It Is Time To "Drain The Swamp" Of Non-Educators And Unecessary Programs At Tweed.

As a very interested observer and victim of the bizarre priorities of those non-educators that inhabit the leadership positions at Tweed as they practice their ongoing "children last" program. It is time that the real educators take back the Department of Education (DOE) and let teachers teach that is best for their students. While the BloomKlein media mouthpieces, the New York Daily News and The New York Post, see no wrong with their destructive education policies, educators know better. Let's look at how Tweed has mismanaged the New York City public schools.

School budget cuts of 12% in the last two years while the headcount of the central bureaucracy actually sAW a 70% increase. Unbelievable! Many of the increases at Tweed were for high priced lawyers and managers at the expense of lower paid school aides and clerical staff at school support offices. In addition, there seems to be no end to the hiring of highly priced consultant services, using a no-bid contract program with little or no impact on the classroom. An example of this is the hiring of a new-age hypnotherapist for$374,000 dollars. South Bronx School also wrote about others, Here. Moreover, the increase in the vast amount of unnecessary paperwork that now forces teachers to spent most of their free time doing .

A taxpayer funded "Principal Leadership Academy" that produce inept and incompetent principals who have little or no classroom experience and in many cases never received tenure as a teacher in New York City!. An example of this is Principal Madonado-Rivera of Columbia Prep Secondary School who SCI identified as being responsible for the death of Nicole Suriel. Over this year alone, these "Leadership Academy principals" lack common sense Here, Here, and Here.

A "fair student funding" formula that only hurts the schools as it limits the hiring of experienced teachers and result in lower academic achievement. Furthermore, it forces principals to hire newbie teachers at the expense of classroom management and student discipline. Any Principal who hires an experienced teacher will have to reduce the school's budget in other areas.

Eliminate the Mayor controlled PEP and bring back an independent Board Of Education. Currently, whatever the Mayor and Chancellor want the PEP does and they are simply a rubber stamp for both of them. This travesty must end.

We really do need to "drain the swamp" by bringing the DOE back to the educators, parents, and students if we are to see real academic achievement.