Brooklyn School Fights Marines

The New York Sun ^ | 03/06/03 | LAUREN MECHLING

[nypokerface]

- A hammer-wielding Brooklyn high school principal is barring military recruiters from his school — in apparent violation of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Frank Mickens, the formidable principal credited with turning around Boys and Girls High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, has become the bête noir of local military recruiters.

Recruiters, students, and teachers say Mr. Mickens has denied members of the military equal access to secondary school students that the act requires. That includes the right to come to college fairs and to get lists containing the names, addresses, and phone numbers of students, as college recruiters do.

Marine Major J.J. Dill, commanding officer of the New York recruiting station, said Mr. Mickens did not provide his recruiters with a list of seniors this year.

When recruiters come outside the school to talk to students, security asks them to move down the block. “It’s public property,” said a Marines recruiter who has paid a visit to Mr. Mickens every month this school year. He said security tells him the principal will not receive him.

“I don’t remember a time we were invited to the college fair,” he said. “We still attempt to contact the students, but no matter what we do the school is still going to come behind us and put a negative spin on it. It’s very hard.”

In addition to inviting parents to a breakfast where he encourages them to check off a box on a registration form that keeps the military from contacting their children, some students say Mr. Mickens keeps military recruiters at arm’s length by rebuffing their attempts to attend college fairs, give classroom presentations, or even step foot on school property.

Not all of the students welcome Mr. Mickens’ strict door code.

In December, 10th-graders Analaura Bobes and Juanita Rivera helped a friend assemble a petition addressed to Mr. Mickens stating that he should allow the military recruiters to speak with the students.

“It said we need to be informed about things,” said Ms. Rivera, whose uncle joined the Navy a year ago and went from “hanging out on the corner and getting into trouble” to owning a house in Virginia.

“Certain people don’t want to go to college, and they should have the option,” said Ms. Bobes. The girls collected 600 signatures, but to little effect.

They said a school dean told the girls’ friend she hadn’t secured the right to run a petition.

Recently, tensions between the military recruiters and Mr. Mickens have escalated.

The looming war with Iraq, combined with this being the first full school year since President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, has added fuel to the fire.

Spring before graduation is an especially loaded time, as recruiters’ sights shift from community college students to high schoolers who are starting to hear back from colleges about acceptances and the financial aid packages they have been offered. Now is the time when they think seriously about their futures.

Recruiters said that many high school principals are unhelpful, but none are as up-front as Mr. Mickens.

Mr. Mickens did not return calls for comment, but relayed via a spokesman at the Department of Education that he has representatives from the armed forces at his career day every year and that he complies with the No Child Left Behind Act.

The struggle between Mr. Mickens and the military recruiters reflects a longstanding social activism movement against the military’s tendency to poach underprivileged minority children. Boys and Girls High School has approximately 4,000 students. Less than 1% of its student population is white.

On the other hand, many people see the military as a positive experience for young people who don’t necessarily have many options.

Dr Alvin C. Bernstine, the pastor of the Mount Lebanon Baptist Church, which is down the block from the school, said he sees both sides and stressed that students who don’t excel at one particular subject in school can be vulnerable to the siren call of the military.

“They’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” he said, motioning outside his window at a run-down city block. “They’re either down here in the depths of the urban jungle or out in Desert Storm.”

Yolanda Richardson, a teacher whose son Lamar is a senior at Boys and Girls, recently attended a breakfast meeting where all the parents were advised to check off an opt-out box on a form that would tell the military not to get in touch with their children.

“I’m behind [Mr. Mickens],” she said. “A lot of these students don’t think they’re college material and he’s giving them some sort of incentive, saying ‘yes you can go to college.’”

Since taking over Boys and Girls in the mid-1980s, Mr. Mickens has turned the school around. He enforces watertight disciplinarian codes, including taking the coats of tardy students and making delinquents attend a three-hour class every morning called Mickens Academy.

He requires that students dress like executives on Mondays and Tuesdays. He knows the students’ names, patrols the school hallways — sometimes carrying a hammer — and sometimes takes a seat to sell a few fund-raiser candy bars.

“Many of the traits he stresses to his students and the community are the same traits and principles adhered to by the Marine Corps,” Major Dill said.

