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9486 in the collection
The fruitful alliance of Arne Duncan and Rupert Murdoch
Read this and know why we all need to care about what happens in New York City. Kudos to Elizabeth Green!
by Elizabeth Green
The New York Post patted its own back today [see below], hard, for helping the state renew the mayor's control of the public schools. The surprising thing is that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan joined in, thanking the newspaper, owned by the ambitious Rupert Murdoch, for its "leadership" and "thoughtfulness."
New York City newspapers have a proud tradition of waging campaigns both on and off the editorial page, and then congratulating themselves when they hit their marks. But having a cabinet member for a sitting president join the cheering is more unusual.
"I think that must be out of context, that Arne Duncan is giving the Post credit for mayoral control," the president of the principals’ union, Ernest Logan, said when I called to ask his impression.
Richard Colvin, who directs the Hechinger Institute for education journalism at Columbia University, said he found the whole news story baffling. "It reads like nothing I've ever seen. It reads like the worst kind of back-patting, self-congratulatory press release that has no perspective whatsoever," he said.
Duncan's quote does illustrate a strange alliance that fought hard for mayoral control’s renewal, Murdoch and the secretary of education among them. In addition to running a series of news articles highlighting victories of mayoral control in the past seven years, Murdoch's Post also published an aggressive slew of editorials mocking anyone who stood in the path of a full-throttled renewal of the mayor's power. (Remember Randi Weingarten, puppet master?)
Murdoch also played a behind-the-scenes role in his position as co-chairman of the Partnership for New York City, a lobbying group that represents business interests. (The other co-chair is Lloyd Blankfein, the C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs.) The group kept a low profile during the mayoral control fight, but worked behind the scenes to broker a compromise between groups fighting over the law, including the city teachers union and the Bloomberg administration.
Duncan fought for mayoral control, too, and he often did so in the pages of the Post. It was in that newspaper that he first entered the local fight, offering an exclusive interview [see below 2] previewing remarks he made the next day at the Sheraton, where the National Action Network was holding a conference on education. Duncan then sat down with the paper’s editorial board, where he criticized a cut to charter schools by the state. Later, he penned a letter to a civic group that got into the nitty-gritty policy question of whether or not to give school board members fixed terms. (Like the Bloomberg administration and the Post, Duncan opposed them.)
While the efforts of the newspaper and the secretary probably did play a role in renewing mayoral control, the accuracy of the stories that the Post ran is arguable. The paper called the city's racial achievement gap "the incredible shrinking race gap," yet a recent New York Times story, a story I wrote in the New York Sun, and analysis by academic researchers suggests much more modest language is in order. The paper also wrote story after story about turnaround schools — without once profiling the schools that have remained failures despite mayoral control.
Not to be a Grinch, or even to argue that "balance" could have solved the problem. But is a little editorial independence so much to ask for?
POST SALUTED FOR CLASS ACT
CITY & FED BIGS HAIL SCHOOL SERIES
New York Post
by Maggie Haberman
August 7, 2009
Mayor Bloomberg led a chorus of praise yesterday for The Post's series highlighting the improvements under mayoral control, saying the paper's coverage helped pave the way for extending the system.
"Today, the state Senate stood up for New York City's schoolchildren and, as a result, we can continue the dramatic progress we have made in our schools over the past seven years," Bloomberg said.
"Many individuals and organizations played a part in securing this victory, and the New York Post, with its series 'City Schools, City Rules,' " played a critical role in highlighting exactly how much was at stake."
The accolades for the months-long series, largely written by Post reporter Carl Campanile, came from lawmakers in Albany, education officials and business leaders, as well as the administrators, teachers, parents and kids who have seen the benefits firsthand.
Arne Duncan, the US secretary of education, lauded The Post's coverage.
"I appreciate your paper's leadership. I appreciate the thoughtfulness. You guys did a lot of work on [the mayoral-control issue]," Duncan said.
City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said, "The Post played a critical role. Through its exhaustive series . . . the paper highlighted the many reasons to preserve the mayoral-control system and made clear exactly what we stood to lose."
The series highlighted the benefits of the progress made under mayoral control, a power first granted to Bloomberg in 2002.
The articles focused on school safety, accountability measures such as ending social promotion, and parental involvement in the process. Post editorials and columns also focused on retaining the current structure.
Former Chancellor Harold Levy said, "The Post has done the city a real service by keeping the issue of education front and center. I'm sure it will continue to keep us all focused on the issue."
Assemblyman Michael Benjamin (D-Bronx), who co-sponsored a version of the bill earlier this year, said The Post's coverage helped by giving him "ammunition when I talked to other members of the Legislature to support mayoral control. The series provided facts."
Parents and teachers also praised the paper.
"The New York Post did more than any other newspaper to educate the public about the issue of mayoral control," said Biodun Bello, a father of three from Bushwick, Brooklyn.
