What Happened To Mayoral Control Of NYC Schools?

Funny how when a pro-school privatization mayor was in power in NYC, the corporatists were all in favor of mayoral control of NYC schools, but now that a mayor less aligned with the privatization movement is in power, the corporatists are doing everything they can to undercut it.

First the charter school criminals/entrepreneurs got Governor Cuomo, their favored donation target, to force NYC to either find space for every charter school in a NYC school building or pay rent for said charter school in private space.

So far, the city is on the hook for a few million dollars for two charters owned by charter school criminal Eva Moskowitz, but that tab will rise over the next few years as more and more charters spring up.

With charter school criminals looking to have the charter cap completely eliminated in the next legislative session, it is quite possible we will see charters grow cancerously all across the city and stamp out what is left of the public school system.

Now we have Regents Chancellor Tisch further undercutting mayoral control by issuing a threat to close 94 city schools by spring if they do not show improvement - even though de Blasio has only been in power for less than a year and his improvement plan just was announced this month.

That threat from Tisch is clearly meant to humiliate the mayor and undercut his power as steward of the city school system.

If the mayor no longer has the power to place or not place schools in his own city, no longer has the power to keep schools open if the state wants to close them, then mayoral control has been effectively destroyed by the state.

It will be interesting to see if de Blasio stands up to the state in this showdown.

He tried standing up to the charter school criminals last spring in the Eva/de Blasio Showdown, but found not one ally willing to back him in the fight as the charter school criminals spent $5 million in ads to vilify him on TV.

Even the UFT was MIA during that time.

Unless de Blasio is publicly backed by supporters of the public school system - including the unions - I'd say the chances of him standing up to the state are not very good.

After the beating he took over the Eva Showdown, he would be crazy to do otherwise.

So, UFT and AFT, where are you now that your beloved mayoral control is under attack?

Regents Chancellor Tisch Threatens To Close 94 City Schools Unless Teachers At Those Schools Are Fired

Here's how the NY Post reported Regents Chancellor Tisch's threat to override mayoral control of the city school system and close "failing" schools:

The head of the state’s Board of Regents vowed Sunday to shut down the city’s worst schools if they do not shape up.

Chancellor Merryl Tisch said that 94 of the city’s lowest-performing schools — which Mayor de Blasio has vowed to fix — will be shuttered by this spring if they aren’t fixed by the city.

“From the state’s perspective, if we do not see movement with these lowest-performing schools in terms of their ability to retool their workforces by the spring, we will move to close them,” Tisch told John Catsimatidis on his AM 970 radio show.

“These are the schools that have failed for generations now.”

... 

De Blasio last week announced his School Renewal Program, a sweeping plan to spend $150 million to help fix those low-performing schools — but Tisch said the “devil is in the details.”

“It depends upon what they do with the money,” Tisch said. “There needs to be the capacity to manage how and where we place our teachers.”

The main issue, according to Tisch, is that the principals need leverage to fire educators if they don’t meet standards.

“It’s not just saying, ‘We’re gonna fix these schools,’” she said. “You gotta give the new principals and assistant principals the ability to hire the teachers that they want and fire the teachers that they don’t want.”

You cannot get more direct or stark than the threat issued by Tisch on Sunday:

Teachers from those 94 schools MUST be fired or I will move to close them.

So much for mayoral control, eh?

Raging Horse described the latest salvo against schools and teachers this way:

Tisch, in short, seems to be saying that the state will do what it will, regardless of the plans of Mayor Bill de Blasio or the will of the people who voted him into office. In fact, like Cuomo’s reckless giveaway to charter schools, Tisch’s words seem calculated to humiliate de Blasio and to crush the political will of the city with the power of the state.

That and, of course, demonize teachers while praising the miracle of charter schools.

...

What I do know is this: These relentless attacks are exhausting and debilitating and are the exact opposite of what one would be doing if one had any intention whatsoever of allowing a flourishing school system. I know this too: when the power of a state is allowed to crush the political will of a city we have moved even further into a horrifying new American darkness.

Indeed, the attacks never stop.

Get rid of Bloomberg - on comes Cuomo vowing to destroy the public school monopoly and Tisch vowing to close 94 schools in NYC regardless of the policy of the mayor (who ostensibily has "control" over the school system.)

We are indeed living in dangerous times when a plutocrat like Tisch - whose family made part of their money by selling death to children in the form of Newport cigarettes (I know - I used to smoke them when Tisch owned them) - or a functionary of the plutocrats like Cuomo get to impose their will on the City of New York no matter what the elected mayor or the people who elected him want.

