The arrogance of Bloomberg and Klein, according to Matt Bromme

At the City Council hearings yesterday, Ernie Logan, head of the principal’s union, said that according to principals, the first time their superintendent had ever visited their schools this year was to tell them that their schools were being closed.

This is despite two lawsuits, two consent decrees, and strengthened language in the new governance law, all supposed to make superintendents the manager and the head support officer for districts once again.

See these observations from Matt Bromme, former superintendent of District 27 in Queens:

In a system of over 1 million children, there will always be dysfunction.

What is the tragedy is that instead of looking into improving school boards the Mayor chose to look at every school board member as a potential criminal and someone whose mental capabilities were below his and the Chancellor's. In their desire to improve education, they took the stand that "we rich and influential people," will take care of education because you the parent are not able to help your school improve.

There were a number of school boards and members who were dedicated to making their district a better school community. There were another group of school board members were interested in only themselves and most of them became members of the City Council or the legislature in Albany.

Superintendents, who had districts that were manageable were removed and replaced by Regional Superintendents who did not have manageable regions. Therefore the Chancellor created a second reorganization, and then a third and now a fourth. Bill Thompson stated that as a City Comptroller, he would never invest city funds in an organization that went through so many reorganizations in such a short period of time.

So now, we have superintendents without staff or power. We have principals who do not look at education as a lifetime position but a stepping stone to another career. We have the Tweedites who stay a year or maybe two and then disappear, none of whom even know the outer boroughs.

We have schools who have abandoned the arts, history and science in order to test drill students until they are bored and turned off to learning. We do not allow trips to museums or the theater until after testing is completed.

We can sell Doritos, but we will not allow parents to sell brownies.

Diane Ravitch is right. We need to educate the "whole" child and not just focus on two subject areas via test prep. Children no longer read for enjoyment. Children no longer study math for long term use. They read and answer math problems solely to pass two exams that make or break their school's future.

-- Matt Bromme

Rob Caloras on Bloomberg's authoritarian arrogance

At a recent press conference, Mayor Bloomberg stated that people who want to change the school governance law are either irrational or putting their own self interest ahead of students. On his radio show he said that, there would be riots in the streets if his control over the schools is not continued.

Over the past two years, I have had discussions with many people who stated their well reasoned opposition to the current law, based upon their desire for providing students with a top quality education. It seems to me Mayor Bloomberg’s position is irrational and based on his desire to control every aspect of the New York City Public Education system, regardless of the consequences to our children’s interests.

First, his claim that there will be riots in the street if he does not get his way speaks volumes about his over-inflated sense of self. I suppose we would also have riots if he does not win a third term. Also, most observers of the current system acknowledge that the rules and intent of the Law are not being followed.

Simply put, the Law was not intended to give Mayor Bloomberg the degree of control that he has been exercising. He violated the law by eliminating local school districts and eviscerating their authority, by stripping authority from district superintendents to the point that, in some districts, they are prohibited from entering schools, by not seeking the advice of the Panel for Education Policy and making this panel a rubber stamp whose members risk dismissal if they suggest disagreement with policies emanating from the Mayor and Chancellor, and by not seeking meaningful input from Community District Education Councils on education and zoning matters that affect their respective districts.

We, the people who seek changes in the law, want mechanisms to ensure enforcement of its provisions and assurances that the Mayor will consider and accommodate the concerns of those working in our schools and those whose children use our public schools. Are we irrational? No, but I am concerned about the man who has invoked the fear of riots.

Second, it takes a special kind of arrogance (“chutzpah”) to accuse we who seek changes in the law of being motivated by self interest. Many of us have children in the public schools and cannot afford non-public schools and there is probably nothing more important to us than our children’s education. We worry about the quality of teaching, curriculum, school services, school safety because our children’s future depends upon them. In essence, our interest is vested in education, not selfish needs. Compare us to our Mayor: He never had a child in New York City public schools, or any pubic school, never worried that his child’s future would be bleak if his or her education was of a low quality. Clearly his interest is not vested with our children’s education, rather, it stems more from politics and ego.

In evaluating school governance, there is a difference between mayoral energy and autocratic license, between leadership and authoritarianism. It is a challenge to create a law that allows leadership without allowing for easy degeneration into authoritarianism. The current law does not meet that challenge, but if changes are made that create effective checks and balances, clear lines of authority, and meaningful oversight, that challenge will be met. To do otherwise is irrational.

