Dennis Walcott Hypocrisy

The NYCDOE goes to court to release the Teacher Data Reports (the ones with the 12%-35% margins of error in them) to the newspapers and electronic media because they say parents need to have all the information they can about teachers.

But even as they insist parents must have all the information they can about teachers, they refuse to divulge the names of parents who are running for seats on the public school boards.

Here's what Mona Davids had to say about that:

The city's Department of Education has oddly hidden the names of candidates for public school boards in its 34 districts behind a password-protected wall online -- even though the seats are considered public by law.

The move has riled parents who view it as the latest barrier to parent participation erected by the Office of Parent Information and Action, contrary to the office's intended role.

Members of the public have no access to the 500-person candidate list for the boards -- known as Community Education Councils -- and even parents of public school children can only view the names of candidates within their own district using an ID and password they were supposed to receive from their children's schools.

"It's like they've obstructed it, they've just sabotaged the entire process," said Mona Davids, a vocal public and charter schools advocate.

She said parents have complained to the DOE of not receiving their passwords or having their names wrongly excluded from ballots, but that OFIA has failed to address the issues.

"Not responding to parents is just making it worse and worse," said Davids. "It's just crazy."

Earlier this year, the OFIA was caught trying to mobilize parent coordinators to find "happy" parents who could be used in public relations efforts to undermine teacher seniority.

You don't think the Stalinesque effort to manipulate parent coordinators and parents and the Stalinesque refusal to let anybody know who is running for the public school boards could be related, do you?

Gee, I am SO glad Chancellor Walcott is running the DOE differently than Klein and Black before him - more openly, with more respect for all the stakeholders.

Oh, wait a minute - he's not, is he?

Maybe the next time he offers some jive ass crap about all the responsiveness and respect he is going to show to parents and the community, somebody from the media can bring up this OFIA/CEC debacle?

I mean, somebody from the media who doesn't either work for a Bloomberg-owned media entity or a Murdoch-owned media entity (which is just like working for a Bloomberg-owned media entity.)