Done With Freshman Year

DESPITE THE LONG commute to Manhattan on school days, sometimes with only five hours of sleep, Sara proved she can tackle work at Stuyvesant High School. Good job, babe. Enjoy the summer.

The Brink Of The Bronx

The Hall of Fame on a cliff overlooking the Harlem River

A COOL SPOT to visit and spend some time in if you find yourself in the University Heights neighborhood of the city (maybe before a Yankee Stadium ballgame) is the Hall of Fame for Great Americans on the campus of Bronx Community College. Built in 1900 by New York University (before it was the billionaire that it is now and sold the campus to the city university in 1973 due to financial crisis), the shrine offers a panoramic view of the valley below from the Harlem River to The Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park to the New Jersey Palisades beyond. Designed by architect Stanford White and featured in the movies A Beautiful Mind and The Good Shepherd as the backdrop for scenes that were supposed to take place at MIT and Yale University respectively, the Hall of Fame is only four blocks but is a universe away from the frenzied bustle of Jerome Avenue; it obliterates all stereotypes of this borough as a lawless gangland and drug den perpetuated by movies of the '70s and '80s. In the company of 102 bronze busts of people of achievement from John Adams to Wilbur Wright, one is sure to think about and evaluate the state of affairs of his career, and it was in its quiet in the spring of 2009 where I sought enlightenment as I processed the question of whether or not to leave the academic world behind for a much higher-paying but restrictive job with the federal government. And because I know this post is going to generate tons of hits from people who enjoy reading about characters teetering on the edge of a precipice, let me play from memory what I remember of myself in this situation.

After my master in library science degree, I worked a city job on campus with the title of Assistant to Higher Education Officer, managing faculty development efforts and college board meetings as coordinator of its Center for Teaching Excellence, then directed by Jewish poet Harriet Shenkman. Coming home one afternoon, I found in the mailbox a letter from the Minneapolis Hiring Center, offering me a federal job that I had applied to years before and had forgotten about, asking me to report to a Human Resources office in Newark so that my name can be enrolled in the next class that would run for three months in a boot camp in Georgia. The letter also emphasized that I would be required to do the 1.5 mile run in 15 minutes or less, taken in two attempts, otherwise fail the academy and be literally sent home right there on the tracks. Now, I have spent all my adult life in the academic world and the federal government was terra incognita. I knew that the academic part of it would be routine, but my cardio stamina was laughable; I had been smoking for as long as I could remember, and quitting to begin a daily regimen of running would be like asking me to climb Mt. Washington in the middle of February. What if I didn't make the run? There would be no job to come back to, because the offer came in the middle of the semester and gave me no option to finish my duties until the end of the term, to be able to come back if I did not pass the academy or like the new job.

Decisions, decisions. As I was consumed by my dilemma, the Hall of Fame became the leap of faith, the brink of destruction, the precipice of doom. Should I stay or should I go, step down or turn down, resign or decline, quit or forfeit? During break periods, I would linger at the Hall of Fame hoping for an epiphany, but while the advice of the heroes (stolid like Easter Island moais looking beyond the horizon of their barren ground) were muted, the voice of our financial situation was thunderous. We had recently bought a house, and the monthly mortgage snapped up my wife's Wells Fargo salary, while mine was a poor supplement to take care of the rest of the bills. The starting salary and benefits of the job offer were great. Academics or economics? That was the question. Gotta do what I gotta do, the 1.5 mile run be damned. I had to take my chances. It's a go. That crucial afternoon I submitted my resignation, I stopped by the Hall of Fame once again and went through the rows of heroes, hoping to find one that was in the profession of customs, but never found it.

So in early May, nicotine-free, I kissed my family goodbye in Penn Station and was on Amtrak bound for Savannah, all alone and wondering if I had made the right decision as I watched the late spring trees outside morph into subtropical, the anxiety weighing me down full force like the ugly Spanish moss all around when I arrived. A van with a U.S. government license plate was waiting at the station, and the driver, a talkative officer from Long Island, delivered me and seven other rail-opting hopefuls under the porte cochere of a Marriott hotel in FLETC (called "Fletsie" by oldtimers), still an hour away in a town called Glynco in the middle of southern Georgia pinelands. A Marriott hotel in boot camp? What the f---? (Obviously, Marriott executives are well-connected to the federal government.) This was going to be a breeze, my ignorant mind told me. How wrong I was. Little did I know that the hotel would be a requisite comfort after every exhausting day of physical training and shin splints, peer pressure, asshole instructors, weekly exams on dull topics, lack of sleep, crappy food in the cafeteria, the heat, mosquitoes, anything you could think of to humiliate the academic brat in you on top of the homesickness. For ninety days.

