Posted on 08/05/2003 10:18:51 AM PDT by presidio9
Should New York City have a separate public school for gay teenagers? That question was asked and answered nearly 20 years ago with the establishment of the Harvey Milk School - a program that currently has 50 students and a solid record of achievement, particularly in luring dropouts back into the classroom. Now, that program is to be formalized into a separate school with roughly double the enrollment. Little else has changed. Since its creation in 1984, the Harvey Milk School has been open to all students, gay or not, and all those attending do so voluntarily. It's hardly the segregated school critics complain of.
Unfortunately, the need for such a school exists. The Hetrick-Martin Institute, a gay youth organization that tends to 2,000 kids every year and runs Harvey Milk, reports that it receives between 150 and 200 calls annually for the 15 to 20 seats that become available each September. The 50 additional seats surely will help.
Harvey Milk is not a dumping ground for gay students. But it does serve to provide another option for kids in the school system.
In all the current debate, and the subject is being debated nationwide, most opponents have missed the major reason such a school is needed. Harvey Milk was never intended to handle all the gay students - and there are many thousands - in New York City's public schools. Many of the kids at Harvey Milk have been ostracized by their families or their former schools. They simply have nowhere else to go.
Harvey Milk is a means to keep such students in school. Anyone attending a Harvey Milk commencement can't help but be moved by the achievements of the graduating seniors, most of whom had to overcome major obstacles to get their diplomas.
Remember: Harvey Milk was a program that operated under the accreditation of the Career Education Center, an alternative high school in Manhattan. That means its teachers had to be licensed and its students had to pass Regents exams. The state Education Department insisted on the formal status change to make the school accountable under new state and federal regulations.
A lot of people reasonably contend it would be better if New York didn't have dozens of differently themed schools - that students should adjust to their surroundings, as they one day will have to do when they are adults in the real world. But since the goal of education is not just to teach students, but to enable them to learn, policies that help that process along are worth trying.
As long as the Harvey Milk School requires that its students learn a rigorous curriculum and pass the requisite standardized exams, it is doing its job.
Makeup time for Albany
After a dismal session overshadowed by a war with Gov. Pataki over the budget, state legislators left Albany in June with an 'I' for incomplete marring their report cards. Those representatives who care about their constituents - and their state - will return in a few weeks to try to rectify matters. But others - those led by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver ... ah, well, that's another story. A sad one.
The state Senate plans to meet Sept. 16 to pass Superfund legislation to clean the environment. And Majority Leader Joe Bruno says he's also ready to take up the Rockefeller drug laws or any other issue that could produce a three-way agreement among the Senate, Assembly and governor.
But Silver says his members will not return to the capital unless there's a deal on these issues beforehand. How can you reach an agreement unless you show up?
It's not as if there's no work for Silver's crew. Plenty of bills are awaiting Assembly attention. For example, there's the pesky vicarious-liability law, which allows auto accident victims to sue not only the driver, but, if the car is leased, the leasing company. That law is the reason major automobile manufacturers, like Ford and GM, have stopped offering leases in New York.
The Senate has already voted to repeal the law. The Assembly has yet to act.
Silver says he wants conference committees with leaders of both houses sitting at the same table to hammer out agreements on stalled legislation. Good idea. But before you can be at the same table, you must be in the same city.
Actually I think they are called the Pirates.
School is hell. For everyone. Especially in NYC
They simply have nowhere else to go.
By law. It's called "compulsory attendance."
School is a twelve year sentence for the crime of being born.
Out to lunch. Last night he said that "the Gospels aren't historically accurate." Really.
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