It's Alive!

Mayor Bloomberg has decided to do experiments on school kids. No, I'm not talking about seeing how many kids he can squeeze into half a classroom.

If we can't give them good teachers, small classes, and decent facilities, like the CFE lawsuit asks, why not psychoanalyze them instead?

We have a laboratory of guinea pigs," said Granville Leo Stevens, a parent activist who refused to allow his daughter, Savanna, to participate in an NYU study at MS 104 in Manhattan last year.

"The Department of Education markets our kids like they're a piece of meat," said Stevens.

Some of the studies target students by race and ethnicity.

But the DoE has offered cheap counseling for parents, and ten bucks each for students, so many participate. After all, now they can say they're doing something, and it's a lot cheaper than providing quality education.

Critics say racially targeted behavioral studies of kids as young as age 9 are intrusive.

"Schools are not laboratories to use children as free experimental subjects," said Vara Sharav, of the Alliance for Human Research Protection.

Tell it to City Hall.