Finally, with the City cash starved, Mayor Bloomberg has started to acknowledge the wasteful and questionable spending by Tweed of high priced consultants by using a no-bid process and ordered the DOE to eliminate 4 million dollars worth of consultants to keep open firehouses the New York Daily News reported today. We, in the education community has complained for years how Tweed used this no-bid process to hire high priced consultants and programs with questionable educational value. Especially when it came to the classroom. It wasn't too long ago that some of Tweed's questionable spending habits surfaced in the media. We all remember this travesty, don't we?
Now that Joel Klein was pushed out and the unqualified Chancellor, Cathie Black is really the Mayor's puppet, the Mayor is now taking a closer look at Tweed's spending and it is about time. With no Joel Klein to run interference to block the City from investigating the DOE's spending practices, it should be open season for the City to scrutinize how the nearly 500 million dollars are used by Tweed. The 4 million dollars is really just a tip of the iceberg. With the schools starving for funds to serve the City's children, it is unconscionable for Tweed to use precious funds for questionable and wasteful programs that have little to do with education and nothing to do with the classroom.
The reallocation of funds from Tweed to the schools are a priority when the City is threatening to layoff 6,400 teachers and countless other school personnel. Therefore, it is time that each and every program that Tweed wants to fund be sent to an educational screening committee to ensure there is educational value of the program. Finally, no more no-bid contracts that just result in overpaying for suspect programs with little, if any educational value.
It is time that Chancellor Cathie Black do some real housecleaning and get rid of those Tweed officials who were responsible for the wasting of hundreds of millions of dollars given to highly paid consultants'. It should be children first not "children last".
I don't understand. Your post suggests that Klein was doing things that Bloomberg was unaware of and would disapprove of. That is not borne out by the facts and history of this regime.
ReplyDeleteFrom the beginning, Bloomberg has made it clear that everyone serves at his pleasure. Klein was the leader of Bloomberg's assault on the schools. To suggest that he had some agenda apart from the mayor's just doesn't square with the facts.
In the midst of huge budget shortfalls and threatened teacher layoffs, cutting $4 million in consultant fees is chump change and window dressing.
Fantastic post, Chaz!
ReplyDeleteWhat rank hypocrisy among the education critics, to assail teachers' salaries or to generally argue against decent school funding, and these same critics are totally mute on the No-Bid Consultants!
I keep repeating this go after the school construction authority and the billions spent of school construction during the Bloomberg administration. Practically every school in the city has had major projects. How much waste, fraud and corruption has transpired under the unaccountable mayor of accountability? BILLIONS not MILLIONS. John Liu should be looking under that rock a rock that will rock Bloomy, Klein and who knows how many other politicians.
ReplyDeleteKlein was picked exactly for who he is, a scumbag.
ReplyDeleteBy purposefully keeping sexual perverts in the rubber room for 7, 10, 13 years, Klein was able to intimidate whole staff, to control the narrative (sexual transgression) to the rubber room, to paint every reassigned teacher in broad brush, to feed the media with the stories they wanted, and to stoke public outrage against teachers and their union.
Mike:
ReplyDeleteI think you are missing the point. While the City coffers were flush with cash, Bloomberg allowed Joel Klein to do as he pleased. Be in no-bid contracts, the waste of money with 2,000+ ATRs, the 800+ rubber room teachers and the bloated headcount at Tweed.
Now with the City needing money, Bloomberg imposed a hiring freeze, emptied out the rubber rooms, and is trying to force the schools to hire ATRs. Next will be the headcount at Tweed.
Michael it is all about the money, or lack of it by the City.
Conforme is the new CFO. She should get bombarded with "suggestions" on what to cut:
ReplyDeleteQuality Reviews- a feeding trough for F status;
Progress Report- another consultant paradise;
Superintendents- officially unncesssary;
Dare I say? Teachers who are in excess;
SSAs- the schools end up paying for security on top;
ARIS- less than 1% of all parents use it;
Every other stupid data-worshipping scheme they come up with- just use what NYS and the Feds require and that's enough!
Speaking of wasted money, I invite folks to participate in my blog's poll on how many students actually attended school today.
ReplyDeleteBrother Chaz, I extend my sympathies that you are in semi-incarceration status. Hang in there. There is very little justice in the process, but there is a chance of returning.
Good luck in your case.
New York City Eye on Bloomberg's pointless insistence on open schools in a big blizzard, before streets are cleared.
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ReplyDelete