It’s pretty well known that as Mayor Mike prepares to exit office, many Tweed officials are looking for new jobs. Mark Sternberg already went to Walmart. The DOE also doesn’t want its emails made public.
Why the NSA-like secrecy? Isn’t this the era of accountability? A convo with a highly placed DOE official might explain this frantic effort to hide its internal emails.
The time: in the recent past
The place: Not disclosed to protect privacy
The convo between persons A, B, and C:
A: “I graduated from Jamaica High School, before it closed.”
B: “Oh really, did you know ___? He taught there.”
A: “Yeah I did, don’t remember much about his class, it was a long time ago.”
C: “You know why they closed Jamaica High School right?”
A: “Because it was in a bad neighborhood?”
C: “No. There’s plenty of really bad schools in really bad neighborhoods the DOE never touches. The DOE has this secret list that they circulate every year. It’s super-secret like no one outside the top deputies see this list.”
A&B: “What’s the list?”
C: "It’s called where the Desirable Acreage List. They examine how big the building is, if there’s a campus, if there’s a track field, parking nearby … And Jamaica kept popping to the top of the list every year because they liked the building. So they went after it.”
A: “We did have a nice building with a track field ...”
C: “Yeah, that’s the real reason they went after Jamaica in particular. It didn’t have anything to do with graduation rates or school performance or anything like that. It has to do with desirable acreage. They still have that list, and they’re co-locating schools they tried to close if they have desirable acreage."
B: “And if you can’t close, co-locate.”
C: “Exactly. Co-locate. But first they have to evaluate the building to see if anyone would even want to co-locate there.”
A&B: “Wow.”
C: “So yeah, that’s the super-secret list the DOE won’t ever show anyone. Why they close schools."
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