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Why Mayor Bloomberg Is Always Wrong On Schools, Even When He's Not.
Those of you with children in New York City's public schools may have been watching Mayor Bloomberg's current school-bus-fiasco with a sense that it's deja-vu all over again.
The Mayor hired a no-bid private consultant for $17 million or more to save money. The consultant told him to reorganize school buses so as to save $12 million. (So far a loss of $5 million, even if these pretend savings were real). No people in the public school community were consulted. Instead, they are notified in an incoherent manner. Chaos ensued. Courtly, elegantly dressed Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott was called out to defend a totally irrational program change. The Mayor sneered at protesting parents and, in time-honored fashion, fled to Israel. See, for example, the front-page story from Friday's Daily News and Gail Robinson's good round-up in the Gotham Gazette.
The reason why Mr. Bloomberg's constant and irratic reorganizations are always wrong is that he imposes them from above. Chancellor Klein and some consultants and aides with no experience in public education cook up a scheme. The Mayor okays it and they're off -- playing 52-pick-up again with thousands of schools, hundreds of thousands of employees and more than 1 million children. Check out the NY Times story of a few days ago concerning the departure of one of the last remaining actual educators from the Klein coterie Rose Albanese DePinto.
No one with even the most casual experience with the complexities of student transportation would ever have tried to impose the changes here mid-year, system-wide in the middle of winter. Only a genius like Mr. Bloomberg and his helper Mr. Klein could plunge in this way; since after all, it's not their kids. See also the NY Post's discovery that Mr. Bloomberg's consultants have screwed up in this way before. Part of the problem is our reluctance to fix fault on the Mayor. When the Daily News blamed officials for the school-bus foul-up, guess whose name and photo were omitted? You got it: Mayor Mike was missing from the rogues' gallery. Saturday's NY Times Metro Section features even more on Mr. Bloomberg's favorite consultants and a great photo of Mr. Klein hung out to dry without Mayor Mike for company. Can the Mayor settle in Israel so as to avoid criticism?
The Mayor's new education program, which has some interesting ideas in it, is similarly flawed. That is, it was adopted, and presented as a fait accompli without any consultation with the "stakeholders" (Administrators, teachers, parents, education researchers). I will try to write about contents of the new program shortly, but the key thing about it is that it was thought up by people totally insulated from the schools they rule. When Chancellor Klein and Deputy Mayor Wolcott were asked, at a NYC Council hearing with whom they'd discussed the Mayor's new ideas, Mr. Wolcott said they's wanted to keep the program a surprise. Mr. Klein said he heard from some teachers (but what he'd heard remained unsaid). There is a rumor abroad that NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn may be reconsidering her political romance with the Mayor on school issues. If it were to happen yesterday that Ms. Quinn began to move away from the Mayor on schools, it wouldn't be soon enough.
Agreement from the right, too.
Republican agreement on this, too. The school system is one of the reasons I moved to a suburb of Austin, Texas.
It used to be said that there was no Republican or
Democratic way of cleaning the streets; meaning, I've always assumed, that honest delivery of services was non-partisan. On reflection, I've begun to suspect that there are Republican and Democratic ways to do simple things -- at least in New York City. Democrats hire more employees, Republicans hand more money to outside contractors. Yes, a gross oversimplification.
With regard to the schools, the hallmark of Mayor Bloomberg's control, and Mr. Klein's management has been contempt for those in the system: the administrators, teachers, children and parents. It's understandable. Principals and teachers are hard-to-manage, prima-donnaish professionals. Children are unruly and parents uneducated and disrespectful. Who would want to involve them in decision-making when they could be surrounded by well-mannered consultants?
The result, Mayor Mike's sneers at those who do not revel in his genius; those peasants are so ungrateful. If they truly cared about their children they'd appeal to him for help instead of to their Council Members and the press.
Except Students are not Streets
waiting passively to be swept into shape -- by anyone -- so an analogy mischaracterizing "school" as a simple thing would be marked wrong for not being the best choice.
Unlike streetcleaning and garbage collection, schooling is not done for people but TO them. With much less respect for the individual than we tolerate in any other "public service" programs imo.
(Collecting and cleaning up people by government conscription would be fairly accurate though -- shall we consider what that's analogous to?)
JJ Ross, among the "last remaining actual educators"