"The Post series was great," said Tom Buxton, a 38-year-old veteran teacher at McKinley JHS in Brooklyn. "You poked a lot of fingers into the ribs of principals, teachers and kids."
BAM BACKS MIKE SCHOOL RULE
ED. CZAR'S MESSAGE TO ALBANY
New York Post
March 30, 2009
By CARL CAMPANILE
A STEADY HAND: Education Secretary Arne Duncan is boosting Mayor Bloomberg's push to maintain control of the city school system, crediting him with making "very significant strides in the right direction."
President Obama's education czar is urging Albany to keep Mayor Bloomberg in control of New York City's schools -- citing "real progress" under Hizzoner and his handpicked chancellor, Joel Klein.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan told The Post that having the mayor in charge of education is essential in providing accountability and stability and spurring the innovations necessary to improve student learning.
"I absolutely, fundamentally believe that mayoral control is extraordinarily important. I'm absolutely a proponent," said Duncan, the former superintendent of the Chicago school system, which also had mayoral control.
The school-governance law giving City Hall direct authority over the schools was approved in 2002 and expires June 30. Critics -- including the teachers union -- are pushing to weaken the mayor's grip over education, arguing that Bloomberg and Klein have run the schools like autocrats.
But the powerful statement from Duncan is a boost for Bloomberg as he seeks to renegotiate the school-governance law in Albany, as well as his bid to win re-election to a third term.
Duncan -- a former professional basketball player who is a hoops buddy of the president from their days in Chicago -- said Big Apple schools have "absolutely" been better off under Bloomberg's and Klein's tenure. He said the results speak for themselves.
"They've made very significant strides in the right direction. To go in a different direction wouldn't make sense," Duncan said in an interview.
"I'm looking at the data here in front of me. Graduation rates are up. Test scores are up. Teacher salaries are up. Social promotion was eliminated . . . Dramatically increasing parental choice. By every measure, that's real progress."
"It's absolutely going in the right direction. The mayor and chancellor deserve great credit for that," he said, though adding there was much "unfinished business."
Duncan said he'll preach the gospel of mayoral school control during an education forum at the Sheraton New York in Midtown on Thursday.
His support undermines critics such as the United Federation of Teachers, which wants to curb the mayor's control over school policy.
On education, Obama has pushed a number of school initiatives resisted by union officials for years, including merit pay, revising tenure laws and eliminating state legislation that limits charter schools.
Duncan's views have been shaped by his service as Chicago superintendent under Mayor Richard Daley, who took over the low-performing school system in 1995, triggering an overhaul. Student performance improved under Duncan and his predecessor as superintendent, Paul Vallas.
Bloomberg and Klein replicated some of the Chicago initiatives, such as curbing social promotion and closing large, failing schools.
Having the mayor in charge enables his hand-picked education boss to push through controversial but much-needed reforms that might not have happened otherwise -- such as tightening the promotional policy and dramatically expanding charter schools, Duncan said.
"I would say broadly, beyond charter schools, there's been a level of innovation, a level of creativity you very, very rarely see without mayoral control. That creativity, that innovation, that flexibility . . . You need the courage and the vision to be able to do that. And strong mayoral leadership," Duncan said.
With Mayor Daley's support, Duncan was able to run Chicago's school system for 7½ years before Obama tapped him to be his education secretary. Duncan noted that Klein's six-year presence has allowed the city to follow through and refine reforms, while in other urban areas, there's constant turnover of school chiefs.
"In places, because of political chaos or political whatever, every two years the superintendent's getting fired. No wonder the children can't learn," Duncan said.
Told of complaints from parents that they don't feel they have a voice under the current city regime, Duncan said the law could be tweaked to include more parental input without sacrificing mayoral control.
"You need to be inclusive. You need to be collaborative . . . But let's keep the fundamental structure for children. Let's continue to improve," Duncan said.
"Again," he said, "by any objective, reasonable standard, what's happened in New York under Mayor Bloomberg's leadership is good for children.
"And that should be just our fundamental criteria. Have children benefited from the mayor's leadership and the chancellor's leadership? Undoubtedly, unquestionably yes."
Duncan even cited the successful New York school-governance experiment as evidence to push for mayoral control in other troubled school districts, particularly Detroit.
"Detroit right now is an educational disaster. I'm pushing them very hard to think about taking on mayoral control. What's going on there for children . . . it's an absolute travesty," he said.
"You need that leadership from the top. If you look at DC, if you look at Chicago, if you look at New York, you get cities where . . . but where there's real progress and a real sense of momentum.
"What do they all have in common? It's mayoral control."
— Elizabeth Green
Gotham Schools & New York Post
2009-08-07
http://gothamschools.org/2009/08/07/the-fruitful-alliance-of-arne-duncan-and-rupert-murdoch/
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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