easy street is a blind alley, it's been said. But though it'll take time, my students are eternal optimists and are at least betting it won't be "light" years.