At a school where a student drowned, more than one lesson to be learned

Four years ago, at an open house for his new middle school, I met Jose Maldonado, the New York City principal who may be put on probation after one of his students drowned on a field trip to the beach. Afterward, I wrote in the New York Sun that the school, Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering, was “nearly certain” to be an academic success.

Maldonado was energetic, charismatic and earnest about his goal to create a rigorous new school for the Harlem community. One of the school’s planners was a Nobel Prize winner. Some of the teachers would have PhDs from Columbia, as does Maldonado himself. READ MORE…