BROOKLYN, January 16 — The rising wave of fascism in the United States is apparent at Clara Barton High School. Under Principal Richard Forman, the administration is focused on order and discipline while neglecting students’ needs at every turn. A security system is turning the school into a jail. A dress code is imposed without any evidence that it benefits learning. Essential courses are not offered for all students who need them. Teachers who fight to do more for students are “excessed” and moved out.
Predictably, the school is failing. According to online data from the New York Times, only 43 percent of students earn state-exam diplomas, and less than half enroll in college after graduation. Forman has gotten rid of teachers to whom students went with problems at school or even at home. These teachers exposed students to the outside world instead of relentlessly pushing their heads into textbooks. They attempted to start new clubs and new Advanced Placement (AP) classes. But now they are gone.
A ‘Uniform’ Education
Forman’s racism is exposed every day. He and other school officials seem more concerned with students’ physical appearance than their education. They have done nothing to address the shortage of AP classes, with only one class available for each subject. Meanwhile, the principal’s allies on the Parent Teacher Association have pushed for all students to wear a uniform, but they never discuss how the school could provide all the courses students need. Students in grades nine to eleven are supposed to wear uniforms, while students in the twelfth grade “dress for success”: collared shirts and dressy pants. Jeans, t-shirts, dresses and sweaters are banned. When students are caught out of uniform, their ID cards are scanned for referrals for disciplinary action.
Furthermore, promoting the dress code over a better education is time-consuming and leads to unfair punishment. Students must stop at the door each morning to show their collared shirts, a delay that leads many of them to get lower grades because they are late for class.
Even worse, students are criminalized by being forced to undergo scanning before entering the school. They are harassed each day by security guards and school officials. One student was asked to take off her hijab (the traditional head covering for Muslim women and girls) to show her collared shirt. After she walked away, she was called back twice to show her shirt again. When asked about the incident, she said, “What surprised me the most is that Dr. Forman stood right there and did not say a word.” The principal uses this racism to intimidate and divide students and to keep the Department of Education’s oppressive system in place.
Clara Barton is far from the only school dealing with budget cuts and rising fascism. The “elite” Brooklyn Technological High School has similar problems, including a lack of paper, teachers, and even books. Virtually all public schools in New York reflect the inequalities of capitalism, a system where the working class suffers while the rich rule. Meanwhile, there is no shortage of money for the U.S. rulers to compete with China and to fight to protect their oil interests in the Middle East.
Clara Barton has a long history of students fighting back, from protests against restrictions on students bringing in water to anti-racist assemblies and anti-budget-cut rallies. All students need to be more active in building this movement to fight for a worker-run world.
