Make no mistake, the pro-charter, pro-privatization, pro-teacher demonization policies pursued by both Joel Klein and Cathie Black in NYC will remain in place now that Bloomberg has fired Chancellor Black and hired Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott as her replacement.
Make no mistake too that the reason Walcott got hired and not Shael to replace Black is because he is - uh, huh - black.
This is Bloomberg playing the race card, dumping the privileged white lady from the Upper East Side who reminds you of Margaret Dumont and replacing her with the corporate political hack happy to do the bidding of the corporatocracy who happens to be black
The criticism that Bloomberg was an out-of-touch white Manhattanite elitist who hired the same kind of person to run the school system was a valid one, but Bloomberg figures he can undercut that by hiring an African American.
Maybe Bloomberg is right about that, but it will be incumbent upon us to remind people that Walcott is no different than Black or Klein in substance or ideology.
He will run the school system in the same way, selling children and teachers down the road, promoting more technology to replace human interaction, signing more no-bid contracts for testing and test prep while cutting classroom resources and staff.
Doesn't matter who Bloomberg puts in charge of the system - so long as Bloomberg has dictatorial control of the schools, the corporate policies will be the same.
As for Ms. Black, I would like to raise a toast to the Margaret Dumont of the education reform world.
Goodbye for now, Cathie.
We'll see you at happy hour.
No comments:
Post a Comment