Editorials

The pending closure, restructuring and reopening of seven high schools in Queens and 24 citywide, as approved last week by the Panel for Educational Policy, is a disturbing development in the troubled history of New York City education under mayoral control.

Do children learn better in smaller classes when they get more individual attention? Absolutely. Do they learn better in smaller schools, such as those the Department of Education has established in place of ones it’s shut down in the past, or in schools that simply get new names and staffs? The jury’s still out on that, and will be for some time.

Queens sets a notoriously low bar for its elected officials. Many have been convicted of serious crimes committed while they were in office. But there should be some standard below which the voters should not go.

We suggest drawing the line at arson. That’s the charge that Jeff Gottlieb, then a teacher at Benjamin Cardozo High School in Bayside, was hit with in late 1971. He pleaded guilty to criminal mischief, a misdemeanor, but the fact is he took some gasoline and set his apartment on fire. It was in a multi-family building. Outside of random gunfire, you could hardly think of an act showing a more callous disregard for human life. Luckily, no one was hurt, according to sources who spoke to the New York Post, which broke the story Sunday.

The city has bigger issues, but the mess created at one corner in Rego Park reflects a lack of common sense quite well.

New stop signs went up on 63rd Avenue at Wetherole Street last week. But there was no warning, no line in the street, just new signs largely hidden by cars until you’re right on top of them. During two one-hour periods on Friday and Monday, cars blew by them at a rate of one every two minutes. Cops who might have warned drivers were instead parked at their usual spot, another stop sign, two blocks away. Warning signs finally went up days later.