Mayor Bill De Blasio Is An Idiot

Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters who questioned him on what children will do in the summer if the pools and playgrounds are closed.  His response was that he and Chancellor Richard Carranza are working on remote learning programs to entertain the children. What an idiot the Mayor is.

Most NYC children live in old apartment buildings, many with no air conditioning or can't afford the bills by running the air conditioner all day.   Even during the school year, only 77% of the teenagers actually logged in for attendance and even less who actually participated in instruction.  The probable result is that many streets will have open fire hydrants and teenagers climbing fences to play basketball or using playground equipment. Other bored teenagers will be up to no good like street crimes and assaulting each other.

It appears most UFT members who have died from COVID-19 are from the Bronx or Brooklyn which is primary minority and have high density housing.  Moreover, they tend to use mass transit as their mode of transportation. Finally, these two boroughs have higher percentages of health issues.

 The latest update (Monday) of the covid-19 count can be found below.


Region........Infected............Deaths.........Percentage

Global........2,50,346......170,370...............6.9%
Nation..........787,786.........42,080...............5.3%.
State...........247,512..........16,565...............6.7%
NYC.............136,806..........13,683.............10.0%
UFT.................?...................52

Mayor De Blasio , I'm Not The Blame

Mayor Bill de Blasio seems to come on the television and blames the President for the problems with the City actions on combating the coronavirus.  However, he seems to ignore his many failures in taking appropriate action to combat the coronavirus himself. The result is that New York City is the epicenter of the coronavirus in the Western Hemisphere.

First, he resisted closing the schools until the Governor forced him to do so.  However, it was too late as many students became either affected and or became carriers who passed it on older relatives, resulting in the City having over 25,300 affected residents (300 fatalities) and rising.  Worse, as staff reported becoming affected by the coronavirus, the DOE failed to close the schools as the State required as both the Mayor and Chancellor, Richard Carranza, did not want to close the New York City Public Schools.  Read the New York Post's Susan Edelman on Brooklyn Tech.  Finally, where was the City not using their massive budget surplus to buy medical supplies rather than wait for the State and Federal governments to do so?

Mayor Bill de Blasio was too late in closing down the City and allowed the cronavirus to spread and even today, the Governor blasted the Mayor for allowing groups to congregate in parks and  other gathering places and gave the Mayor 24 hours to enforce his edict.  In addition, the Mayor still allowed ticketing for alternate street parking until Tuesday, while telling people to stay indoors, what a hypocrite!

Of course the Mayor's failure to lockdown the City was because he wanted tourist dollars to continue to stream into the City, which allowed thecoronavirus  to come along with the turists as well.  The Mayor's reluctance to close schools and tourist attractions  like Broadway shows and the parks contributed to the rapid spread of the coronavirus,  because it was all about the money.

Note:  Chancellor Richard Carranza decided that all non-essential DOE employees work at home.  Interestingly, the Chancellor himself started to work at home last Friday while DOE employees must report to their jobs on Friday, risking getting infected by the coronavirus from co-workers.

More Speed Cameras Rolling Out, More Money For The City

New York City will start rolling out more speed cameras and will have 720 by June of 2020.  The hours of operation will expand from 6am to 10pm weekdays.  This is an expansion from 7am to 4pm on school days.  This is part of Mayor De Blasio's vision zero policy.

Moreover,  the speed cameras can be placed in a 4 square mile parameter around a school.  This means that the City will maximize those locations where the can catch the most speeders and generate the most money.

While its true it will help school safety, the main purpose is to generate income for the City.  If it was simply a school safety issue, the City would install speed bumps around schools,

Mayor Bill De Blasio Retains Too Many Bloomberg Policies For Our Schools

When Bill de Blasio ran for Mayor he claimed he was to fully fund the public schools and reduce class sizes.  He also pledged to "clean house" of the Bloomberg ideology at the DOE and reduce the administrative bloat at Tweed.  Instead, he appointed a Tweed insider, Carmen Farina, as Chancellor and she retained 80% of the Bloomberg policymakers and failed to reduce the administrative bloat, especially lawyers..

