Do you know the story of Russian Minister Gregori Potemkin? To shield Catherine the Great from seeing the poverty of Russian village life, the story goes, he constructed movie-set style phony villages. Mayor Bloomberg has taken a leaf from Prince Potemkin and has staged a phony press event to puff-up pretend support for his disastrous mismanagement plan for our public schools. He produced a swath of supporters for the press on Monday, largely people who work for him as employees or contractors. Lo! And Behold!. If you pay them, they’ll agree with you.

Julie Bosman, writing in Tuesday’s NY Times noted the concentration of contractors, as did Carrie Melago of the Daily news. Will they bill or have these courtiers already billed NYC for their time? Since public funds are paying for this, wouldn’t Central Casting has been cheaper?

Part of the problem with the Mayor’s plan to play 52 pick-up with the schools is that it was sprung on parents, teachers and principals with no prior consultation. When Deputy Mayor Wolcott and Chancellor Klein say they’ve spoken with teachers or parents – they mean just that – they’ve not been listening at all. Another part of the problem is that the plan is bad.

People involved in school issues have revolted against this reorganization. See District 1 parents here and high school parents here , the NYC Council here For a critique from the UFT’s blog edwize, which is especially informed and well reasoned, in my view, try here or the Educational Priorities Panel take here .

Indeed parent, teacher and principal opposition has become so uniform that Chancellor Klein cannot make a public appearance without being denounced. Azi Paybarah had a not-bad article on the phenomenon in the Observer (hidden, I am sorry to tell you behind a must-pay screen) but see his Politiker post here.

Parent advocates, the UFT and the Working Families party have begun making NYC too hot for Mr. Bloomberg’s education front men. Perhaps he should consider changing course either with Mr. Wolcott and Mr. Klein or without. When the story of the erratic mismanagement of the public schools under Mr. Bloomberg is written, the great tragic figure will be, I am afraid, Mr. Wolcott, who came to NYC employment with a long and honorable record in the Urban League. If all of this bizarre activity resulted in better educational outcomes for our children, it would be one thing. But the results so far not encouraging.

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