Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Chancellor Carmen Farina's Failure To Eliminate The Bloomberg Era Policies Is Her Failure As A Chancellor.




























It has been over three years since Carmen Farina took over as Chancellor of the New York City School System and many of her promises to overhaul the New York City Public Schools and eliminate the Bloomberg era policies have been found to be lacking.  In fact, as a Deputy Chancellor under Joel Klein she is more the problem than the solution. Let's go over some of her statements and see if things really changed?

Class Size Reduction
One of Mayor de Blasio's campaign promises was to reduce class sizes.  However, since Carmen Farina took over as Chancellor not only has class sizes not been reduced, but actually increased, especially in the K-2 grades.

Removing Principals
Carmen Farina once told an audience that there were 400 principals that shouldn't be running their schools.  However, she has failed to remove more than a handful of these failing principals.  In fact, she and her cronies protect the worst of the worst.

Quality ATRs
The Chancellor was quoted by the Daily News that she will vastly reduce the ATR pool by either terminating them or place quality ATRs back into the classroom.  However, she has failed to use her authority to convince principals to hire them.  In fact, she has made little or no effort to penalize principals who hire and use uncertidfied teachers to instruct in core subject areas like English, Math, Science, and Social Studies.  Moreover, many schools give teachers a "sixth period" rather than hire a needed teacher.  The result is that the ATR pool has remained stable during her tenure as Chancellor.

Fair Student Funding
One of the most destructive Bloomberg era policy is the school-based fair student funding that incentivizes principals to hire the cheapest and not the best teachers for their school. Yet, after three years the Chancellor has not eliminated the fair student funding formula from the schools.  The result is a 1,400 ATR pool of excessed teachers without a classroom costing the DOE over $100 million dollars annually. A colossal waste of money and talent.

Administrative Bloat At DOE Central
While school budgets re frozen and school resources are scarce.  DOE Central continues to expand. The New York Post reported that by next school year it will have almost tripled since Bill de Blasio took over. While it was bloated during the Bloomberg years its become even more so under the Chancellor.


Failed to Clean House at Tweed
Carmen Farina had promised that she would bring with her a new policy of collaboration between the DOE and schools.  However, she retained 80% of the Bloomberg era policymakers.  The result is that the schools have experienced essentially frozen budgets, no reduction in paperwork, despite promises to the contrary, and  a "gotcha" mentality between administrators and staff.  The new tone promised by UFT President Michael Mulgrew is simply the same old song when it comes to the New York City Public School classroom.

Renewal Schools
The Chancellor's vaulted Renewal School program is a failure with minimal benchmarks that over half cannot achieve and the Chancellor's claim  that only "highly effective teachers" will be hired at the schools ended up to be a bunch of "newbies" instead.  Worse she spends millions of dollars on layers of bloated bureaucracy and has hired some very questionable people to run the program. In today's Daily News there was a gang fight at Richmond Hills High School, one of the Renewal Schools.

Resolving The ATR Issue
Carmen Farina once told Chalkbeat that she will resolve the ATR situation once and for all but has simply nibbled at the edges with no significant impact.  Her failure to resolve the ATR issue is a black mark on her and the Mayor's administration.

The bottom line, Chancellor Carmen Farina lives in a fantasyland and she has consistently failed to live up to her promises to remake the New York City School System while all the ills of the Bloomberg era still exist to date.

27 comments:

TeachmyclassMrMayor(andyoutooMrMayor) said...

Don't forget, her behavior at the PEPs, her behavior is EXACTLY like Joel Klein's. The parents, the folks that Tweed says that they beg to be involved, at Townsend Harris get totally ignored, just like BloomKlein. And if those parents are ignored, imagine how little say the parents at "regular" schools have. And if those parents think that they have a chance, they are crazy. I ask over and over, when Tweed has paid off two harassment suits & caught him misusing funds, and the principal at John Bowne STILL has his job, do you really think that Tweed is not going to put Jahoda in at THHS, or continue the BloomKlein policies, it's a fallacy.

waitingforsupport said...