The Mayor and Chancellor failed to fully fund the public schools, giving them only 90% of their fair funding, despite a 6 billion dollar surplus..  Further, the Mayor and Chancellor has repeatedly refuse to reduce class sizes, despite a CFE court case that allocated State money to do that.  Finally, the Chancellor continued the tricks that reduced the need for more teachers by reducing class time and limiting classes to three days for physical education, art, and music.and reduces Science from six classes to five.

The ATR pool still exists with a thousand ATRs rotating from school to school.  The discrimination against senior teachers continues, and the school based fair student funding which penalizes principals who hire veteran teachers and financially incentives principals who hire inexpensive "newbie" teachers.

Now Bill de Blasio has hired an outsider as Chancellor and while the new Chancellor is starting to clean house at the DOE .  However, the Chancellor's racial policies are very disturbing and are inappropriate.  The well respected.   Ed the Apple blog gave the Chancellor a APPR ratting of developing and to me, that's being kind.  Unfortunately,, Chancellor Carranza has not tackled the problems identified above.  Instead he is selecting people with questionable or no credentials to run the DOE, while not changing the policies that are damaging the NYC public school classroom.

Are Schools Safe? Yeah Right - Part 4.

The New York Post has an article that shows that rape and sexual assault has skyrocketed the last school year in the New York City public schools.  This is just another example how Mayor Bill de Blasio's lax student discipline code has resulted in the public schools being increasingly unsafe.

According to the New York Post, using NYPD school safety data found the following:

• Sex crimes skyrocketed by 138% last school year.
• There were 31 felony sexual misconduct arrests last year compared to 16 the year before. That is almost double from the 2016-17 school year.
• Overall sex crimes increased by 76% from 51 in the 2016-17 school year to 83 in the 2017-18 school year.
• Rape charges increased by 240% last school year, from 5 in the 2016-17 school year to 12 last school year.

Are our schools safe?  Yeah right!  If you believe in the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, and Santa Claus Just read my previous posts about school safety.  Here, Here, and Here. Also read this article  Here.

Mayor Bill de Blasio's Warped School Safety Program.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has weakened both school discipline codes and school safety rules since he took control of the New York City Public Schools.  Under the Mayor, he has made schools increasingly unsafe.

First, he allowed students to carry cellphones in school and this has proven a distraction to classroom learning.  Especially, in low achieving schools.

Second, he reduced suspensions by schools by requiring principals to get DOE permission before a school can suspend a student.

Third, he drastically reduced students carrying weapons from being arrested or suspended.

Finally, he has now imposed useless 'warning cards" for arrestable actions, like drug possession or disorderly conduct.

I feel sorry for parents who have academically proficient students and must suffer the distractions, chaos, and safety issues that Mayor Bill de Blasio has brought to the New York City Public Schools.

Why Does Bill de Blasio Want School Speed Cameras Rather Than Speed Bumps?

The Republican controlled State Senate refused to renew the  school speed cameras for New York City schools due to political considerations and their hostility for the Mayor are the  reasons that the city had their school speed cameras shut off.  Bill de Blasio demands that the school speed cameras be turned back on and wants it expanded to all s schools to protect students.


The existing speed cameras only operate between 7am and 4pm during school days.  However, Mayor Bill de Blasio wants them to operate during daylight hours and add another 150 school speed cameras to the existing 120.  He claims it's a school staff issue but I suspect its about the money for fines that end up in the city coffers.

Instead of speed cameras, every school street should have a speed bump.  This way all cars, not just law-abiding ones will slow down   Why didn't Mayor Bill de Blasio propose school speed bumps?

First, school speed bumps cost the City money to install. Second, the speed bumps don't generate funding for the City.  So, instead of making money on the school speed cameras, they would pay to install school speed bumps.  For the Mayor it's not school safety but revenue.

