Amazingly, The Sky Didn't Fall When Mayoral Control Ended

The Mayor may not care about Muslim holidays in our city's schools, but he sure was in a panic over the end of mayoral control. Contrary to Bloomberg's claims that New York's school children would be engulfed in bureaucratic chaos, quite the opposite occurred. The procedure to put the old system back in place went very well on its first day, for administrators and the kids.

From The NY Daily News:

Predictions of anarchy failed to materialize as the first day of summer school passed without the Soviet-style dysfunction Mayor Bloomberg predicted.

The end of mayoral control seemingly had little effect on students who trudged back to class yesterday.

Shana Marks-Odinga said her ninth-grader, who attended summer school at the High School for Leadership and Public Service in lower Manhattan, was unaware of any changes.

"There was no chaos," said the Harlem resident. "I had full faith in the leadership of the school that everything would go as planned, and it did."

At Public School 129 in Harlem, all the children showed up for class.

"It went quite well," said the school's assistant principal, Roxie Johnson.

"The children are excited. We hugged them, welcomed them and let them know that they are going to learn."[...]

Bloomberg, who earlier had predicted riots if mayoral control was not renewed, acknowledged the first day of classes went off without a hitch.

Shocking I know, who could have imagined that something in the city would work unless Bloomberg had his hands all over it. I'm sure that's what the voters want, someone to micromanage every little detail of our city. In fact I hear that Bloomberg's next big law is mandatory tooth-brushing and flossing, so as to cut down on the city's budget that pays for dental care.

Meanwhile, the schools will keep humming along (albeit still under the misguidance of Joel Klein) and once the State Senate gets their act together, they can pass a bill that gives control back to the people who truly matter here, the parents who send their children off to learn at school and not just to memorize things for the Mayor's standardized testing system.

Geoffrey Canada Supports Mayoral Control...And Is Supported By It

Geoffrey Canada is a well known name by now in the New York City school system. His Harlem Children's Zone does a whole lot more than the typical K-12, basically by trying to fill in parts of the students' lives that their parents do not. While Canada's project has received mostly positive reviews, his wading in on the issue of mayoral control is not what you would call a third party review.

The NY Times took down what he said at the latest pro-mayoral control press conference:

Mr. Canada said that while charter schools in the city were posting higher performance levels than the rest of the city schools, the whole system should be celebrating.

“I thought, ‘Isn’t that great — our children are doing really good!’ ” he said during a press conference on the charter school results at the Manhattan Charter School on the Lower East Side. “Suddenly I found out that some people weren’t happy, and some people started writing that we shouldn’t be happy that the scores are going up. They say maybe there is something fishy going on and our students aren’t reading so much better.”

Then he motioned to a group of reporters sitting in the front row and said with a flourish: “All the children in New York City did not have a clue what was going to be on that test. They didn’t know one question. They had to study a whole group of things to prepare for that test. And you know what, they had to be able to read and write. And that’s what they did.”

As the Times' article notes, Canada leads a lobbying group to preserve mayoral control. However, all Canada talks about is how the scores are going up, but not so much about how they're going up. To get the other side of things, all we have to do is reach down into the comments of this article.

One commenter mentioned Canada's conflict of interest since it is the Mayor that allows him to have the majority of the funding for his HCZ program and of course the ability to operate in the five boroughs. Then there are the teachers who claim that the test is getting easier, and that all teacher are supposed to do is train kids for the test...and nothing else. As another commenter said, Canada can talk all he wants about the improved scores, but the increased numbers aren't the issue. If a test gets easier, then it isn't hard to make a connection as to why the scores went up. The Times should really check out Gotham Gazette's excellent article on the issue and of course, ask some of the parents what they think as well.

Quinn's Hollow Support For NYC's Parents

This week we saw two large demonstrations made up of parents who are sick and tired of the way Mayor Bloomberg has run the city's schools. While Joel Klein is spinning up in Albany trying to keep mayoral control as is, down here people are pissed off that their preschoolers have been kicked out of day care and into overcrowded city schools or they have kindergarten-age kids who have been placed on wait-lists to attend public school. Each scenario is a testament to how Bloomberg has failed the city's children and instead of trying to remedy the problem, he mocks the parents' complaints.

With all of that, I was surprised to see Council Speaker Christine Quinn show up at one of the events to speak:

Christine Quinn, the City Council speaker and usually an ally of Bloomberg’s, said that all the major players need to come together and honestly assess the number of seats needed and then figure out how to create them. “It’s later than it should be, but it’s not September,” she said.

The paragraph seems to imply that Quinn is on the side of the parents, but that is hardly the case. Quinn is pretty much a solid ally of Bloomberg and when it comes to mayoral control and its' side-effects, she's completely on board for all the damage that's been done. She supports mayoral control and wants to continue it. She's also given her full support to developers who build and build yet does not require them or the city to increase classroom capability in order to handle the influx of school children.

Being in front of the camera and being mentioned by a newspaper or two for showing up may look great, but having her in office doesn't do those parents any favors.

