Klein Relieves Some Critics' Concerns About Arab School

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein yesterday indicated that the Department of Education would monitor funding and curriculum at the Arabic language and culture middle school set to open this September near downtown Brooklyn.

The Khalil Gibran Academy, named for a Lebanese-American poet and philosopher, has arched many eyebrows since plans for it were announced in February. Critics have raised concerns about the school's potential to become an instrument of political extremism, even a madrassa.

In response to a question from a City University of New York trustee, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, about whether an Arabic school would pose special concerns, Mr. Klein yesterday said he didn't disagree. "If the school becomes a political school with a political agenda … then you're absolutely right. I won't tolerate that."

The assurances from Mr. Klein, delivered at a lunch in honor of the late educator Colman Genn, appeared to assuage the worries of several of the lunch's attendees, including the questioner. "I was prepared to really make this a very public issue," Mr. Wiesenfeld said. "But I'm willing to be fair and let the chancellor have an opportunity to see if this can be really a moderate Muslim voice."

A colleague of Genn's, Harvey Newman, a senior fellow at the Center for Educational Innovation, said Mr. Klein "gave the language of comfort to those who were the naysayers."

Opponents of the school come from both sides of the political aisle. Yesterday, an executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition and a former Clinton administration official challenged the idea that any culturally themed school is acceptable in a democratic society.

When told of plans for the Khalil Gibran Academy at a Manhattan Institute breakfast, a former secretary of housing and urban development under President Clinton, Henry Cisneros, called it a bad idea, attendees said.

The NYCRC executive director, Michael Meyers, who attended both events, argued that Khalil Gibran reflects a creeping "balkanization" of the school system.

"They claim that these schools are open to anybody who applies," Mr. Meyers said. "But they tailor-make these schools so that they serve a particular special ethnic population." That segregation, he said, leaves the door open for discrimination.

Mr. Klein yesterday dismissed concerns that these schools are divisive. Eleven culturally themed schools have opened in New York City since Mr. Klein became chancellor five years ago, a spokeswoman for the education department, Melody Meyer, said.

So far, Khalil Gibran's funding comes from tax dollars and New Visions for Public Schools, a consulting group funded in part by the Gates Foundation, Ms. Meyer said.

Despite the loud criticism, Mr. Klein and the department seem determined to open Khalil Gibran, and they say interest does exist to sustain it.