Thread: Barack H. Obama Elementary in Asbury Park, N.J. to close

Rachel Rose Hartman – Fri Mar 18, 9:32 am ET

The Barack H. Obama Elementary School in Asbury Park, N.J. will be shuttered this summer, largely due to low enrollment, the Asbury Park Press reports.

Bruce N. Rodman, the official who oversees the district's finances, determined that it was necessary for one of the district's elementary schools to close and the Obama school's enrollment had dropped 35 percent in the past 10 years, the newspaper reports.

The Bangs Avenue School elected in 2010 to change its name to Barack H. Obama Elementary.

At the time that the school acquired its new name, administrators took a lot of flak for ostensibly focusing on the name change instead of the plight of its students. But the city resident behind the movement, Myra Campbell, believed it would "send a subliminal message" to the students. "Every time they walk through the school doors, there's going to be a certain amount of pride in where they go to school," Campbell told the Star-Ledger in 2009. "We now move forward in trying what we can to improve the academic skills of the students and also the social skills." At the time, another New Jersey school had already been renamed after the president.

About 1,000 students will be reassigned to local schools in the fall.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thetic...ntary-to-close

The action by the "administrators" to re-name the school and the explanation for doing so is a clear illustration of what is wrong with education in this country - form and appearance before any kind of substance.

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I never understood the concept of politicians (or their loyal followers) naming public places after themselves - and they're not even dead yet...

This is the kind of adulation of power that you see in Authoritarian regimes - like the old Soviet Union, for example. It is basically a 'salute' to POWER.

Not power of the people, power OVER the people...

Unless the politician has done some great work that has benefitted society - on his own time and his own Dime, then NO naming of public places with political figureheads should be allowed.

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"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank. "

- Barack Obama Campaign Promise - October 27, 2007

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"...send a subliminal message to the students"?

Really? And these people are actually responsible for educating children? Lovely. Way to go

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Naming a school after a sitting president is like winning the Nobel prize for wishful thinking. Oh yeah, Obama did win the Nobel prize for useless empty rhetoric.

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...largely due to low enrollment...

About 1,000 students will be reassigned to local schools in the fall.

1,000 students is "low enrollment " ??? Fishy fishy ...

State monitor orders Asbury's Barack Obama School closedb
11:27 PM, Mar. 17, 2011 | 158Comments
http://www.app.com/article/20110317/...ed?odyssey=tab

The state fiscal monitor who oversees financial operations in the school district Thursday morning ordered the closing of the Barack H. Obama Elementary School as of July 1.

Students next year will go to the district’s two other more modern elementary schools — Thurgood Marshall on the east side and Bradley on the west side.

Bruce Rodman, the monitor, made the decision after the school board in recent weeks failed to support a plan by Schools Superintendent Denise Lowe to reconfigure elementary grades to create early childhood learning centers in the district, a plan which would have kept the Obama school open.

Officially renamed early in 2010 after the president, the building was known as the Bangs Avenue School since it was built a century ago. The state School Development Authority had planned to build a new school to replace the historic building, but has pulled back and Lowe said recently the state would not build a new school.


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Asbury Park’s school system was taken over by the state of New Jersey a few years back (along with those of other underachieving municipalities) for gross managerial incompetence. The state has, in the meantime, poured beaucoups bucks into the district. According to Education.com, the district spends nearly $36,000 per student but pulls in the lowest test rating the site offers.

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Ironic that a school named after our profligate, post-achievement president is shutting down thanks to fiscal mismanagement and non-achievement.

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The place stands out like a sore thumb,the teachers are outside having “smoke breaks” or talking on their phones many times per day.
And, if by chance you drive behind the “complex”, there are a deluge of SUV’s,Mercedes and way too many luxury cars.

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Great on-site intel. Thank you. Those are the things Dim’s/Libs/Progs will fight you to the death on though!

How do you know they were the ‘teachers’ cars? Did you run the plates and check the registration? How do you know they don’t belong to their fatcat Repub. husbands? ( “the turn” )

This is why I’m so convinced this will spiral ever further down into an “island-hopping campaign” where we’ll be forced to re-take the country one cave/bunker.org at a time. Sad.

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I like this version of the Mmm Mmm Mmm song.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=449Qm9YSOLU

Double Post - my bad. Don't you just hate when that happens?