Apparently, the fact that the $15 million in campaign ads has failed to move the mayor's poll numbers has his high priced campaign staff in a panic.
Louis points to recent poll results where a strong majority of the public call for Bloomberg's control over schools to be loosened:
While a majority of New Yorkers like the job he's done on the schools, 60% of registered voters also say control should be taken from City Hall and turned over to an advisory panel - a stinging rebuke to Bloomberg at a crucial moment in his battle to retain power over the schools.Clearly, the cumulative effect of the mayor's many missteps on education have taken their toll on the public school parents who constitute a key set of voters. And beyond those directly affected by schools policy, the well-documented bungling of key tasks such as school construction planning has shattered Bloomberg's image as the model of the competent municipal manager.
Full article in the News here.
When I was phone banked by the mayor's campaign, I immediately said, "I cannot vote for the mayor because I am a public school parent who has been entirely shut out of the democratic process by his Orwellian DOE." OK, I probably didn't say Orwellian, but I have never felt more disenfranchised...
ReplyDeleteMaybe other folks are saying that too?
Nice.
ReplyDeleteFunny, I said "I'm a public school parent grateful for the creativity he's injected into a far-from-perfect system that previously failed generations of kids." Amazing the collective amnesia posters on this site seem to have. The system was rotten to the core in the 80's and 90's, who benefited from that?
ReplyDeleteBring on the 3rd term and a mayor/chancellor duo who will shake things up.
Anonymous 10:22 -- I've never heard anyone, even his staunchest supporters say the mayor has done anything "creative". No parent would look at the regimentation of test prep forced on the system and call that creative. Prove me wrong. What specifically do you like about what he's done? What is creative? You sound a lot more like a paid political operative than a parent with a child in a public school.
ReplyDeleteAnd no, the system was not rotten to the core. Some parts worked well and some didn't. We've seen corruption or scandal in the governor, senate leader and comptroller yet no one calls for centralizing all authority in one man because of it.
I said my vote was entirely dependent on what happens with mayoral control of the DOE, and currently I'm not satisfied. I know several others who gave similar answers.
ReplyDeleteI don't see the value in a mayor/chancellor duo who are unaccountable to public school parents.