--Rob Caloras is President of the Community Education Council in District 26, Queens

More on how the Mayor's bullying didn't work, this time

An article in today’s Times about how the congestion pricing plan wasn’t helped by the Mayor's arrogance and threats to finance the campaigns of potential opponents. Even those legislators who supported the proposal were turned off by his heavy-handed tactics:

"Indeed, many opponents said they resented the pressure and threats that they said emanated from Mr. Bloomberg’s side, including hints that the mayor would back primary candidates to run against politicians who opposed congestion pricing. The mayor’s allies recently formed a political action committee to finance those campaigns.

Those efforts, supporters and opponents agreed, illustrated the gulf between Mr. Bloomberg and lawmakers in Albany, where the mayor sometimes seemed to miscalculate how far his power and prestige could carry him.

Many Democrats in the Legislature felt that the mayor’s demeanor in private meetings was condescending. Some opponents wondered at Mr. Bloomberg’s political strategy, noting that they hardly expected to be punished by their constituents for siding with them.

This is the kind of reporting we need and we rarely seem to get from the NY Times when it comes to the imperious tactics that Bloomberg, Klein and Co. employ with our schools.

See also this article on the resentment produced by the high-handed, and ultimately unsuccessful tactics of the Mayor’s office:

Indeed, several lawmakers, already offended by what they saw as the mayor’s past highhandedness, said that the hardball tactics employed by Mr. Bloomberg and his surrogates simply made a bad situation worse. ….“I imagine that’s how one becomes a multibillionaire, by being a strong-arm individual,” said Assemblyman J. Gary Pretlow, a Westchester Democrat who opposed the plan. “He’s not going to push us around, though. We are the immovable body at this point.”….“People don’t appreciate threats,” said Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal, a Democrat from the Upper West Side, who said she would have voted for the plan. “Members who might have been on the fence reacted negatively to the specter of a campaign from the mayor if they didn’t go along with his plan.”

Clearly the Mayor is a very powerful, very wealthy man who is used to getting his way by throwing his money around. But it didn’t work this time. Perhaps it won’t with the renewal of Mayoral control either.

Bloomberg's flaws, according to the NY Post and Times

On Thursday, the Mayor flew off to Miami without visiting the Bronx families who lost eight of their children to fire. Instead, they sent Chancellor Klein.

After a lot of negative comment, Bloomberg flew back later that evening. Here is an excerpt from the AP article that was syndicated throughout the country, including the Sun:

Asked by reporters in Miami why he did not cancel his trip because of the fire, Mr. Bloomberg said he had other things to do, and grew testy after the questions persisted. He would not say when he planned to return to New York City, but ended up flying back late that night.

On Saturday, the NY Post published an editorial concluding that this was just the latest indication of how Bloomberg “is a deeply flawed mayor.”

"Time and again over the last five-plus years, Bloomberg has demonstrated an appalling inability to connect with the people of New York in times of crisis. …His enemies charge that Bloomberg cares about process, and not people - and you know what? The allegations resonate. Last month, it was his refusal to lift alternate side of the street parking after a brutal ice storm. Whether it was last summer's Con Ed power outage, the Staten Island Ferry tragedy - or even last month's school-bus fiasco - Mike has come across as aloof and arrogant."

On Sunday, the Daily News added its two cents on the Mayor's missteps, in an article entitled "Mike's harsh winter."

The NY Times doesn’t deign to notice the Mayor's flaws on its editorial page – in which city politics or our schools hardly exist as a concern anymore – but ran an article on Sunday which, while pointing out some of the same examples, also claims that he has learned from his mistakes.

The headline as written by one of many NY Times' relentless boosters among the editors: Bloomberg, Criticized Again for Response to a Crisis, Tries to Strike a Balance:

“….those very traits that have helped make him a popular mayor and the subject of cocktail-party presidential speculation have frequently caused him trouble in responding to the travails of ordinary New Yorkers, whether parking in a snowstorm, coping with a power failure lasting days or mourning the sudden loss of nine people, eight of them children….…. This winter, his administration set off an uproar among parents by upending children’s bus routes in the midst of a school year, a move he defended for days before conceding it might have been better handled. Many parents were already upset about the enforcement of a cellphone ban in schools that did not take into account their need to keep in touch with their children.

Then last month, he incensed New Yorkers by failing to suspend parking rules as a snowstorm iced in vehicles across the city. After telling New Yorkers to stop “griping” over the thousands of tickets that had been handed out, he abruptly canceled them. Mr. Bloomberg’s quick reversal of the parking tickets and his response to the brouhaha over his Miami trip suggest that he is hearing the message. Showing a new willingness to change direction in the midst of a choppy course, he testily defended his trip to reporters in Florida at first, then decided to come back that night.”

Bravo! I guess we all should congratulate Bloomberg on his willingness to listen to his large staff of PR managers, who are smart enough to read the papers and watch the local TV news.