Welcome to the Corporatist America - the corporatists will stomp out the school system no matter what.

Boycotting Tisch-Owned Businesses

A commenter raises the following point:

We might get "Money Honey" Tisch's ear by boycotting ALL Tisch family products and services, here and nationally. Aren't they in movie houses, entertainment, real estate...weren't they in big tobacco at one point...? Since this is a class war brought on us from the oligarchy....we gotta hit em where it hurts...that goes for Money Honey's empire...Rupert "The Hacker" Murdoch's educational pots and pans...Fox News, NY Post...Kaplan Inc...and many more....I think huge national boycotts on certain corp. products are the way to go...

I used to smoke Tisch Family cigarettes.

I started smoking Newport cigarettes at the age of 14.

They used to give them out in "sample" packs at Rockaway Beach.

We used to get hundreds of these little samples (four cigarettes to a sample box) and smoke our lungs out.

Took me 19 years to finally quit that ugly, nasty, deadly habit.

I quit 14 years ago.

The Tisch Family sold the cigarette part of their business empire, but every time I hear Merryl Tisch talk about how the SED/Regents reform agenda is for the kids, I think about all the kids her husband's cigarette company hooked on poison and I wonder how many will die early as a result.

I also think about what a hypocrite Merryl Tisch is.

Tisch And Teachers College

Fred Smith at Schoolbook:

Unfortunately, the unilateral decision by T.C. President Susan Fuhrman to honor New York Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch next week at the school’s convocation defies this tradition. As a member of the board since 1996, Tisch has supported New York’s testing program as it became the black hole of education from the inception of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002. Children have been reduced to data points. Education is now a census filed annually on their answer sheets.

Many in the Teacher’s College community as well as off-campus bystanders are disturbed by Fuhrman’s decision to honor Tisch who represents to her critics the testing agenda which they believe has corrupted education policy.

In 2009, after becoming chancellor, Tisch admitted that the test results during her tenure had been misleading but maintained that the tests were valid. Her agenda, with the promise of more rigorous testing, became the focus for New York.

The shift was navigated in editorial boardrooms where she won support for the idea that more testing was the way to go, and test scores could be defended in reaching high-stakes decisions about students, teachers and schools — uses for which they were never intended.

Not once did she ask for an independent investigation of the relationship between the test publisher and the State Education Department and how the results had become so spuriously high. The regent board member who watched the misuse of testing unfold was now in charge of its reform.

I've often wondered how it is that Merryl Tisch, who not only oversaw the test score inflation during Richard Mills' tenure as Regents chancellor but also defended those scores, now gets to dub herself the doyenne of testing standards.

Why wasn't there an independent investigation into the test score inflation?

Why did Ms. Tisch defend those scores back in 2005?

Did she not know they were inflated?

Did she know and simply spout the Mills party line anyway?

There was talk in the editorial pages of the Murdoch papers of Tisch running for mayor.

I was always hoping she would, because I thought that would give the public a great opportunity to find out just what Ms. Tisch knew about score inflation during Mills' tenure and why she only saw the light after the NYSED and the Regents were forced to admit the tests and grading were easier than they should have been.

I also wanted her to run for mayor because I wanted to find out more about her family's connections to K-12 Inc. and the for-profit education industry as well as the family history in the cigarette business.

As a former Newport cigarette smoker who started smoking at the age of 13 when Newport ran an ad campaign giving away free packs of cigarettes in my neighborhood during the summers to anybody who wanted them (including to me and my fellow 13 year olds), I always bristle when I hear her talk about how much she cares about children and teenagers.

When I was 13, about the only way the Tisch family cared about me was to try and hook me for life on their tobacco product.

They were almost successful at that.

Unfortunately for me, I was hooked until I was 32.

There are a whole host of reasons why Merryl Tisch ought not to be feted at Teachers College, from the test mess back during the Mills days to the K-12 Inc. link.

I think the history of the Tisch family's tobacco business and their concerted efforts to hook as many children on their tobacco products ought to be another reason why she not be feted at Teachers College (and no, it doesn't matter that the Tischs sold the company a few years back - they owned it for a long, long time.)

But of course she will be feted at Teachers College as if nothing is controversial about her, as if she isn't full of crap about what she did during the Mills era over the test score inflation, as if her family has no connection to the for-profit education industry and doesn't benefit from high stakes testing.

There is no accountability for the wealthy in this country.

That Merryl Tisch is being feted at Teachers College is just one more example of that sad but true fact.