That's why Mayor Bill de Blasio wants school speed cameras and not school speed bumps.

Fighting And Bullying Are A Common Occourrence In New York City Public Schools.

Despite Mayor Bill de Blasio's claim that New York City public schools are safer, the truth is far different.  In today's New York Post, the article claims that District 29, which includes Cambria Heights,  Hollis, Springfield Gardens, Saint Albans, and parts of Jamaica has the highest rates of bullying and fighting in the City.

According to the article, middle school IS 59 in Springfield Gardens had the highest reported occurrences of bullying and fighting.  At IS 59 in Springfield Gardens, 86 percent of students reported skirmishes — with 49 percent saying those occurred “most of the time.”  Also,  At Queens United Middle School in Springfield Gardens, 72 percent of survey takers reported regular fighting, with 42 percent saying it was a constant feature of their environment.

While District 29 in Queens has the highest incidents of bullying and fighting,the other school districts have similar issues with 43% of the city students reported fights in their school and 14%  see fights "most of the time".  Thanks to the lax school discipline policy by Mayor Bill de Blasio, students are not safe from bullying and fighting in the New York City public schools.
Safe schools?  Yeah Right.

Mayor Bill De Blasio Is More Like Michael Bloomberg.When It Comes To Education Policy.

When Bill de Blasio was a candidate for Mayor he positioned himself as the anti-Bloomberg.  His campaign promise was to reduce class size, bring respect to the teaching profession, and  no more closing schools.  To be fair, Bill de Blasio did live up to his promise in limiting charter, schools, appoint an educator as Chancellor, and to cooperate with the UFT on a new contract,  However, in the first term Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed a Joel Klein Deputy Chancellor (Carmen Farina) who turned out to be more the problem then the solution as she kept 80% of the Bloomberg era policymakers and picked Superintendents on who they knew rather than what they knew.

Ask the teachers in the trenches if the classroom environment is different now then under Michael Bloomberg and their answer is a resounding no!  Class sizes are far too large, Charlotte Dainelson is still used to evaluate teachers, and 3020-a charges against educators remain high and essentially unchanged, when compared to the third term of the Bloomberg era.

In addition, the "gotcha philosophy" is still the theme of the day and the DOE still goes after veteran teachers, either by their fair student funding policy or by Charlotte Danielson as administrators used the rubric as a weapon to force senior teachers to either retire or face 3020-a charges. The ATR pool continues to exist with 1,300 ATRs still without a classroom, despite candidate Bil de Blasio's intention of placing them in vacancies when he became Mayor.  Finally, the racial/income achievement gap is as large as ever.  Another example of Mayor Bill de Blasio becoming more like Michael Bloomberg is he forced one of his PEP appointees to resign after she voted not to close two Far Rockaway schools.

In some ways the Bill de Blasio administration is worse.  He allows cellphones in the schools despite evidence that student cellphone use reduces academic achievement.  He also limited student suspensions and is a supporter of restorative justice instead.    The result is the most students feel less safe in the schools. The lax student discipline code is a disaster.  Read the NYC  kids pac report for all the promises that Mayor Bill de Blasio broke in the 2016 Mayoral report card..

The bottom line Mayor Bill de Blasio is becoming more like Michael Bloomberg and that can only increase he already low morale of the classroom teacher and hurt the students down the road.

How Safe Is Our Schools? Not Safe At All According To The NYPD.

In the first semester of the 2017-18 school year saw a spike in arrests summonses, and use of restraints by the NYPD in the New York City school system.  The Daily News article reported that the major crimes in the schools increase was 8% over the same period in the 2016-`17 school year.

The figures published Friday show reported incidents of major crimes in the public schools, such as larceny, arson or robbery, rose to 163 in the period of October through December 2017.  That's up from 151 in the same period in 2016.

