Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Bloomberg No Longer Hides Behind the Liberal Curtain:

“Unfortunately there are some parents who just come from — they never had a formal education, and they don’t understand the value of education,” Mr. Bloomberg said on the program, which is broadcast on WOR-AM (710).

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/mayor-is-criticized-for-comments-on-parents-at-poor-schools

Mayor Bloomberg Arrograntly Dismisses Parents Who Want Their Community Schools Saved As "Ignorant & Uneducated"

from: Chaz's School Daze: http://chaz11.blogspot.com

Well, the world did not end and it is back to writing about education. I read with amusement how the Imperial Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has now publicly "disrespected parents". It was bad enough that under his proxy, the ex-Chancellor Joel Klein, parent voices were ignored and the Mayor could claim that he was working on giving parents a voice in the education process. Now that Joel Klein is gone, the arrogant Mayor's true feelings about parents are out in the open.

To the imperial Mayor, New York City parents are simply ignorant people who had no education, except for the minority that agreed with him. How could he allow these peasants any real voice in their child's education when they had the audacity to disagree in his view of education? In the Mayor's view he knows what was best for the community, not the people who actually live there and if his staff recommended a community school to close, so be it. It is more important to establish "Charter Schools" in those buildings rather than supply the resources and energy necessary to improve the neighborhood schools. Left behind, are the academically struggling students of the neighborhood who the Charters" encourage not to apply to or counsel them out of. The English Language Learners, Special Eduction students, Disciplinary or Attendance challenged children "need not apply" and are sent, in mass to another school which puts that school in danger of closing. Is it any wonder that parents want to keep their community schools open and keep that precious connection with the neighborhood intact?

Now the Imperial Mayor has publicly blasted the parents whose children either go to these closing schools or are in the community as "ignorant and uneducated". In other words just like Cletis and his wife as portrayed in the Simpson's cartoon program This imperial billionaire Mayor could never understand what it is to struggle with poverty, live paycheck to paycheck, or to be part of a larger community (excluding his country club friends). In the Mayor's world there is the privileged like himself and the peasants who bow and follow his imperial decrees. However, it appears that the Imperial Mayor has no clothes and the peasants are revolting with his lowest approval ratings ever (36%). Even the formerly loyal City Council is ready to go against his budget in a big way as he has painted himself in a corner with 4,100 teacher layoffs, the closing of 20 firehouses, and his grossly increased spending on technology and consultants.

Mayor Bloomberg's arrogance appears to show no limits as he follows his imperial legacy at the expense of New York City and the people who live in it. In his view the "operation was successful even if the patient died".

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The Coalition for
Public Education

Coalición por la
Educación
Pública

Who We Are
What We
Want

The Coalition for Public Education/Coalición por la Educación Pública is an independent, non-sectarian, and non-governmental organization with short, middle and long-term educational and social goals. We believe that education is a human right and we want to ensure that New York City public schools are places of learning in which all stakeholders (parents, students, educators, non-pedagogical staff, administrators and the community) are engaged in a democratic process to provide a free and quality education to all its students, from Pre-school to College.

Our coalition is based on antiracist/antisexist democratic grassroots organizing concepts and not based on the idea that any one individual, politician, union leader, or political messiah will save us.

Our coalition will participate in election campaigns but will focus on mass action as a primary vehicle for social change.

Therefore, we will organize the distribution of leaflets, mass rallies, forums, civil disobedience, petitions, referendums, web-based actions, economic boycotts, and other grassroots tactics. We also understand that we are not alone in struggle and that we must unite with other groups and individuals who support democracy, self-determination and the empowerment of our communities.

What We Want:

I. A Peoples' Board of Education

II. Local control of our Public Schools not Mayoral Dictatorship!

III. Better Public Schools not Charter Schools!

IV. Power to Parents, Students and Educators!

V. Implementation of a mandatory Antiracist Curriculum!

VI. Recruiting educators from our neighborhoods to achieve racial parity!

VII.Money for Education Not War!

VIII. OUR Schools = Neighborhood School Control!

NYC EDSTATS You Can Use

New York City Schools by the Numbers

By John Tarleton
www.indypendent.org

$12.5 billion: Annual New York City Department of Education (DOE) budget (2002)

$21 billion: Annual New York City DOE budget (2009)

1,719: Number officials employed by the DOE central administration in June 2002

2,442: Number of officials employed by the central administration as of November 2008

2: Number of DOE officials earning more than $180,000 per year in 2004.

22: Number of DOE officials earning more than $180,000 per year in 2007.

5: Number of DOE public relations staffers in 2003.

23: Number of DOE public relations staffers in 2008.

944: Number of contracts approved by DOE in 2008, at a total cost of $1.9 billion.

20: Percentage of contracts that exceeded estimated cost by at least 25 percent.

$67.5 million: Annual budget of Project Arts, a decade-old program that was the sole source of dedicated funding for arts education. It was eliminated in 2007.

86: Percentage of principals who said in a 2008 poll that they were unable to provide a quality education because of excessive class sizes in their schools.

100,000: Number of seats DOE plans to provide for charter school students by 2012.

25,000: Number of seats DOE plans to build under 2010 to 2014 capital plan.

66,895: Number of K-3 school-children in classes of 25 or more during the 2008-09 school year.

15,440: Average number of seats per year built during the last six years of the Rudolph Giuliani administration.

10,895: Average number of seats per year built during the first six years of the Bloomberg administration.

27.2: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2001-02 who were Black.

14.1: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2006-07 who were Black.

53.3: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2001-02 who were white.

65.5: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2006-07 who were white.

76: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Latino students in 8th grade English Language Arts (ELA) in 2003.

75: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic students in 8th grade ELA in 2008.

77: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic 8th graders in math in 2003.

81: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic 8th graders in math in 2008.

54: Percentage of New York City public school parents who disapproved of Mayor Bloomberg’s handling of education, according to a March 2009 Quinnipiac poll.

Sources: New York City Council, New York City Comptroller’s Office, New York Daily News, New York Post, Eduwonkette, Quinnipiac Institute, Black Educator, Class Size Matters, New York City Schools Under Bloomberg and Klein.