Opponents: 'Cathie Black Shouldn't Be Chancellor'
Sunday, November 14, 2010
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Cathie Black in October 2009 (Jemal Countess/Getty)
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Schools advocates claim they have little say about whether or not publishing exec Cathie Black, Mayor Bloomberg's choice to succeed School Chancellor Joel Klein, is confirmed. But some opponents, who gathered on the steps of Tweed Courthouse Sunday, are directing their energies at state Education Commissioner David Steiner. Steiner would have to grant a waiver to the city approving Black for the job, because Black does not have the minimum required credentials for the job: namely, a school superintendent's license or training as an educator.
"It's obvious that the chancellor of one of the largest systems in the nation must know something about schools, must know something about curriculum, must know something about assessment," said Michael Myers, who heads the New York Civil Rights Coalition. "Not just that students must be tested. What kind of tests? That teachers should be evaluated. Based on what tests?"
As of Sunday, nearly 6,700 people have signed a petition asking Steiner to deny the city a waiver.
Councilman Robert Jackson requested that the Mayor and Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott withdraw their nomination of Black.
"Mayor Bloomberg, when he appointed Ray Kelly, the NYPD Commissioner, he talked about his many years experience at NYPD," said Jackson, who heads the Council's education committee. "When he appointed Salvatore Cassano the commissioner of the Fire Department, he talked about his 40 years of experience. He didn't say that about Cathie Black."
One of the speakers at the Tweed event was Julie Cavanagh, a special-ed teacher at PS 15, in Brooklyn. She said the large budget deficits that the city will confront over the coming years will severely test the next chancellor.
"To not have an educator at the helm as the person who's managing and implementing those policies, making those kinds of decisions, it's very dangerous," she said.
"We go through a legal process to be allowed to be left alone with children," she said, referring to Black's lack of educational experience. "This is a woman who can not even be left in a room with a child legally. And we expect that she is going to oversee the education of 1.1 million children?"
According to civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel, the fact that Black is a personal friend of Bloomberg and was selected without a public process, smacks of "cronyism."
"When people in this city are cynical about public process, it's because they think that people get chosen because of who they know," Siegel said, "rather than on the merits."
Comments [7]
There are two issues generated by Mayor Bloomberg's appointment of Cathleen Black as NYC Schools Chancellor. First is the Mayor's lack of employing a process that would increase the chances of his choice being received as positively as possible given her resume. As we can see, the result of that omission has created a fair amount of ill will. If granted a waiver by the State Education Commissioner, she starts off within a climate of distrust, skepticism, and probably a fair amount of disrespect. The children in our schools cannot afford the time it will take for Ms. Black to overcome this lengthy initiation period. Mayor Bloomberg neither served her well or the children. One can understand in part his dismissing any need to pave the way for her, given the seemingly endless voices and power centers involved in advocating for educational policy. But it was a bad decision, plain and simple. Ultimately, he was given control over the Department of Education, and he should be able to pick his person but the lack of foresight and sensitivity on his part is mystifying.
Having said that, the second issue is the overlooked fact in the reaction to Ms. Black that decades of credentialed educators at the top rungs of NYC's education department failed to produce meaningful gains in student achievement. Unfortunately, like so many fields of endeavor in America, we insist on reinventing the wheel rather than replicating programs and policies that work. And they are out there in droves!
If Ms. Black is the superb manager that the Mayor claims she is, perhaps she possesses the type of managerial confidence that doesn't mind copying things that work, utilizing and elevating staff whose passion is raising student achievement rather than self-aggrandizement and position, and setting goals that far outstrip the meaningless goals of prior administrations, including those of Joel Klein's administration.
The buck stops with the Mayor. Give him his pick but hold him accountable with no room for rationalization if she fails.
A waiver should be granted in extraordinary circumstances, not routinely. We need a strong educator-administrator at the helm, someone who has experienced the system first-hand and knows what it means to be in a classroom. Managerial skills are extremely important... who would deny that? But why go outside the system again when so much is at stake? I also speak as someone with reservations about charter schools. These are in effect private schools. They negate the whole concept of public education. No child's future should be linked to a lottery. That seems absurd to me. I also am troubled by the Mayor referring to our 1 mil+ students as "customers." Makes me think of kids arriving at their local community "Walmart", picking up their shopping cart, and walking up and down the aisles to see what they like and what they don't like. Personally, I don't see it that way. Do you?
WNYC replays daily teacher union head Michael Mulgrew's comment on his first meeting with Cathie Black, which begins: "Her and I...." And he heads a teachers union? This is ludicrous. Black is not competent to run the school system any more than Mulgrew is competent to teach English. At least Bloomberg is not responsible for Mulgrew heading the union. Mayor Mike appears to live in a parallel universe where anything he wants is right. Michael Mulgrew should take a leave from his job and take a refresher course in the grammar of his allegedly native tongue. If Cathie Black was demoted at Hearst, why should this desperate executive be given a sinecure as schools chancellor? Another absurd move by our arrogant mayor.
What can a person say about this? It is just sad. The fact that the mayor has so little respect for educators that he would appoint a person NO experience is just disrespectful to children. As a tax payer I resent this. The man feels he can use the tax payers and our children to pay her a riduclous amount of money to perform a job she has no qualifications. I feel like I live in such a corrupt country when I see and hear about things like this. SAD
It was an interesting process of leadership change in view of complaints over the years regarding issues of transparency and parental participation
Bloomberg, in appointing Black, pointed to her success in business, but the fact is, she was recently demoted at Hearst. I think Bloomberg wants to run for president and he needs a high profile woman appointee now in his administration. He doesn't seem to have much use for minorities. His recent attack on Obama, calling him the most arrogant person he had ever met, is hypocritical. He got the City Counsel to overturn the term limits approved by the voters and then made a major contribution to the Independence Party, that gave him his margin of victory over Thompson. Now that he's finished being mayor, he wants the term limits to be restored. Talk about arrogance. Black is totally unqualified for this job. That Bloomberg appointed her when there were so many qualified candidates says a lot about him. She went to Kent and Trinity, two second tier institutions. Why should she now be running the country's largest school system? It borders on farce.
Testing numeracy should not be the goal of any educational system. Teaching children the love of learning is the primary goal. Sadly children don't count. It's true now and it was true 45 years ago when I wrote this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u46Uwa6KMQM
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