SEVEN YEARS LATER, I am still amazed at how I survived those ninety days, and wonder if I had made the right decision. I graduated from the academy with a bling on my diploma, my proud family flying in from New York to be by my side. And oh yes, I made the 1.5 mile run in 14.34 minutes on my second attempt, thanks to the adrenaline and the potassium and the FedExed adobo and the prayers of my family (I always thought mine had no clout). But when I returned to the work unit in Newark the following week, I saw how different the new job was. Within a short period of time, I realized that whereas, in my previous job, I could express my dissent to the president of the college on any issue, in this new job you just don't jump ranks when speaking your mind and there were hierarchy protocols that must be sternly adhered to, and that the orders of my first-line supervisor were like royal decrees, no questions asked. Intellectual and academic freedom in the job was, to understate it, limited. We were instructed never to share security-compromising information on social media, including work-related photographs and personal identification, duty details, any information that may compromise the classified nature of the job. (I am even afraid as I write this post that I may have to take it down in the future.) For years, the task of writing made me sick, and even now as I recuperate, I am still blind to the boundaries of its new confines. We issue charges and penalties everyday and must build a firewall between us and the public to prevent vindictive offenders from being able to track us down. And in the wake of the recent police shootings, we are required to change into street clothes before going home to avoid being assassinated. This is a small price to pay in exchange for the bacon that I bring home every two weeks, surely a day on the beach compared to that of a recruit deployed in Iraq. And after seven years of service, I have the tenure and salary of a full professor, health and life insurance, tax-free contributions to a retirement fund, leave entitlement, and most of all, no papers to bring home and grade at the end of the day. We are able to buy a summer home in the lakes region of northwest Jersey, and save for our daughter's college fund. Did I make the right decision? I still do not know, and one of these weekends, I'd like to go back to University Heights to see if this time, I can find the answer. Until then, the response to my first-line supervisor's orders will be the same: Hooah!

Hall of Fame for Great Americans, Bronx Community College, 2155 University Avenue, Bronx, NY 10453  To schedule a tour call: Therese LeMelle (718) 289-5160 or Remo Cosentino (718) 289-5146

Stuyvesant's Case

The building near Ground Zero

Stuyvesant students at dismissal

STUYVESANT'S OPEN HOUSE for incoming students was held last week, and because Mom was in Albany doing field work, I had to take an early day from work to accompany Sara to the event.  We did not drive, because I wanted to show her how to take the M subway from nearby Ridgewood and navigate the circuitous underground transfer to the 1, 2 or 3 train at the 14th Street station, and to make mental notes of signs and structures inside the labyrinth for her to use as guides when transferring. It was a challenge, considering that it was rush hour and we had not taken the subway for quite sometime, but the excited kid swore that she got everything in her head, although I knew that this exercise had to be done many times more in the summer. Up on Chambers Street, we encountered a line of students and parents that extended from the Stuyvesant bridge over West Street all the way to the gate of Borough of Manhattan Community College, an avenue block east. And seeing the faces of the students that were coming our way after dismissal, I saw for myself what I had been hearing all along: that Stuyvesant is overwhelmingly Asian.

Recent media reports say that Asian-Americans account for almost three-fourths of the enrollment at Stuyvesant High School, one of the city's eight specialized, elite public high schools that strictly use test scores as basis for admission. "Each November, over 28,000 eight and ninth graders take the two-and-a-half hour Specialized High Schools Admission Test, and roughly 800 students, or 2.8% of applicants, are accepted to Stuyvesant each year," Wikipedia says. Of this small number of successful applicants, over 70% are Asian, Sara happily being one of them this year. But getting into Stuyvesant is not an easy job. Sara had to give up many weekends for months to take SHSAT test preparation classes at Kweller Prep, doing writing assignments and practice tests on top of her regular I.S. 73 homework for many days. We spent close to $5K of our savings on sessions that began as early as the fall of 2014 and ended in an intensive one-week after school session days before the October 2015 test.

There is reason why any forward-thinking NYC midschooler would like to fight for space in this public high school. It is considered one of the best in the nation (along with Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech in the city). It has produced four Nobel laureates and notable alumni like Attorney General Eric Holder and Presidential Advisor David Axelrod. In 2007, The Wall Street Journal reported that Stuyvesant sent 67, or 9.9% of its 674 seniors to eight selective colleges: Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Williams College, Pomona College, Swarthmore College, U of Chicago and Johns Hopkins. In its 2010 progress report, the NYC Department of Education assigned it the highest possible grade of "A."

But there is a problem here, at least according to people like Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina, who have called for a revamp of admission policies and procedures of NYC's specialized high schools. Asians represent less than 14% of the city's entire public school student body, which means that they are disproportionately represented at Stuyvesant by about five times. Four decades ago, Asians were only 6% of Stuyvesant's student body. On the other hand, whites, including Jewish students whose numbers made them a prominent group at the school during the 1970s when they comprised 79% of the student body, now represent less than a quarter of it. And last year, only 5% of students accepted at Stuyvesant were black and 7% were Hispanic.                                                                                                                                                               
"We must do more to reflect the diversity of our city in our top-tier schools," Farina told the Daily News. "We will be looking at ways to address the gap that has left so many of our black and Latino students out of specialized high schools." Mayor de Blasio echoed this at a news conference: "these schools are the jewels in the crown for our public school system. This is a city blessed with such a diversity. Our schools, especially our particularly exceptional schools, need to reflect that diversity." His biracial son Dante having attended Brooklyn Tech, de Blasio has vowed to change the admission procedures, but any proposal he makes is subject to approval by the state legislature in Albany, which made the single-test admission requirement law in 1971.

