Cathie Black Booed In Queens

Cathie Black is managing to get booed in every borough. Last night she went to Kew Gardens and heard the boo birds there at PS 165:

Schools Chancellor Cathie Black received an earful Monday night during a town hall meeting in Queens.

Black addressed parents and teachers at P.S. 165 in Kew Gardens Hills.

At one point she was heckled by the crowd when they felt she wasn't answering their questions.

She did manage to score some points when she told them that when it comes to laying off teachers, "last in, first out" was not the way to go.

But by the end of the night, many parents gave Black a failing grade.

"The chancellor did a horrible job. She didn't answer one question. She doesn't care about the children at all. She just cares about numbers and statistics. There's no love in her eyes, there's no love in her heart. We need a Chancellor who cares about the students --just like our teachers care about our students."

"She has a lot on her plate. I think if she had better preparation it might have been better. Given that she's only been in the position for only five weeks, I can't hold that against her. But she did seem unprepared in certain respects."

Other topics covered during the meeting were the looming cuts in state aid, the issue of overcrowding, and what parents felt was an over-emphasis on standardized testing.

Next up on the Boo Cathie Black Tour?

Maybe the Bronx, where Yankee fans who usually sit in the outfield seats and throw batteries at the opposing players can take on Ms. Black.

In all seriousness, she is a disgrace.

She jumbles up the ed deform jive she spouts off by rote, she doesn't understand the first thing about the public education system, is completely tonedeaf and clueless about the needs of children, parents and teachers, and has an inflated sense of self that clearly needs to be addressed with some much-needed ridicule.

Luckily that ridicule is coming in spades - every time she visits a school now to talk with parents or heads a PEP meeting.

One of the takeaways from that New York Magazine article yesterday was that Ms. Black was not the genius the mayor depicted her during her publishing career.

She just happened to be pretty ambitious, knew the right people and rode a couple of obvious elephants to victory (like Oprah magazine and the Food Network Magazine.) Hell, ANY magazine exec worth their rolodex could have done that.

Judging by her performance so far as chancellor, I suspect that the mayor has realized he has made a mistake, but like John McCain with Sarah Palin, he doesn't know how to judiciously and graciously extricate himself (and the NYC public school system) from it.