Obviously, the weakened student discipline code, the emphasis on restorative justice and reduced suspensions have empowered misbehaving students to commit offenses that require NYPD intervention.  Mayor Bill de Blaio may claim the schools are safer but with arrests up and students feeling less safe, the opposite is true. 

Are the New York City school safe?  Not according to the NYPD statistics.

Why Mayor Bill De Blasio Has Been A Failure For NYC Schools.

Many educators were excited when Bill de Blasio came from nowhere to become Mayor of New York City.  After 12 suffering years under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, we looked for better things down the road.  How wrong were were.

First, he appointed as Chancellor Carmen Farina who was a Deputy Chancellor under Chancellor Joel Klein and supported many of his and Mayor Bloomberg's anti-teacher programs.  Instead of "cleaning house" she kept 80% of the Bloomberg policymakers at the DOE and she was more the problem then the solution when it came to fixing the New York City schools, Chancellor Carmen Farina's legacy is she maintained many of the destructive Bloomberg polices like school based Fair Student Funding, the Charlotte Danielson rubric used as a weapon by administrators, and  the targeting of veteran teachers using the 3020-a process to name a few.

Second, despite claiming he would reduce class sizes, it has actually increased during his first term and to make matters worse, he failed to reduced the extreme segregation of the schools due to the high school choice program that allowed the higher achieving students, mostly Asian and White, to be selected by the far too many specialized and screened schools.  The result is the lower achieving minority stuiden6ts are relegated to academically struggling schools, especially the Renewal Schools.

Third, his lax student discipline policy is a disaster as staff and students feel increasingly unsafe as the disruptive and violent students are simply given a talking to (restorative justice or a warning card) instead of being suspended or arrested.  Moreover, his lifting of the student cellphone ban is disrupting learning as students are distracted and instead of concentration on the teacher they are texting or looking at videos on their phone,  Finally,  the Mayor has failed to stop the flow of weapons brought into the schools by students as confiscations have skyrocketed during his first term as Mayor as these students no longer fear suspension or arrest..

Finally, he has failed to eliminate the bloat at the DOE Central Bureaucracy that eats up an every increasing budget while schools suffer from recession era budgets and are only funded at 90% of what they should be receiving.  Let's not forget that the ATR pool still exists and with 1,200, mostly veteran teachers, without a classroom and costing the DOE over $150,000 annually.  No other school system would tolerate the waste of money and the responsibility lies at the door of the Mayor.

The bottom line is that Mayor Bill de Blasio should spend his second term doing the following:

• Eliminate the fair student funding formula for schools.
• Reducing class sizes to the State average.
• Place ATRs in vacancies before any hiring can be allowed.
• Fully fund the schools.
• Prohibit student cellphones in the classroom.
• Drastically reduced specialized and screened high schools.
• Eliminate school choice and encourage neighborhood schools.

Safe Schools? Yeah Right! - Part 3.

 The Bill de Blasio/Carmen Farina narrative that our schools are safe has been shown to ring hollow.  Weapon confiscations have skyrocketed and staff and students feel more unsafe.  Previously I wrote posts about the school safety issue and you can find it Here and Here.

Now NY1  has an article about safety transfers and found that the official numbers were disturbing and the article believes it was severely under counted.  According to the article the top five schools that had the most safety transfers were as follows:

DeWitt Clinton..........................20
Life Science Secondary HS.........18
Bronx Leadership Academy........17
Abraham Lincoln.......................17
Health Opportunities HS............14 

Remember, to even apply for a safety transfer the student and or parent must actually file a police report.

But the transfer numbers provided to NY1 do not tell the whole story. In the 2015-2016 year, students had to produce a police report showing they were the victim of a crime just to request a transfer.

Therefore, many students who are bullied, subject to gang violence, or who have been physically or verbally assaulted, keep it to themselves and never report the danger to the school administration, police, or their parents.    

