Extra Security Added for NYC Arabic School

Students starting school next week at an Arabic-themed public school will meet teachers and be protected by extra security after months of protest by some who say it will be a training ground for radical Islam.
Enrollment is nearly full at the 60-student Khalil Gibran International Academy, which will require its students to take Arabic as a foreign language, according to a Department of Education spokesperson.
Sixth-graders will be the first to attend the school, which will add a grade each year to end up with 500 to 600 students in grades 6-12. The school will join a number of small public schools in the city that have themes, covering areas from the arts to social justice to Chinese language.
Named after a Christian Lebanese poet who promoted peace, the school is the first in the city to offer instruction in Arabic and on Arab culture.
A need for more Arabic speakers is one of the reasons given to support the school. Two of the five teachers hired at the school graduated from universities with federally funded programs aimed at boosting the number of schools in the U.S. teaching Arabic.
Since the school was announced in February, critics have attacked the school as a potential training ground for radicals. Because of protests, it has had to move to a new building and its principal resigned.
An organization called the Friends of Gibran Council, which claims its mission is to advance the philosophy of Gibran, also formed this year in part to prevent the school from “hijacking the name of this great artist,” a spokesman said.
It was originally going to take space in an elementary school in Brooklyn. Parents at the school objected for a number of reasons, including whether the ideological controversy would create a security risk.
The Department of Education moved the school to operate within a high school and middle school in Brooklyn.
Khalil Gibran’s first principal, Debbie Almontaser, left earlier this month amid criticism for her affiliation with a group that had T-Shirts with the word “intifada,” an Arabic term commonly used to refer to the Palestinian uprising against Israel. She was replaced by acting interim principal Danielle Salzberg, a Jewish woman who does not speak Arabic.
While the first day is expected to begin as any other, education officials are taking into account the controversy and will provide extra security.

       U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings today announced a $27.5 million grant to Chicago Public Schools to reward educators who take on tough jobs in schools where they are needed most.  The grant will also be used to provide financial incentives to teachers and principals who improve student achievement in high-poverty schools and recruit effective teachers to those schools, particularly for hard-to-staff subjects like math and science.  Chicago Public Schools will receive $131,273 in 2006, and the grant is expected to be funded for five years for a total of some $27.5 million.

        “Nothing helps a child learn as much as a great teacher—and research shows that rewarding teachers for results can improve student performance.  Great teachers who work in schools where they are badly needed deserve more than our thanks.  They do extremely important work and this Teacher Incentive Fund grant to Chicago Public Schools should encourage and reward them for their service,” Spellings said.

        This grant will fund the Recognizing Excellence in Academic Leadership (REAL) program, which will drive recruitment, development, and retention of quality staff in 40 high need schools that serve approximately 24,000 students in the Chicago public school system.  

        Funded for the first time in 2006, the Teacher Incentive Fund program is President Bush’s initiative to develop and implement performance-based teacher and principal compensation systems in high-need, disadvantaged schools, where at least 30 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The goals of the program are to improve student achievement by increasing the effectiveness of principals and teachers, and, at the same time, increase the number of effective teachers for minority and disadvantaged students.  A total of 16 grants will be awarded for a total of $42,078,259.  Another $43.1 million will be awarded in spring 2007.  For more information about the Teacher Incentive Fund visit http://www.ed.gov/programs/teacherincentive/faq.html

— Teachers of Color