Mayor Hits Back at Parents
Reader Comment: Cathleen Black's job should be to break the teachers union's back.
She doesn't need a degree in education, just a large baseball bat and room to swing.
Batter up, make it a home run, Cathleen.
Reader Comment: We badly need an 'Emperor's New Clothes' moment here. But we have a supine media here in NYC.
Reader Comment: You're not in Kansas anymore.
Did she think that she was entering the land of sugar plum fairies and gum-drops?
The realities the kids face are much worse then the meeting she endured. They face hard realities on a daily basis. These communities need help and thinking men and women to work to heal the realities that they face.
You have to be able to grasp that concept first and to undertand the pain out there. Closing schools is not the answer. Closing school will destroy communities and erode their very real support base and the strong bonds and relationships their providers and the community have. You are busting up their homes. How could you wonder or not understand why everyone is so angry?
She doesn't have enough experience or education in the right area to "get" it.
By Michael Howard Saul and Barbara Martinez
Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday scolded parents and elected officials who spoke out at this week's meetings on the city's plans to close low-performing schools, accusing them of showing a lack of respect for his new schools chancellor and of shaming the nation with their raucous display of discontent.
"It's embarrassing for New York City, for New York state, for America. This is not democracy—letting people yell and scream," the mayor declared on his weekly radio show. "That's not freedom of expression—that's just trying to take away somebody else's rights."
His strong rebuke of the crowd's conduct comes as his freshly installed chancellor, Cathleen Black, faces growing criticism from a vocal number of parents and officials who maintain she's ill-prepared to lead the nation's largest school system.
At meetings of the Panel for Educational Policy on Tuesday and Thursday, hundreds of angry protesters yelled, chanted, waved signs, rang cowbells, blew whistles and fiercely berated Ms. Black.
At one point Thursday night, the crowd's deafening jeers drowned out Ms. Black, who sat at center stage trying to be heard above the raging din.
The panel, a group controlled by mayoral appointees, voted this week to shutter 22 schools and replace them with new schools run by different teachers and administrators. The protesters have accused the Education Department of setting up these schools for failure by depriving them of resources.
On Friday, the mayor sought to defend Ms. Black, who has been the primary target of the public's rage. The lack of decorum at the meetings, the mayor said, undermines city government's ability to hire talented professionals.
"If we want to attract good people to come and work for the public, you don't do this," Mr. Bloomberg said. "We've gotten into a culture where it's fair game to take shots—it's become a blood sport. That's not good."
City Council Member Jumaane Williams of Brooklyn, a meeting attendee, suggested the mayor needs to "retake civics class."
"That is exactly, actually, what America is founded on—the ability to express your opinion to people who are making decisions," he said. "It happened loudly and, I think, rightfully so because parents are angry that they're losing opportunities to be involved in the education of their child."
Mr. Williams said it was Ms. Black, not the attendees, who "showed poor decorum."
"She's the one who dissed the parents. Her first few weeks have been terrible," he said. "She's shown contempt and scorn for the parents…if she's not ready for this job, she shouldn't be in it."
At Tuesday's meeting, when Ms. Black complained that she couldn't speak if the crowd continued shouting, the crowd responded with a sarcastic, "Awww." In a flash of impatience, and, according to her critics, a sign of her inexperience dealing with the public, Ms. Black mimicked the crowd. "Awww," she replied.
Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn called the incident a "juvenile- and kindergarten-like display" and described it as "stunning even in a rough-and-tumble city like New York."
"Cathie Black has been an embarrassment to the city, the state and the nation given her astonishing lack of professionalism," he said. "The only person that Michael Bloomberg should criticize for a lack of decorum is his own schools chancellor."
Natalie Ravitz, a spokeswoman for Ms. Black, said, "There are always going to be people who try to make a career out of ripping others down—frankly, it does nothing to help our children, which is what we should all be focused on."
Ms. Black, who replaced Chancellor Joel Klein last month, accepted the job because she "wants to make sure that every child in this city has access to great schools and a quality education," Ms. Ravitz said.
According to her prepared remarks, Ms. Black acknowledged Thursday night that phasing out schools is "enormously" difficult. "But when it's clear that the best thing we can do for families is bring new and better options, then we must act," she said.
Leonie Haimson, who was at the meeting and walked out along with hundreds of others, said it is the mayor and his administration showing "profound disrespect to parents."
"Vocal protest is the only way we have left to express our anger at the abusive and illegitimate system that exists now," said Ms. Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, an advocacy group that pushes for smaller class sizes.
Michelle Ciulla-Lipkin, a parent on Manhattan's Upper West Side, said the mayor's inability to understand parent's anger and frustration at the shuttering of neighborhood schools "shows how out of sync he is with the people in the city."
"For him not to have any empathy for the frustration that parents feel is sad to me," she said.
State Sen. Tony Avella of Queens, a Democrat who opposes mayoral control of schools, called the meetings a "farce" because the outcome was predetermined.
"People are just going to get more and more—I hate to use the word—violent," he said. "If it takes a revolution to take back the schools, I see it happening."
On his radio show, Mr. Bloomberg lambasted poor-performing school employees for fueling some of the controversy.
"People who provide the service poorly don't want to lose their jobs," he said. "That's what they care about. They don't care about the kids."
But he focused his ire on the crowd's behavior, suggesting the protesters were disrespecting more than just him and his administration. "When you're yelling at a meeting like they had last night, you're yelling at our teachers, you're dissing them, you're dissing the principals, you're dissing the school-safety officers, you're dissing the custodians," he said. "You're dissing the taxpayers paying for it."
— Michael Howard Saul and Barbara Martinez
Wall Street Journal
2011-02-05
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704709304576124591417561676.html?mod=djemITP_h
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
