Mr. Logan says he — and by extension, the 6,000 members of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators — has lost confidence in the de Blasio administration. In a column to be published in the union’s newsletter this month, Mr. Logan writes of the Education Department, “Sadly, in the timeworn tradition of the D.O.E., there are so many cooks running around in the kitchen, the chefs don’t know what kind of dish they’re concocting.” So many different mandates have been thrown at these schools, he writes, that “all we have is a recipe for disaster.”
...
In an interview last week, Mr. Logan said of the school-turnaround effort, “This became a political mess, because the mayor made this his political thing.”He added, “They’ve lost their focus on kids.”Mr. Logan said principals in the 94 schools were being overwhelmed with paperwork and meetings and micromanaged to the point that they could not do what they thought was best for their schools. He said he believed the mayor’s approach was destined to fail if the city did not change its strategy.
Hey, it's not just at renewal schools and it's not just de Blasio doing the micromanaging.
Cuomo's doing it with the 2015 education reform law.
SED is doing it with APPR.
The NYCDOE is doing it with Danielson.
Everything is micromanaged these days, everything overly controlled.
The more things "change" in education, the less they actually change.
Whether it's Bloomberg, de Blasio, Bush, Obama, Clinton, Paterson, or Cuomo - it's the same educrats running stuff.
The control freaks are in control.
The principals union should at least be happy that these schools are still open. If Bloombucks were still in office they would be closed in a heartbeat.
ReplyDeleteVery important point you make, RBE.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard for me to accept how angry I am at deBlasio and Farina. I was "angry" at Bloomberg in an intellectual way--he was so wrong on so many things that I didn't often find myself wanting actually to throw something at him. But deBlasio and Farina are so plainly incompetent at what they do in connection with public education that their own sort of "wrongness" is at a malpractice level of wrongness. And their wrongness is being enacted in "our" name, somehow, because our union leadership underwrites them and supports them at every step and because it is intended to be a "community schools"-based response to the "Bloombergian wrongness."
So I now get angry in a way that makes me want to throw stuff because when La Farina finally f...s the whole thing up so badly that it plain stops working "we" and our supposed "allies" will get the blame. And the entire concept of "community schools"--which, frankly, only has limited claims for real success in the research--will be torpedoed by the stupidly wrong way it's being implemented in NYC.
Diblasio is a friend and bloomberg wanted to fire you bud so re-think your preferences when you look at our mayors here in nyc...Bloomberg would have fired your ass in a nano second if he would have gotten the first in last out law changed...believe me he did not care one bit about you or your family whereas diblasio at least cares about you and your family...diblasio is just a bit fresh around the collar give him time but remember he is a friend of ours in this political barrage of shit thrown at us every day.
DeleteOur real enemy is WeinGrew and the UFT.
DeleteI don't think of him as an "enemy." I recognize that he's a "friend." I acknowledge that he's better than what we've had or will have again.
DeleteThe point of my comment was that I am "angry" at him because he appointed an incompetent person to be Chancellor, that he didn't have the sense enough to clean-sweep the morons in Tweed and that he simply doesn't understand education policy or the school system.
I no longer live in the City but would vote for him again in 2017 if I did. You can "like" or "support" someone politically and know that what he is doing around education policy and administration is woefully inadequate, verging on malpractice.
We often get a lot angrier at the stupidity our friends exhibit than we do at the incompetence of our enemies.
Laughing all the way to the bank. I close my eyes and make my 6 fugure salary. It's sad but it will never change. I am done with caring. Now it's about the money.
ReplyDeleteI just think that when Bloomberg sat down with newly elected Deblasio back in late 2013-there was a do's and don't list. Bloomberg said do appoint your own police, fire sanitation commissioners etc. However, no matter who choose as your DOE Chancellor-do not change the educational framework I've established over the past 12 years or else-I will do everything possible to ensure that you are a one term mayor. In any event, Debalsio will probably do himself in-and if Cuomo can overcome a possible indictment-which doesn't seem like its going to happen-then Cuomo with support of Bloomberg bucks will do everything possible to continue to break Deblasio.
ReplyDeleteI don't like Farina, who didn't clean out the stables at Tweed, and acknowledge that there's only been a change of tone, not substance, at the DOE.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, when De Blasio tried to do the right thing early on, vis-a-vis Moskowitz, he got his ass handed to him, and nobody (are you listening, Michael Mildew?) said a word or lifted a finger to help him.
There should have been thousands of teachers in the streets over Moskowitz and her hedge fund patrons' takeover of public school facilities, let alone changes to our evaluations,but where were they?
Put yourself in the Mayor's shoes: would you do anything to help a bunch of people who can't be bothered to defend their own interests and profession, and who don't even bother to vote in their union elections when those interests are being attacked?
I'm no big fan, but De Blasio shouldn't be blamed for realizing the futility of standing up for a bunch of people who are too apathetic or scared to stand up for themselves.
You make a strong argument, as always.
DeleteBut I think you underestimate the power and influence that Mulgrew and Randi have in NYC. Even with 'Friedrichs' they control a smaller but still very big pot of AFT/UFT PAC money, can put thousands of 'volunteers' into the streets and turn out hundreds of thousands of votes that any Democratic candidate or incumbent absolutely needs to win.
It doesn't make any difference to de Blasio what 30,000 teachers teachers do or don't do as long as two very specific people do what they agree to do.
The current system serves everyone just fine. Except, of course, for the human being-type teacher inside a real school.
De Blasio knows exactly what he's doing even if he doesn't know how to do it very well.
The triumvirate of FAILED education reforme:
ReplyDeleteTest-and-Punish
Charters/Vouchers
Danielson rubrics/Micro-management
FAIL
FAIL
FAIL
Yet they can't let go.
It might be difficult to assume about other factors of micro managing parts but there are some good values being prescribed in good forms, so it will generally be more easy to think about it.
ReplyDelete