After the stabbing and death of a student at the Urban Assembly School For Wildlife Conservation High School in the Bronx.  Up to 30 student asked for a safety transfer at the school.  How many will actually get on.e?  According to the DOE, all of them, we will see if that turns out to  be true Since the school stabbing and killing happened in the 2017-18 school year, it was not included in the NY1 article.

Until Bill de Blasio and Carmen Farina confront the truth the schools are increasingly unsafe, students will be asking for safety transfers as they refuse to be bullied, subject to gang violence, and physically threatened with little corrective actions from school administration.

Safe Schools? Yeah Right! - Part 2

In a previous post I pointed out that weapons confiscated from students have risen an astounding 35% this school year so far but due to a lax discipline code, many of these students were not arrested or even suspended. Moreover, only 6% of all schools have metal detectors or scanners.  No wonder students and teachers feel more unsafe in their schools than at anytime in the past.

Wednesday, the DOE and NYPD sprang a spot scanning at the Bayard Ruskin Educational Complex in Chelsea and confiscated 10 knives.  They probably would have found more weapons but students used their cellphones to warn friends of the scanning.   In addition, two students were found to have handled an air gun at another Chelsea High School,  Fashion Industries.   Add the.two students found with guns at John Bowne high school last week and one can see there is a real issue with weapons being smuggled into our schools without metal detectors

Mayor Bill de Blasio may claim that the school crime statistics are going down but its obvious that the real reason is that school officials are not reporting the weapon confiscations as a crime.  No wonder school staff and students feel that their school is increasingly unsafe.

Safe Schools? Yeah Right!

If you believe the DOE propaganda that the New York City schools are safer, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you,  Sure, the DOE statistics do show a reduction in criminal actions but that's because many criminal actions are subject to the school Principal determining the severity of the crime.

For example, school weapon arrests have skyrocketed by 35% so far this year. A total of 746 weapons have been confiscated this year, compared to 552 last year.  Despite the increase, the actual criminal arrests were down because under Bill de Blasio many students caught with  knives and box cutters were not criminally charged, or even given a summons.  Instead, it was left up to the discretion of the school administration to determine the punishment, if any.  For example, "warning cards" rather than arrests are the newest fade and instead of suspension its restorative justice.  No wonder, most students feel more unsafe than in previous years.

Despite the rise in weapons in schools, only 3 additional schools have metal detractors and only 6% of all schools have them. You can read more about this Here and Here.

The Bill de Blasio/Carmen Farina weakening of the student discipline code, the allowing of cellphones, and the reduction in suspendable offenses has resulted in schools being less safe.  Just ask the students!

Weapon Seizures At Schools Increasing Under Mayor Bill De Blasio.

 Since Bill de Blasio became Mayor and weakened the student discipline code while allowing students to have cellphones in the schools, which has resulted in schools becoming more unsafe. The result is that more students are carrying weapons to school.  The New York Post reported that weapon seizures have increased by 3.3% since last year and 27% since Bill de Blasio became Mayor of Ne York City and weakened the student discipline code.

  According to the article there were 2,120 weapon seizures at New York City schools in the 2016-17 school year and compares to the 2,053 in the 2015-16 school year and 1,673 in the 2014-15 school year.  According to  Gregory Floyd, president of the school safety agents union, Teamsters Local 237, blamed a lax disciplinary system that discourages arrests and suspensions.
“They don’t arrest kids for these offenses, which means children are bringing weapons to protect themselves,” Floyd said.

Under Bill de Blasio as schools become increasingly unsafe and metal detectors are frowned upon by the Mayor (only 88 schools have them) students will continue to bring weapons to school and the stabbing at the Bronx school may no be an isolated incident going forward.

The Maternity Leave Dilemma.

A petition to get the UFT to negotiate with the City on maternity leave was presented at the Executive Board meeting on Monday and the union leadership,while synthetic to the needs of the younger teachers, stated that the City has not been willing to offer a reasonable deal.

