Patrick Sullivan on the core principle of the Bloomberg administration

"I represent the borough of Manhattan on what the mayor calls the Panel for Educational Policy but what is in the law the Board of Education of the City of New York. I see here today parents and their elected leaders and I see teachers from every borough. I see them from every race and I see them from every income level and from every political party. Why is that?

Because I've learned from talking to people is that every parent wants to the same thing for their kids: they want a rich curriculum, they want an experienced teacher, they want small classes, and they want room for their kids in their schools.

But what have I learned from sitting on the Board of Educaiton for three years? I've learned that instead of schools, we're going to build a billion dollar police academy. Instead of a rich curriculum, we get test prep and drilling in math and ELA. Instead of small classes, we get our kids packed 28, 30, 35, 40 in a class and that's wrong.

"But the worst of all this is the people who control our schools, the people who run our schools, the Mayor, the Chancellor, the Regents, they don't send their own kids to these schools. They have one idea of education for our kids and and an entirely different one for their own.

Beyond autonomy, beyond accountability, beyond privatization, the core principle of the Bloomberg administration when it comes to education is condescension: the idea that there's one idea of education for their children and a totally different idea of education for everybody else's, and that's what has to stop."