It’s the kind of thing that should make any schoolteacher proud.

Instead of just accepting what they were told and nodding their heads listlessly, students, parents and community residents decided to do a little research when they were told that our community didn’t need the 1,500 high school seats it was lopping off the five-year capital plan.

Working with the Annenberg Institute, an education policy organization, members of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition discovered that the city was factoring into its calculations that 36 percent of kids entering ninth grade won’t graduate in four years or will drop out.

At the same time, the Bloomberg administration says it wants to decrease the dropout rate.

How can it have both?

Figuring out how many kids will be going to school a few years from now also involves a number of factors including complicated demographic predictions. But the Education Department concedes that it is using the 36 percent figure as one of its variables.

That’s just not right, especially in one of the most overcrowded districts in the city, where high school students scramble for lunchroom seats and wait in line for hours to get through metal detectors.

Like any good student, the community is not finished with its inquiry. Residents will continue asking tough questions at a town hall meeting in the Bronx on Dec. 18 (see end of story on p. 5 for details).

We encourage anyone who can to join them.

No Action on Fatal Crossing
Two issues ago, we featured a story on our front page titled “Fatal Crossing” about a string of pedestrian deaths (three in 10 months) at the corner of Bainbridge Avenue and Gun Hill Road.

In response to that article, a woman wrote a letter to the editor about how her 16-year-old daughter was struck on that very corner in 1992 and rendered comatose. No doubt there were incidents in the ensuing 14 years.

Ask anyone who frequently walks that intersection and they will tell you it’s chaotic and unsafe. Vehicles, including many city buses and large trucks speed through hoping to save an extra second or two of travel time. Pedestrians, going about their normal routines, understandably aren’t looking out for the next death cab.

Community Board 7 District Manager Rita Kessler responded swiftly after the most recent death in early November. She wrote a pleading letter to the Department of Transportation calling for something, anything, to be done about the problem.

Both the DOT and Police Department said they would look into it. But by all accounts, the problem remains the same. There aren’t any visible changes in the stoplights or signage.

We’re not traffic engineers, so we don’t know what will work. But the city employs traffic engineers, and we can’t think of a more worthy assignment for them.

This intersection is no Queens Boulevard where 26 people died in a four-year span.
But do we have to wail until the situation gets worse for the city to address the problem?