Walcott, Threatened By Criticism, Launches Propaganda Offensive

Dennis Walcott and Michael Bloomberg are planning to launch a counteroffensive against all the criticism they have been taking over their running of the school system:

The Democratic candidates for mayor have promised, in varying degrees, to revamp the city’s school system by undoing some of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s signature policies. 

The attacks have put City Hall on the defensive, leaving aides worried about the future of one of the most ambitious efforts in the nation to overhaul education. 

Fearing a sea change, the city’s Education Department has worked over the past few months to lock in critical components of Mr. Bloomberg’s agenda. Education officials have reserved space for charter schools more than a year in advance, called for a permanent system for evaluating teachers and sought new contracts for school bus routes, saving money in part by eliminating union job guarantees. 

And now, after months of campaign-trail criticism, culminating in calls last week for a “truth commission” to investigate Mr. Bloomberg’s management of schools, the administration is taking its battle to the public. 

Dennis M. Walcott, the schools chancellor, is planning a campaign to remind voters of what he sees as the administration’s chief accomplishments, including rises in graduation rates and test scores. He will call on the candidates to put forth a compelling vision for city schools. 

Mr. Walcott will begin his effort on Saturday, in a speech before nearly 2,000 school administrators. He will warn that the school system could fall into disarray if the policies endorsed by the Democratic candidates are put into effect. 

“What these promises have in common is that they would hurt children in the service of political interests,” Mr. Walcott will say, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. “I find that disgraceful.” 

...

 

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Walcott recounted spending Mother’s Day sending incredulous messages to his aides after reading comments made by Democratic candidates at a forum sponsored by the teachers’ union. Several cast doubt on Mr. Bloomberg’s claims of narrowing the racial achievement gap in city schools. “We’re going to create our own truth commission,” Mr. Walcott recalled telling his staff. 

In his speech, Mr. Walcott will warn of a return to the days of the old Board of Education, which he portrays as a time of rampant dysfunction and favoritism in the school system. City Hall views the proposals to return some power to neighborhood boards as a Trojan horse to give critics of reform efforts more say over key hires, since union-backed candidates tended to dominate school board elections. “To dismantle the reforms of the last decade would be a disaster for our children and this city,” he is expected to say. “We cannot turn back the clock on our students.” 

You can see how threatened they are not only by the changes that the candidates are proposing for the system but also the attacks on their "legacy" running the schools.
The charge that the test scores and graduation rates are phonied up seems to bother them the most.

If Walcott wants a Truth Commission of his own on the Bloomberg education legacy, let's have it.

But Bloomberg doesn't get to have that Truth Commission rigged the way he has rigged the Panel for Educational Policy board, with members who must see things the way he sees them or he removes them immediately.

Bloomberg doesn't get to have the Truth Commission filled with the journalists he has been hiring by the droves to shill for him at Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Views, and Bloomberg Philanthropy - propaganda-meisters like Jonathan Alter and Andrew Kirtzman.

Nope - this Truth Commission has to be filled with parents and teachers and students who have lived through 12 years of his autocratic rule and mismanagement of the school system, who have had to deal with his pitting the Have's against the Have Not's by stealing resources from traditional public schools in order to hand them to his charter pals like Eva Moskowitz, who have endured his data-driven system where the only thing that matters is the test score.

Poll after poll shows New Yorkers want a change in how the school system is run and want autocratic mayoral control to end (see here and here for the two most recent examples.)

That is a fact that is clear from the polling data.

It is not some union-contrived propaganda to swing over the candidates to the union's view on policies.

The candidates are simply reacting to what voters want, what parents and students want.

Walcott can launch his propaganda offensive all he wants.

He cannot win because the facts are not with him and the closer the Bloomberg administration gets to sunsetting, the less control they have over the narrative.

It is true that Bloomberg still has the editorial boards to shill for him, especially at the Zuckerman-owned Daily News and the Murdoch-owned Post.

"Independent" news sites beholden to corporate grants and philanthropic gifts like Gotham Schools also carry his water for him.

But the public is no longer fooled by the propaganda - not the kind that emanates from the shills at the Daily News, the Post or Gotham Schools, not the kind that comes directly from Bloomberg and Walcott in the form of speeches, press conferences and press releases.

So I say, let's have that Truth Commission that Walcott is calling for, that Mulgrew has called for.

Let's look at the test scores, the gap between white and Asian students and black and Latino students, the graduation rates, the credit recovery statistics.

Let's look at how Bloomberg and Walcott set up the schools they want to close to fail years before the actual closures by stealing resources and using these schools as dumping grounds for students from other closed schools who need the most support.

Let's look at the outside consultant contracts, all the money they have spent on technology that doesn't work or that people don't use because it doesn't work well (ARIS comes to mind.)

Let's have your Truth Commission, Mr. Chancellor and Mr. Mayor.

But you don't get to pick the members and you don't get to have only your journalists spin the findings.