Bloomberg Mocks Parents Outraged Over His Mayoral Control

With mayoral control up for debate in Albany, it might be prudent for Bloomberg to show that he stays in tune with the parents that send their children to his unilaterally run schools. Yet after the Mayor decided to pull five year old children out of the city's daycare centers and place them in the larger public school system, parents were up in arms and held two separate demonstrations yesterday denouncing the change. With so little space available in the city's schools for these children, the move makes it even harder for parents to find their kids a space in their neighborhood school. So what was Mayor Bloomberg's reaction to the upset parents?

From The NY Daily News:

"They complained about a couple of hundred kids not being able to get into the schools that they wanted to get into," he said.

"I can tell you how to fix that: just lower the quality of the schools," he said. "Isn't it wonderful that kids want to get into schools?"

Told of the mayor's mocking, Sal Browne, a mother of two at Public School 116 in Murray Hill and toddler twins said, "That's the most absurd thing I have ever heard."

"This is not something to be shrugging off and joking about and saying this problem isn't really a problem," she said.

If the Mayor thinks that he can simply get away with this behavior and not pay a political price he'll be sorely mistaken. He can spend tens of millions of ads to numb the minds of this city but when you scorn a voter over the education of their child, there is no better way of helping your opponent than creating a cadre of pissed off parents.

Albany To Cut Bloomberg's Power Over NYC Schools

If there is one true thing about Michael Bloomberg, it is that he loves power. The "media mogul billionaire" status wasn't enough, so he ran for Mayor. Then as Mayor he helped enact mayoral control in his first term so that parents no longer had a say in the educational system they sent their children into. Towards the end of his second term he maneuvered so that he could run for a third term despite voter-approved term limits. While he's busy getting his re-election campaign started, he has his chief educational minion, Joel Klein, up in Albany so that he can continue to control the city's school system. There's just one little problem, everyone else is sick of mayoral control, including the State Legislature that has ultimate control over the program.

From The NY Daily News:

ALBANY - Several state lawmakers warned Tuesday they intend to soften mayoral control over the schools - and urged Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein to get on board.

"If you come in here and continue to say to us that the system is perfect - leave it that way, you're going to be very unhappy," Sen. Kevin Parker (D-Brooklyn) told Klein at a Senate Education Committee hearing.

Lawmakers seemed most focused on getting more parental involvement on the chief policy-making board, which the mayor now controls, as well as more independent monitoring of the Department of Education.

"Mayoral control has been a disaster," Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Manhattan) told Klein.

It isn't just the Senate that thinks that way, the view is held by teachers and parents alike. Despite the half-truths and outright lies perpetrated by Klein and Bloomberg, our city's schools are suffering under mayoral control and the Mayor's opposition has been busy busting the myths that city advertises on the subways below ground and the press conferences held up above. Now that the Senate is done with the M.T.A. (for the time being) they are ready to address mayoral control and chances are, they'll be listening more to the parents than Chancellor Klein.

Bloomberg Looks To Increase City Sales Tax

Bloomberg has said that he loves rich people (which includes himself, as he is the wealthiest New Yorker as well as Mayor) and he shows it. The great majority of us who aren't do not get as much love, as he shows it in his policies and programs. Despite the millions spent on ads proclaiming his greatness to the city so that we re-elect him, the reality of what he's done to the city is far from the messages on his thirty-second spots and indirect ads plastered on subways extolling the city's efforts on such things as education are misleading those who read them. Parents who actually have to deal with the school system strongly disagree.

This post isn't about education though, but the topic does tie into the priorities of Bloomberg's Administration. With the tough economic times everyone is facing, the mayor fought off attempts to get a raise in the personal income tax for the wealthy, but if he is serious about raising the sales tax to 8.75%, it shows he's ready to institute a regressive tax on all New Yorkers instead of a progressive tax that balances the burden of our city's budget gap.

From The NY Times:

A month after imposing a property tax increase, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is expected to call for a $900 million increase in the city’s sales tax on Friday, as the city confronts a loss of revenue due to the economic downturn.

New York City already has one of the highest sales taxes in the nation, at 8.375 percent, and retailers are likely to fight the increase.[...]

In addition to the sales tax increase, Mr. Bloomberg would eliminate the $400 property tax rebate, for an approximate savings of $250 million. He also planned to renew his call for Albany to approve legislation that would charge customers a nickel for each new plastic bag they useat most stores.

So far that measure has not gained great traction with the public, despite supporters’ claims that it is both environmentally friendly and good for the city’s bottom line. There may be other taxes or fees as well.

The tax increases are part of a broader package of tough-love measures that Mr. Bloomberg intends to outline on Friday.

Bloomberg is all about tough-love for the masses, but not for those that live in the top 5%. Some people might like that approach, but with an honest appraisal of his stewardship as Mayor, the majority of those supporters would have to lie in that upper echelon of New York's class system.

If you can still afford private school for your kids, it won't be as bothersome if our public schools are crumbling. A sales tax increase is far better than a rise in the personal income tax when you are making a salary in the mid to high six figures. Everyone knows it pays to be rich, but when Bloomberg is in charge, he's the smartest investment in town for the wealthy, because hey, he loves you!

And for the rest of us? Just believe how great he is, because all those ads with "Bloomberg" on it say so.