“While the Mayor’s Budget presents a picture reflective of the lingering effects of the recession, it should be noted that throughout the economic crisis, City agencies have spent billions of dollars on high-priced outside consultants resulting in runaway spending on technology-related contracts. Unfortunately, the Executive Budget offers no respite. The continued lack of oversight of subcontractors working on City projects has resulted in the City being bilked out of millions of dollars - dollars that could have been better utilized elsewhere."
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio further illuminates:
“Despite the fiscal challenges we face, the Mayor is making the wrong choices for our children’s future. Even a cursory look at the millions we spend on teacher recruitment and technology consultants shows that the Administration has not made a real effort to strip down other expenses before firing teachers. The Administration also cannot afford to continue making the political fight around Last In/First Out a higher priority than keeping teachers in the classroom. As a public school parent I am outraged by how these choices jeopardize the stability of our schools. I will be organizing parents across New York City to demand that this budget makes our children the number one priority.”
And Leonie Haimson shows EXACTLY what Bloomberg is spending money on:
He offered not a single proposal to control the rapid growth in DOE contracts and consultants, amounting to $4.5 billion for next year, an increase of more than $600 million from this year. This $600 million increase would save all our teaching positions and more.
...
The rapid growth of these contracts and the DOE’s lax oversight has led to repeated allegations of waste, mismanagement and corruption, including more than $3 million in stolen funds from one DOE tech contract, and another tech contract that has gone tens of millions of dollars over budget, with reports that a high-level DOE supervisor had a personal relationship with the consultant.
Nor does he have any plans to cut the growing headcount of the central and mid level DOE bureaucracies, but instead targets all reductions to the classroom.
In the next year alone, the DOE plans to spend more than half a billion dollars on technology in its capital plan, with $350 million to buy computers to implement more online learning and testing.
Their ultimate goal seems to be depriving our students any contact with a real live teacher, but to put them all on machines instead.
And indeed, that is the ultimate goal.
The ultimate emblem of that is the $4.5 million dollar contract extension he plans to give to Joel Klein's favorite tech company, Wireless Generation, this month.
That company has software that allows children to be educated alone on a computer, sans teacher.
The mayor, who never met a human he didn't want to see replaced by a computer, loves this idea more than life itself.
And so does Klein - he loved it so much he convinced his new boss at News Corp., Rupert Murdoch to buy the company for him.
Even though Klein himself signed the original DOE contract and will now be the beneficiary of the extension.
It's all about the money - making sure it continues to be doled out to the tech companies and the outside consultants and the Bloomberg cronies.
Meanwhile, class sizes will continue to skyrocket, schools will continue to have to do more with less and FEAR will pervade the system.
Oh, and teachers will lose their jobs.
Bloomberg tries to pass the blame onto the feds and the state, onto the union and the teachers themselves.
But that's crap.
These are choices he has made to lay teachers off while expanding tech spending and saving every staffer at Tweed.
Mayor Bloomberg's New York - an oligarchy like no other.
And the oligarch has spoken.
When a "Queen" doesn't get what she wants, this is what you get. This pussy needs a good beatdown..."for real"...
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