Tell it @6:32...
that IA principal is as good as in @ at THHS. It's not in the news any longer. It's a wrap

Anonymous said...

Don't forget the NY Post Article today showing how Central Administrative spending has skyrocketed over Farina s tenure. Tweed gets fatter while we are scraping by, bare bones in schools. What do these central admins do? I'd love to see a list of all Central DOE and support center staff and exactly what their job description is. I guarantee they put in half the weekly hours and effort than the fighting in the trenches classroom teacher does.

Anonymous said...

Chaz: You have posted at least a dozen blog posts with this same topic. And guess what? You should post a dozen more on the same topic. Farina/DeBlasio are a huge let down for students, families, and teachers in NYC.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe today's article in the Post regarding bloated payroll at Tweed. It's so disgusting but I blame the parents. this can only happen in NYC nowhere else. There's like 5 or 6 DOE "spokespeople". There's so many useless made up titles. My favorite is the office of "special projects". Imagine working there all year looking at LL Bean catalogs? It was bad before but now it's blatantly obvious. No one cares because no one can do anything about it. Hundreds, literally hundreds of positions at Tweed for people who aren't even near a classroom. Let any one of these people teach a class of 34 in a school with today's type of admin. How do they get away with this Chaz? How does Susan Edelman not write about this?

Anonymous said...

Fariña deserves an F by not doing anything, and making things worse because of her inaction. She is very dishonest, and she continues to bring us through the path of collapse.

Anonymous said...

Mulgrew, Fariña all of you should go with all the bad principals.

Anonymous said...

A complete sham these 3 years. Just the wrong policies, culture and waste. Thank you Mulgrew and Fariña for making things worse.

Anonymous said...

Tweed does not know what is right anymore.

Anonymous said...

Bottom line, the only chance to do away with fair student funding is to end mayoral control of the schools in June. The ATR debacle will end of FSF is eleminated.

Chaz said...

As I have repeatedly stated. Chancellor Carmen Farina is part of the problem and not the solution.

Anonymous said...

Her reputation coming in was complete dishonesty and an heir of distaste for the average teacher, especially the more experienced and expensive they become. No one should be surprised that's what we got.

Anonymous said...

I have a bird,s eye view of what support centers do - 100s of people doing nothing nothing - staring at their stupid computers printing out tons of paper - a complete waste such a travesty - couldn't be more of a travesty - these stupid morons taught for maybe 3 years and got out - couldn't take it I laugh at them they think they are so important - they are a waste

Anonymous said...

While FSF certainly influences a Principal's decision not to hire a senior / tenured teacher (there's really no argument), the other issue is tenure/appointments.....Principals don't want a teacher they can't get rid of.

Simple as that.

Twenty year veteran

Anonymous said...

They just want cheap inexperienced teachers. Also they want more consultants and bureacrats.

Anonymous said...

The ATR pool was created to discriminate older teachers while they hire newbies.

Anonymous said...

Fariña stop sending field supervisors to get rid of experienced teachers, stop wasting money.

Anonymous said...

I heard she is out in June! Can you think of some replacements?

Anonymous said...

DOE offices are filled with failed supervisors from the schools. Get removed from your sup job and get a promotion! Recycled losers!

Anonymous said...

Fariña stop protecting bad principals that are destroying our schools.

Anonymous said...

The sooner she leaves the better.

Anonymous said...

She is not in touch with reality.

Anonymous said...

It is a system that makes teachers with integrity that speak up incompetent, and bullying principals that are incompetent look competent like Ms. DWARKA. Thank you Fariña.

Anonymous said...

Fariña and Mulgrew should leave together.

Anonymous said...

To 7:34. The principal at my school actually came out and said it. He didn't like hiring tenured teachers "because they are harder to get rid of."

This is what we're dealing with.

Anonymous said...

It is a system that punishes veteran teachers with underseved and unfair use
Of the observation process.

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