Student Metrocards

This week it was decided to slowly phase out the student metrocards here in New York City. For you guys unfamiliar with school transportation here, after elementary school there is really no such thing as zoned schools like in the suburbs. Well, there are, and if you're in a good zone you're psyched, but for a lot of this city if you're in a zone where the middle and high schools are less than appealing you try to get out and into schools in other parts of your borough or the city at large. You escape from your zone school by taking middle and high school entrance exams and your grades. These exams are no joke. There are cram schools, books, and tutors who specialize in getting your kid to pass the high school entrance exam (the Stuyvesant Exam) here in NYC. I swear, getting into Harvard might be easier.

But even for those kids who don't make it into the four top high schools of the city, getting out of your 'hood and into a different environment is important to them and their families. For example, the school where I teach. I work in Cobble Hill, at Cobble Hill School of American Studies. Cobble Hill is a very nice neighborhood. The two main streets are lined with expensive boutiques and restaurants, the brownstones (even ones in need of gut renovation) start at a million dollars, and the elementary schools are excellent. It's the safest precinct in Brooklyn as Cobble Hill was the first neighborhood to house the Italians when they left Little Italy in Manhattan, and all the mafioso grand-daddies are still there. It's beautiful--I can't afford to live there.

However the high school in Cobble Hill where I teach is less than okay. I would never let my kids go there. The test scores are low, the students enter reading at approximately a 4th grade level, and we have a lot of fights. We became a metal detector school this year. The students are lovely kids, and I work with some incredible educators, but we have no art teacher, few extracurriculars, and it's just not the environment I want my kids to have their high school experience in.

So who goes to this school? NOT the kids in Cobble Hill. The students come from Red Hook, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy, East New York, Carnarsie, Sunset Park, Coney Island, and Bushwick. They commute to our school on multiple trains and buses, some for over an hour, just so they can escape their zone school and come to school in a safer neighborhood.

Keep in mind that over 80% of my students live below the poverty level.

Students currently receive free metrocards to come to school each day. They are assigned these metrocards in the beginning of the school year; they get three swipes each school day between the hours of 5:30am and 8:30pm which allows for them to get to an extracurricular activity or job afterschool. Currently the cost of a swipe to get on a bus or subway is $2.25, which make the metrocard valued at $6.75 per school day, about $34 a week, about $135 a month or $1280 for the school year (180 days of school).

Now you tell me, if a kid can't afford to eat lunch, wash his/her clothes, or is living in a shelter (common issues in my school) are they going to be able to pay that money to get to school? Hell, no.

Guess the city isn't THAT worried about their graduation rates after all.
(article in the Times on this situation)