[Puppage]

A hammer-wielding Brooklyn high school principal

What a LOVELY roll model. No wonder NYC schools are crap.Where's your tolerance, hmm? Could it be that ONCE again, tolerance ONLY GOES ONE WAY?

[Robe]

"It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us the freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who gives us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag,and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag."

Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, Sergeant, USMC

Enough Said

ROBE

[Pern]

He knows the students’ names, patrols the school hallways — sometimes carrying a hammer...

Sounds a little unstable to me. It sickens me to know that our fighting men and women protect a slimeball like this.

[Illbay]

So the military is "poaching underprivileged minority children?"

And we're going to ignore the FACT that the military has historically been a means of extreme upward mobility for minorities in this nation?

These people turn my stomach. They'd rather keep their "subjects" poor and ignorant, and easier to control. And less likely to vote Republican, of course.

[AppyPappy]

That hammer's gonna feel mighty rough coming out if he waves it at the wrong Marine.

[dennisw]

Lower the boom on this idiotarian chump!

 

Frank Mickens, who has been the Principal of Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn for seventeen years, inherited that institution when it was infamous for its failures and turned it into a school that now sends 85% of its graduates on to college. His career in public education spans thirty-four years during which he has served in several capacities, as teacher, dean, basketball coach, assistant principal, principal, and assistant superintendent. Born and bred in Bedford-Stuyvesant, he is himself a product of the New York City public high school system, and graduated from Erasmus Hall.....................

[VeniVidiVici]

...a school that now sends 85% of its graduates on to college...

I wonder what the dropout rate is?

I've always said that any school that doesn't comply with this No Child Left Behind Act, the school district should lose all federal funds.

[NewHampshireDuo]

I can see why he won't let the military through the front door. He's his own military and little dictator too. This guy is on a power trip.

[Dont Mention the War]

Check out this "successful" school's numbers. Graduation rate: 53%.
Attendance: 78%.
9th-graders who read at grade level: 15.5%.
Passing Regents English: 37%.
Passing Regents Math: 46.3%.

Their embarrassingly awful web page.

How to give this criminal a piece of your mind: 718-467-1700.

[Dont Mention the War]

...a school that now sends 85% of its graduates on to college...

That number, if it's even true, is typical liberal spin. Look at my post above about their graduation rate. It doesn't matter that you send "85% of graduates" on to college if only 10 kids are graduating in the first place.

[XJarhead]

No wonder NYC schools are crap.

Hey, let's be honest here. The guy apparently has done a great job turning around a crappy school. That is a real accomplishment, and denigrating it only weakens one's credibility.

He is wrong on this particular issue, and that should be the focus of our comments. Not belittling the real improvements he has made at that school.

[George W. Bush]

Maybe the principal is just gunning to keep his graduation rate and college entrance rate high.

That doesn't excuse discriminating against the military.

[XJarhead]

Not quite fair to blame the guy for the poor reading skills of ninth graders. He's teaching high school, not middle school. And frankly, the discipline and stuff sounds pretty good.

Truly relevant stats would be how that school's performance measures up to the performance of other schools in similar neighborhoods.

btw, I'm not trying to defend this guy's position on this issue. He's dead wrong on that. But character assassination isn't the best way to make a convincing argument.

[ohioman]

One of these days this dirt bag principle will get his due.

[Puppage]

The guy apparently has done a great job turning around a crappy school

How? In what regard?

[VOA]

“I’m behind [Mr. Mickens],” she said. “A lot of these students don’t think they’re
college material and he’s giving them some sort of incentive, saying ‘yes
you can go to college.’”

I like the way this Rhodes Scholar mother (and the school principal) have
apparently used their razor-sharp logic to reach the conclusion that a high-school student
can't be both college AND Marine Corps material.

And excell at both.

Guess they are afraid that their kids' self-esteem will suffer when they meet
a former classmate wearing a Marine Corps dress uniform bedecked with ribbons
and earner of a graduate school degree....at the 10-year reunion.

[Mister Baredog]

They'd rather keep their "subjects" poor and ignorant, and easier to control

You are right. This is right out of the Demoncrat playbook. IGNORANCE IS BLISS, KEEP THEM ON THE RESERVATION

[PBRSTREETGANG]

If he's "educating" these kids so well why is it that he feels that the seniors are incapable of making an informed decision regarding their career/education options?

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

The US Attorney needs to pay a visit to Mickens and counsel him on the repercussions of violating federal law.