Academics are deeply divided on whether testing should be the sole basis of admission to elite high schools, and the debate is intense. Critics blame the low representation of blacks and Hispanics at Stuyvesant and other specialized high schools on their lack of access to test preparation academies and tutoring classes; many, according to them, are not even aware of the testing procedures and preparation, and many more cannot afford the cost. Jennifer Lee, professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine says that admission testing is unfair to economically disadvantaged blacks and Hispanics. "Access to unequal resources will result in unequal outcomes," she says. "Until we can provide adequate resources for all New York City children to prepare for admission tests, we will continue to see racial disparities in admissions to schools like Stuyvesant." But Reginald Richardson, a high school principal, said that the root problem is not the testing; it is the poor quality of education in the elementary and middle schools which do not make black and Hispanic students competitive when it comes to specialized high school admissions tests.

I favor the argument made by Jerome Krase, Brooklyn College sociology professor and author of Seeing Cities Change: Local Culture and Class. "If Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Farina want to change admission policies at elite high schools, it would defeat the schools' very purpose. It would be better to improve the local schools and the life conditions of those who are disadvantaged. They could also make sure that all schools provide the best education possible for all students. But this is not likely, because it means paying higher taxes to help other peoples' children. New York City and Americans in general are no longer as generous when it comes to helping those in need, especially as the composition of those in need have become less "European."

And I completely agree with the blunt, from-the-gut point made by Guofang Li, associate professor of second language and literacy education at Michigan State University, who does not believe admission-by-testing is unfair to anyone, and says that applying affirmative action-type policies to public school admissions would be disastrous: "In a culture where Asians are still a minority group--and often marginalized in society--tests are actually providing a good pathway for Asians to get opportunities like attending a good school with good resources, which can help them get into a better university and better employment in the future. Stuyvesant is diverse, just with different racial ratios. Normally, most schools in suburban areas are 75% white and 25% other ethnic groups, while urban schools may have a 75% black or Hispanic population and 25% other ethnic groups." She notes that such school racial compositions are accepted by most people as "diverse," but when Asians form the dominant ethnic group (as in Stuyvesant), suddenly questions and complaints arise. "I do think people have a perception of what a diverse school has to be, but if Asians are in good schools, they have a problem with it."

Also read Kristin Iversen's "Only Ten Black Students Were Offered A Spot At Stuyvesant High School This Year, But Is This Really A Problem?"   Thanks to Palash Ghosh for the quotes.

In the end, we went home tired but assured of how great the school and its programs were, demographics aside:
 

Reviving An Old Track: The Great Lackawanna Cutoff

1898 ad

Delaware Water Gap viaduct

NY Penn Station to Scranton, PA

NEW JERSEY TRANSIT'S decision to restore the old Lackawanna Cutoff railroad line pumped new blood into my arteries, not only because of my love affair with trains, but also because the project will inevitably impact my town of Hopatcong. Once opened, the 88-mile line will be a branch of the currently running Montclair-Boonton and Morristown lines (between New York Penn Station and Hackettstown, New Jersey), and will begin at Port Morris Junction near the Lake Hopatcong station, to Scranton, Pennsylvania, through the Pocono Mountains. NY Senator Chuck Schumer has proposed to entend the line further north to Binghamton, New York.

Some background from Wikipedia: "The old Lackawanna Cutoff railroad line was built by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad in 1908, and was operated until 1979 until it was abandoned in 1983. It was known by other names like the "New Jersey Cutoff," the "Hopatcong-Slateford Cutoff," the "Lackawanna Highline," or simply the "Cutoff". Noted for its immense cuts, fills, embankments and viaducts that permitted high-speed operations, it was part of a 400-mile mainline that ran from Hoboken, New Jersey to Buffalo, New York, and was once an exemplar of early 20th century rail infrastructure and right-of-way construction. With minimized grades and curves, it was built without vehicular crossings, and included a series of unique structural features, viaducts and massive fill embankments through the deep valleys of this region. One of the first railroad projects to use reinforced concrete on a large scale, its construction required the movement of millions of tons of fill material using techniques similar to those on the Panama Canal."  

The Lackawanna Cutoff restoration project, if completed as planned by the New Jersey Transit and the Pennsylvania Northeast Region Railroad Authority in 2014, will use diesel locomotive-driven commuter rail trains, cost some $550 million to build, and take commuters through some of America’s most beautiful scenic landscapes. Travel time between New York Penn Station and Scranton, Pennsylvania will be about three hours.

Here are pictures of the rail line, especially of the work being done on the Brooklyn-Stanhope Road (County Road 602) grade crossing site, near Kynor Avenue where my house is. (It is somewhere behind the trees above the United Methodist Church sign and the car on the road on the upper left corner.)  For a bit of Lake Hopatcong train station's history, click on this link.

Work near my house on Kynor Avenue

Lake Hopatcong station

View near Greendell, New Jersey