Evidence that the union was actually telling the truth is that the City has already imposed a maternity leave program on their mangers and the managers are very unhappy at the cost of this provision.  The City imposed maternity leave program cost the managers their 2017 raise of 0.47% and for senior managers they had to fork over two vacations days in exchange for the maternity leave.

Interestingly, the IBO did an analysis of the City's maternity leave cost on the managers and found that the City saved $5.8 million dollars the first year.  The reason was that the average age of the 8,279 managers under the program is 47 years of age and few (230 or 2.7%) were able to take advantage of the maternity leave program.  The IBO stated that only a few younger managers were able to take advantage of the program while all mangers were penalized by loss of raises and the senior managers with 15 or more years of experience and averaged 55 years of age lost two vacation days for a program that they probably cannot use.

When it comes to the unionized workforce, they are younger than the managers and replacing a person who takes maternity leave usually means paying overtime, rather than straight time/  Therefore, the City's terms would cost the unions too high a price for that "giveback" and so far no union has come to an agreement with the City. Until and unless the City decides that maternity leave should become a right and not a negotiated item in a contract, the prognosis for a maternity leave benefit remains bleak.

For those teachers, who were on maternity leave or other unpaid status,in October of 2015, they will finally get their first lump sum payout.  However, this year's lump sum payout will not be paid until October of 2018 for teachers who were on unpaid leave back in October of 2015.  Therefore,  each lump sum payment will be delayed one year and those teachers will not be whole until October of 2021 instead of 2020.You can thank the union leadership for screwing those teachers on unpaid leave, be it maternity leave or other unpaid leave.

Maybe the union can correct the many wrongs of the 2014 contract in a new contract and one place to start is to negotiate with the City to allow UFT members who were on unpaid leave status, such as maternity leave to be made whole again by giving them the lump sum payments at the time all other active members get theirs.

School Discipline Issues Rise As Suspensions Fall.

Since Bill de Blasio became Mayor of New York City in 2014. one of his priorities was to reduce the student suspension rate.  He and the Chancellor, Carmen Farina, implemented new student discipline policies that required that principals get DOE Central approval before suspending students.  Another layer of bureaucratic bloat, just what an already bloated organization needs.  As spring break ends, the de Blasio/Farina administration will be further weakling the student discipline code as student insubordination  and elementary school suspensions will virtually be eliminated.

A study done by Chalkbeat found that 22% of all Principal recommended suspensions were rejected by DOE Central under the new student discipline policy last year.  The numbers are probably higher since many principals who may have wanted to suspend students for repeated insubordination and school disruptions didn't bother to fill out the paperwork, knowing that DOE Central would not agree to the suspension.  Instead, many of these students were sent right back to the classroom to interfere with instruction

The Bill de Blasio administration's lax student discipline policy that has reduced  suspensions by 36%  has also seen a corresponding rise in student misbehavior.  The alternatives to suspension has been restorative justice, warning cards, and mediation.  Few teachers have been trained in alternative techniques, since it costs time and money for the training.  The result is that many schools suffer from chaos as misbehaving students are pushed back into the classroom to distract, disrupt, and destroy instruction.

Add the ever weakening student discipline policy with the ill-advised cellphone policy especially in high poverty urban schools,and is it any wonder that schools must resort to academic fraud to jack up their graduation rate while pushing out academically unprepared students into high education or the job market?

I'm glad I am near the end of my career and feel really sorry for the "newbies" entering the system as they will be blamed for the student's lack of academic achievement when its our progressive Mayor and his disappointing Chancellor that is the real blame  for the school's failure to provide a real educational experience.

Mayor Bill De Blasio's Education Grade Is A Failure.

When Bill de Blasio campaigned to be Mayor in 2013, his education platform was very impressive,  It promised lower class sizes, an elimination of the despised Bloomberg Era education reform, and  a more teacher friendly DOE where collaboration would replace confrontation.  Moreover, he gave educators hope that Bloomberg era policies like school-based fair student funding, reassigned teachers for frivolous reasons, and the ATR crisis would be eliminated.  Finally, he promised to fully fund the public schools and stop the closing of schools.  How did the Mayor do in keeping his promises?  Not good, not good at all.

