The City announced the opening of 22 new schools today.

Not on the list is a new elementary school in PS 84 (or anywhere else in the area). As far as we can tell, there also are no plans to improve the near-failing performance of the existing school (although it did better this year). Which means that the city is pretty much committed to another year of substandard education at 84. The school is already less than half full, and after years of bitter fights over how to improve it, a lot of parents who can send their children elsewhere are going elsewhere.

I have been told that the reason given for not putting a new school in 84 is lack of parental involvement – in effect that because so many parents choose to go out of zone, DOE is throwing up its hands. Of course when parents did to get involved, DOE wasn’t there, and there was zero effort on DOE’s part to reach out beyond the walls of 84 this time around. With that attitude, DOE is setting up a Catch-22 that screws the students who go there, screws the parents who do try to make their kid’s school better, and ensures that parents won’t have any incentive to get involved.

But I’m sure they have a plan.