There is an increasing concern among educators that Chancellor Carmen Farina is not up to the demands of heading the New York City school system. Her lackluster, unfocused, and dare say, incompetent leadership has many talented educators frustrated with her disappointing performance as Chancellor. Worse, she has kept on many of the Bloomberg era personnel who retain their critical policy making positions in the DOE that has made teaching in the classroom a hostile experience and damages the students trying to learn in them.
What's unfortunate, is that Chancellor Carmen Farina, unlike the Bloomberg era chancellors, enjoys unlimited freedom in changing the dysfunctional DOE as the new Mayor allowed her to implement policies that would improve the schools. Instead, she has continued many of the destructive Bloomberg policies including the largest class sizes in the State, freezing the already inadequate school budgets, and continuing the badly flawed teacher hiring and retention policies that hurt student academic achievement.
The pity is that Chancellor Carmen Farina, unlike the last four chancellors, is a long term educator and should have been more receptive to positive changes in the classroom. However, the reality is that Carmen Farina had bought in to Michael Bloomberg's education reform, rising to Deputy Chancellor before being pushed out by Joel Klein in a power struggle and is part of the problem and not the solution in making the classroom environment a more welcoming place to teach and learn in.
To me, Chancellor Carmen Farina is becoming more like the incompetent Chancellor Cathie Black, with her verbal gaffes such as her "its a beautiful day" comment among others. More importantly, the very people who were hoping for real change for the better for the New York City school system and were delighted with the new Mayor's education policy, instead were rapidly losing confidence with the seemingly incompetent Chancellor and her failure to improve the New York City schools. Maybe its time for Carmen Farina to retire for good and get a competent Chancellor to transform the New York City schools for the better.
Since Wheat of Farina was appointed and answers to the Mayor and is carrying out the wishes of the mayor. I think DeBlasio and his broken educational promises (other than pre-k)is the bigger problem. The tragedy here is that she knows better-and I think she will gone by the upcoming summer and collect pension #2.
ReplyDelete"Increasing concern among educators" regarding Carmen Farina? C'mon Chazz, do you really think the DOE or The Mayor really care about what concerns educators? If the Mayor or the DOE cared about the concerns of educators, they would never have hashed out the horrible new contract that we got. If the Mayor cared about the concerns of educators he would quit chumming it up with charter schools. If the mayor really cared about the concerns of educators he would reduce class size. The ed deform movement is all about listening to the "concerns" of everybody EXCEPT educators. It is sad but true.
ReplyDeleteFariña pulls in 200K+ from her pension alone. Add that to her 200K+ Chancellor position and you've got about 450K. Really? No seriously, really?
ReplyDeleteInaction is the new Black in the unfashionable NYC educational lexicon. Farina knows what to do and she hasn't acted. (Cathie didn't have a clue and as such was truly incompetent.) I read Farina's comments saying that schools aren't restaurants and will no longer have letter grades. Bravo! A start, but restaurant managers are still running the schools. They graduated from Sir Bloomy's Hamburger Academy and were deeded a school. Change that and I'll stand up and cheer!
ReplyDeleteThe Chief Counsel of the Department of Investigation is currently reviewing an official misconduct complaint against Farina who was accused of lying to OSI about the substantiated cover-up of Regents cheating at the Cobble Hill School of American Studies when she was Superintendent of Region 8 in Brooklyn and later Deputy Chancellor under Klein. The complaint also indicts current Commissioner of Special Investigation Richard Condon for covering up for Farina and other DOE bigwigs. Accordingly, in the best of all possible worlds, Farina will be removed from Tweed this term.
ReplyDeleteWhat a disappointment! I remember when we finally got rid of old cruddy bloomberg the devil himself, and with the revelation of diblasio coming in and winning the election I figured life would be a bit rosier. However, this farina must start to eliminate the stench from old fart bloomberg soon otherwise face a staff of educators who right now are brewing and the temp is getting hotter
ReplyDeleteI demand that Success Academy educates 143,000 students that are in failing schools.
ReplyDeleteThe Bloomberg money machine is still pulling the strings and controlling the educational policies of DeBlasio and therefore Farina's hands are tied when it comes to making a positive educational changes. It's just a matter of time for the DeBlasio &Farina/Mulgrew honeymoon ending which is really a farce to begin with.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be 'business as usual' at the Tweed Palace as Queen Farina is acting more like King Klein/Walcott using the DOE Website and Outlook to announce their propaganda such as: increases in test scores, advances in pre-k enrollment, reach out family programs or anything else they think makes them look good to the public.
ReplyDelete