http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wi...-regional-wire
By MICHAEL GORMLEY
Associated Press Writer
July 30, 2003, 5:25 PM EDT
ALBANY, N.Y. -- When the nation's first public high school for gay and transgender students opens in the fall, it will join other "specialized schools" that include programs for pregnant teens and a school for racial justice.
Among the alternative public school programs is the Pregnant and Parenting Students programs in Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens, where the curriculum includes, a "Mommy and Me" course, staying healthy programs and classes in social skills. The program, which has 250 students at each site, offers onsite health services and is also open to young fathers-to-be.
Other alternative schools include:
_Several "international high schools" for immigrant children who don't speak English.
_Schools with flexible schedules for working students
_The Young Women's Leadership School, a small college preparatory school where girls wear uniforms and teachers are "advisers" called by their first names.
_The Choir Academy of Harlem that teaches through the arts in collaboration with the Boys and Girls Choirs of Harlem.
_The Urban Peace Academy in East Harlem where the curriculum is designed to "address issues of peace and justice, wealth and power, racism and oppression and the creation of ourselves and our cultures," according to the school's annual report.
Statewide, most alternative programs are through charter schools, created by law to experiment with innovation. These publicly supported schools include all-boys and all-girls schools and schools with multicultural approaches and new teaching techniques, said L. Jeffrey Perez of the Charter Schools Institute of the State University of New York.
Perez noted, however, that charter schools are open to all students and usually provide more assessments and accountability than required by the state.
The Pregnant and Parenting Students program and other specialty programs do not yet have that accountability and that has been a concern to state and federal officials.
These programs _ as opposed to the separate schools for girls, immigrants, gays and others _ are run not as schools, but are under the city Education Department. As such, the academic performance of students and the success of teachers and administrators can't be measured or tracked through the state's school report cards and standardized tests.
"Kids have to belong to schools," said state Education Department spokesman Tom Dunn. "There's just no accountability for a program so they have to be a registered school."
The state Board of Regents and the federal No Child Left Behind initiative, however, require these alternative programs to be reorganized as schools or as part of schools by the coming academic year, Dunn said. Accountability and performance, then, will be measured by the same standards used in mainstream public schools, including the Regents tests required of all New York students.
City Department of Education spokesman Kevin Ortiz said the programs are still evolving to provide the kind of accountability required by state and federal laws. He said the programs and alternative schools provide choice to parents and nontraditional ways to motivate and serve students.
State Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long, who condemns the Harvey Milk High School for gay and transgender students, praises many of the alternative schools that often have smaller classes and themes that interest and attract like-minded students.
"Most of those schools sort of lift up the student, are sort of a helping hand," Long said. "Some are driven philosophically, but they are open to students. The Harvey Milk School ... goes way behind that. It really is more of a social engineering school."
He said he also supports the pregnant and parenting program.
"A pregnant girl has special needs and I applaud the (city) Board of Education for having that kind of program and not promoting abortion," Long said.
Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press
How are you?
I'm not totally comprehending this. I see all of it as a way of slyly getting back to segregation. Even though, I'm not totally against segregation (as far as education is concerned).
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