How Not To Run a School

It's interesting to see that Lafayette High School in Brooklyn is still a cesspool of troublemakers and misfits. You'd think that after 3 decades they'd find a way to improve the environment. It's not surprising that parents who make meager wages, work three jobs in order to move to the suburbs and keep their kids out of schools like this.

Anupam Chander: Asian Youths Suffer Harassment in Schools:

Associated Press piece, without byline, published in NY Times:

Eighteen-year-old Chen Tsu was waiting on a Brooklyn subway platform after school when four high school classmates approached him and demanded cash. He showed them his empty pockets, but they attacked him anyway, taking turns pummeling his face.

He was scared and injured -- bruised and swollen for several days -- but hardly surprised.

At his school, Lafayette High in Brooklyn, Chinese immigrant students like him are harassed and bullied so routinely that school officials in June agreed to a Department of Justice consent decree to curb alleged ''severe and pervasive harassment directed at Asian-American students by their classmates.'' Since then, the Justice Department credits Lafayette officials with addressing the problem -- but the case is far from isolated.

Nationwide, Asian students say they're often beaten, threatened and called ethnic slurs by other young people, and school safety data suggest that the problem may be worsening. Youth advocates say these Asian teens, stereotyped as high-achieving students who rarely fight back, have for years borne the brunt of ethnic tension as Asian communities expand and neighborhoods become more racially diverse.