I have blogged previously that one thing I personally find so interesting about the NEST-mess is how sympathetic each side's (the parent activists who built the school, and the DOE officials that battled them over plans to house a charter school in the unused space within their building)position is when you walk a bit in each's moccasins.

Let me just point to one reason why it was absolutely imperative for the DOE to play hardball with NEST in this case, even to the point of inflicting pain. Columbia University is building a public school - the Columbia Secondary School of Math, Science and Engineering. Great news. Until the university builds the school building in which it will be housed, they are seeking to have the school "incubated" inside Public School 36, where the student population is 300 below capacity. Two paragraphs inside the NY Sun story on this new controversy this morning:

"It's insane what they're [DOE] proposing," she said. "I saw that the parents [at NEST] had protested vigorously and won."

She was referring to parent groups at two public schools who fought Bloomberg administration proposals to install charter schools in their buildings last year. Parents at the New Explorations into Science, Technology and Math School on the Lower East Side and P.S. 154 in Harlem won bitter, public campaigns to keep new schools out of their buildings, and the preliminary reaction of parents at P.S. 36 has raised the specter of a similar battle.

So yes, while school communities have a responsibility to fight for their schools, the Department of Education also has a responsibility to make the best use of the school system's real estate. When new schools are slated to be housed in existing school buildings in NYC, school officials (correctly) select the schools that have the most empty space. It's making the best use of public resources. This was always the danger of a clear-cut and high-profile win for the NESTies - they were going to have to take some resulting hit (like losing their beloved principal) so that other schools with available space wouldn't get any funny ideas about blocking this kind of stuff in the future.

It's always a political battle when it comes down to sharing space in half-full buildings, just like it is always a political battle when you try to close failing public schools. I'd still argue, under our Anti-Crap Doctrine, that it is far better to take the inevitable political hits that come from closing the crappiest schools and housing the new schools in their place.

BONUS MATERIAL, FREE TO LOYAL READERS:

After reading the recent NY Times story noting some of the more questionable admissions practices found in the files at NEST, I decided to snoop around to find out what the admissions people there had to write about my son, who didn't get in to middle school when he applied there last year. I have now obtained the smoking gun notes, which are rather embarrassing to me to say the least:

STUDENT: The Chalkboard's kid

OBSERVATIONS: This boy, a current fifth grader, is brilliant, funny, even charming - a boy who would make a wonderful addition to our elite school community. The committee did raise unanimous concerns about the parents however, particularly the father. His dress was sloppy (a grown man whose entire wardrobe appears to come from the discount racks at Old Navy,) and he seemed distant at times. The committee's spy in the waiting area heard the father humming "Hold on Loosely," by .38 Special, which itself raises serious questions about the type of parenting he provides at home as well as the questionable contributions he would make to our active parent body.

RECOMMENDATION: Studenta non grata. Adios this muchacho and his creepy dad ASAP.