Bill de Blasio and Carmen Farina: Meet the test of your education policy.
It’s called PS 106 in Far Rockaway. And as The Post’s Susan Edelman laid out in horrific detail Sunday, it’s one of this city’s failure factories. So the question is: What do the mayor and his new schools chancellor intend to do about it?
Mike Bloomberg’s education policy wasn’t perfect, or PS 106 wouldn’t have fallen through the cracks as long as it did. But Bloomberg was pretty clear about what he wanted to do with failing schools: He wanted to close them down.
In sharp contrast, de Blasio campaigned hard against that policy, and presumably his new schools chancellor agrees.
So we’re eager to see what this means for PS 106. On Sunday, The Post characterized it as a “school of no”: no Common Core textbooks, no gym or art classes, no real library, no nurse’s office, no special-ed teachers, no substitute teachers. One parent says kindergartners sit in “dilapidated trailers that reek of animal urine.” And sources told The Post that the principal, Marcella Sills, is a frequent no-show.
On Monday, a day after The Post exposé, Sills showed up for work on time — something one school source said hasn’t occurred in seven years. That’s likely because Chancellor Farina had dispatched her top deputy, Dorita Gibson, to PS 106 to find out what’s going on there.
All of which makes PS 106 an excellent field trial for de Blasio’s education “reforms.” If he and his chancellor are unwilling to close down a school as rotten as this one, surely they have an alternative that will turn things around quickly. We emphasize quickly — because children stuck in failing schools today can’t afford to wait years.
Chancellor Farina says the situation at PS 106 is “unacceptable.” The mayor admits it’s “deeply troubling.”
But it’s something else, too: It’s their problem now. And they’ll be judged on whether they can fix it.