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With the closing of the Christopher Columbus High School now, which is being met with a good amount of opposition, everybody is left wondering if the entire matter is taking a new urgency all around the country, also other than just New York. Larger high schools being shut down on grounds of consistent poor performance obviously indicates that smaller schools and charter schools are replacing the former for good.

The city’s Education Department maintains that the closings so far have been a success. But at this point, the teachers are frustrated and the students are expressing themselves more than ever. And this year, when the city has proposed phasing out nearly twenty schools and the city is to be holding public hearings in each of these schools.

This was due, anyway, to the change in the mayoral control law because of which there were complaints regarding an insufficient role for parents. But it is being said that such hearings will not affect the closing down of any school.

The average graduation rates at small high schools are about 75 per cent, which is way, way more than the graduation percentage of the school they have replaced. These small schools, which are those created in the shells of older large high schools itself, also exceed the graduation percentage of the entire city by a good margin of 15 per cent.

This clearly proves a point and brings it to the forefront that while closing down schools is “not something anyone enjoys” as said by Joel I. Klein, the schools chancellor, it is perhaps what is best for everybody. There are way too many kids in high-needs community according to him, and that is found in smaller schools, with highly personalized style of education, and strong affiliations and involvement with various organizations. He believes that such things are a very successful strategy for them.

Columbus, being 70 years old, had only a 40 per cent graduation rate last year. There was a grade D on its latest report card. Now it works so that the students who do not fall behind are permitted to graduate, but there will be no new admissions hence. That way, new schools can begin to function; adding grades one by one, each year and grows so that they can then graduate students.

What is working against Columbus primarily, is that even other high schools, large ones, that have a similar population are getting better results- despite a lot of them being classified under the special education schools and those not fluent in English.

Some still believe that it is due to the smaller high schools that are pushing older, larger schools and that these new schools might not be able to sustain their performance. It is believed by them that the large high schools should be supported and protected, especially when they are now suffering collateral damage as a result of the same, constantly straining under the pressure of enrolling the neediest students in the system.