Bloomberg put the city at the forefront of school reform in the state and across the nation before Steiner was appointed...Bloomberg is asking for Steiner's trust. Based on what's at stake, the mayor needs it. Based on his record, he has earned it.
How has Bloomberg earned the trust of anybody on his education record?
His record is this:
Phony test scores, phony graduation rates, the public demonization of teachers, a concerted effort to starve large schools of resources so that they can be declared "failing" and closed, a privileging of charter schools (and especially charter schools run by friends of people in the DOE) over traditional public schools, and an emphasis on data and numbers over any other criteria in education.
Bloomberg's record on education is deserving of disdain and contempt, not trust. His record is also deserving of further scrutiny, because just as the test scores he trumpeted the past few years turned out to be phony, so many of the other "reforms" the Daily News hails will be revealed as garbage when a true independent accounting of the Bloomberg years is done.
But given the fetishization of autocracy that the Daily News editorial board consistently engages in, I understand why they are calling for Black to get the waiver.
In the end, they like to bow down to power rather than speak truth to it.
You don't understand...they're describing the world according to the Daily News editorial page, and on that basis they're thoroughly accurate.
ReplyDeleteOf course, their front page cried, "Huh?" in one of their most memorable covers and op-ed page editor Josh Greenman opined the request for patience from no-interview non-chatty Cathie was absurd--and he was absolutely right.
But when Bloomberg pulls a string, tabloid editorials appear fully realized, based on nothing but his considerable bank account.
I think the process you describe is called "Bloomberg String Theory," NYC.
ReplyDeleteBloomberg pulls a string and tabloid editorials appear fully realized in the News, Post, Journal and Times.
And it's a longer string to Albany, but Bloomberg will pull that one and get a Cathie Black waiver too.
I wonder if Stephen Hawking would be willing to write a book on this theory?