I guess that this high school really is (or will be) gay.
A school in New York's Greenwich Village will reopen in September as America's first publicly run high school for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students, officials said on Monday.
Although The Harvey Milk School has been operating with two classrooms for 20 years, $3.2 million is being spent by the City to expand it to take 100 students. Named after a gay San Francisco politician assassinated in 1978, the school will be funded jointly by the city education department and a gay rights youth advocacy group.
(This really isn't funny if you weren't in high school in the last 15 years and remember when "That's gay!" was one of the most common ways to put down something.)
Posted by jzawodn at July 28, 2003 01:54 PM
So I take the teachers and staff will be "gay" too. I bet Leno and Letterman will tear this apart tonight...
will admission be closed to heterosexual students? how would they enforce that?
Aah, but iif you were let in, would you get teased constantly for being hetero?
Seriously, I can see there being special schools for being learning impaired, being gifted, and wanting immersion in a certain language, but seperating students because of sexual preference is not the solution. Fixing the intolerance present in the public schools is the solution. All this does is sweep the problem under the rug.
I guess if you choose segregation, that's your call. Personally they might have put the $ to better use by putting it towards say, education about different sexualities or something.
High School in NYC simply doesn't work the way it does in the rest of this country. There are hundreds of public schools here, and many (but not all) have specific focuses. Some focus on business skills, some on Journalism, some on African American studies, some on Chinese studies, some on the sciences, and some on various arts programs. In fact, there's a whole book published each year about all of the high schools you can choose from. It's about as thick as your average guide to colleges.
In general you apply to these schools. Some of them are easy to get into, and some are not. For example the School of Performing Arts (you probably know it best from the movie Fame) is very diffcult to get into and requires an audition. Others are based on grades in elementary and middle school (for example, Edward R. Murrow, one of the journalism schools). Others require you to take a standardized test. These include the science schools: Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech.
I imagine this new school just has a curriculum that focuses on gender studies and sexuality.
If you think there's something wrong with that. I supposed you are entitled to feel that way, but I'm pretty certain they'll have an open admission policy.
There's a range of choices. There are also geographically zoned schools too, and you are always entitled to go to the school your are zoned for. I suppose this is similar to the charter school concept in California. I believe that in NYC it's called Magnet. There are a lot more of them though, and it's been around for many decades.
Derek...if you read a bit further down in the story, you will see this:
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It will specialize in computer technology, art and culinary programs. It will also follow the education department's new mandatory English language and mathematics programs.
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So much for the gender studies.
I'm wondering how much longer English will be 'mandatory.'
THis is really quite strange, but not all that suprising actually. My question is though will this help their education at all? I mean, judging from how badly NY did with their regencies in the math section this past year (didn't something like 33% of the entire state pass?) they're going to need all the help they can get...
I find it odd that sexual preference is such a focal point in high school. Are they promoting these gay kids to hook up after school and sex it up? If not, then I don't see the difference between a gay school and "normal school", unless they specifically wish to teach the girls how to better act like dykes and the guys how to act like fruits.
I strike this whole thing up to being another "Hey everybody, Look at us! We're DIFFERENT whether you like it or not!" from the gay community.
I find it odd that sexual preference is such a focal point in high school
Well surely it's sex that's the focal point .. high school is more about sex than it is about Math(s), English or any other of its ostensible preoccupations. In fact the school system probably engenders an even higher level hormones due to the fact it crams kids together as they're going through adolescence (a word I can't seem to spell today).
That being the case, I think this gay school is a good idea - it has the potential to save its students a lot of grief and social anxiety .. if through to your sexuality, you're excluded from such a big part of what you can share with your classmates (ie bonding with the same sex about relationships vis-a-vis the opposite sex) then - even if the heterosexual students 'tolerated' you, which I suppose means didn't hate you - you would still tend to be isolated. I think it's a good thing and will let the students be queer and happy :)
NB. I'm not actually gay - but sufficiently a weirdo to grok the concept of difference in a heterogenous and age-segregated social group. Think for a second about how *weird* a school would appear if you had never encountered one before. Objectively, it's exactly that weird.
This is another bulls hit attempt by the gay community to flaunt their sexuality in the faces of straight people....and I for one am getting tired of it.
First they yell "We have AIDS, don't separate us because of it!" Then they yell "we're gay and we want to have separate but equal facilities because we can't function in your society!"
You can't have it both ways. Well, SOME of them do....ar ar ar ar.
Gays suck.
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