New York Post Confronts Judge on Schoolkids

Do it for the children, judge
The New York Post - EDITORIAL -March 26, 2010

State Supreme Court Justice Joan Lobis sure has a misplaced sense of doing right by city schoolkids. Wednesday was to be the day when a nerve-racking process dating back four months was to come to an end for some 80,000 eighth-graders. They were supposed to find out what high schools they'll be attending in September, after submitting a list of up to a dozen they'd be willing to attend. Ah, but they didn't know about the roadblock the UFT and the NAACP were about to throw in their way. A barrier that Judge Lobis has all too gladly kept firmly in place.

The two groups filed suit last month challenging the city's right to close 19 failing schools, including 15 high schools. Like Jamaica HS in Queens -- where barely one in three African-American students graduates within four years. Or Paul Robeson HS in Brooklyn, with a student body that is 95 percent African-American -- and where only one in 10 students earns the Regents diploma, soon to be required for graduation. That is, schools patently failing in their duty to children. Because eighth-graders weren't given the option of including any of these high schools on their request forms -- as if any would want to -- Judge Lobis barred the Department of Education from notifying those students what schools they've been matched with. And that ban stays in effect until she decides the merits -- such as they may be -- of the UFT-NAACP lawsuit. What nonsense. As one parent told The Post: "We are all waiting to move on with our lives, and we need to know what the plan is." But they can't find out until Judge Lobis makes up her mind. Or at least allows the process to go forward. Stop procrastinating, judge. Give these kids a break.