The Mayor's first mistake was his selection of Carmen Farina as Chancellor.  true, she's a long-term educator.  However, she was also Joel Klein's Deputy Chancellor and is part of the problem not the solution.  In fact, she retained 80% of the Bloomberg policymakers and as a result, few real changes happened in the Mayor's first term. Sure, she eliminated the useless and money sucking Children First Networks and gave back the Superintendents their authority.  However, her selection of Superintendents left much to be desired. Further, she has keep the destructive fair student funding, froze school budgets and allowed DOE Central to continue their bloated ways. Worse, she has allowed the ATR crisis to fester and has no real solutions to resolve the issue.  In addition, reassigned teachers were just as high as the last years of the Bloomberg era.   Finally, her apathy for veteran teachers was summed up by her statement she made to a conference of "newbie" teachers in 2014 when she said the following:

"New teachers should avoid the teacher’s lunchroom during the first few weeks. It’s where “the whiners” go to gripe".

Her attitude about veteran teachers has been picked up by principals, especially the Leadership Academy drones, who have been indoctrinated by the Bloomberg/Klein ideology and its little wonder that veteran teachers are being harassed to resign or retire throughout the system.

Second, the Mayor has utterly failed to reduce class sizes, his main campaign promise.  In fact even his Renewal Schools have class sizes at contractual limits.  That's no thanks to Chancellor Carmen Farina who has allowed schools to  continue to put their personal preferences over student academic achievement such as using teachers uncertified in the courses their teaching or allowing a sixth period, rather than hiring teachers certified in the content specialty.

Third, the schools remain underfunded at 89% of their fair funding, despite an ever increasing DOE budget.  Far too many schools lack proper resources, books, and technology to properly run a classroom.  Moreover, 25% of the New York City Public School classrooms have no air conditioning and school overcrowding is a problem in Western Queens.  Finally, many of the small Bloomberg high schools have no gym space and nothing is done about the lack of physical activity.

Fourth, despite promises to the contrary, 17 schools have or will close by the end of the school year, many of them from the failed Renewal School program.

Finally, the Mayor has bought into the Bloomberg narrative of raising the graduation rate while ignoring the academic fraud that is associated with the rising graduation rate, like "credit recovery", online or blended learning, scholarship requirements, and Principal pressure to pass failing students.

Overall, I must give the Mayor a failing grade of an "F".

The Sweetheart Endorsement Our Union Gave Mayor Bill De Blasio.

Last week Michael Mulgrew announced, without member input,  the endorsement of Mayor Bill de Blasio for reelection.  What "takebacks" did our disconnected union leadership negotiate with the Mayor to get the union's endorsement?  Nothing, nothing whatsoever.

It would have been nice if our union played hardball and demanded some "takebacks" from the Bloomberg era of massive "givebacks". Here are just some examples of the "takebacks" I would have liked to see.

Fair Student Funding:
Eliminate the school-based "fair student funding" that badly under fund schools .  Moreover, the fsf  forces principals to hire the cheapest and not the best teachers for their schools.  Finally, most schools only received 89% of the already stingy fsf

Class Size:
Where is the class size reductions promised by Bill de Blasio when he was running the first time?  Why didn't the union leadership hold the Mayor's feet to the fire?  Instead class sizes have remained largely unchanged and are the highest in New York State.

ATRs:
Despite promises to the contrary, few ATRs have landed permanent positions and there still is between 1,300 and 1,600 ATRs without permanent placements. Despite the school system averaging 4,500 vacancies annually, these experienced and veteran teachers have little chance to land a permanent position under present DOE policy that originated from the Bloomberg era.

Teacher Voice:
Teacher autonomy in the classroom has been replaced by administrative micromanaging and data mining.  Moreover, school policy is top down and teacher voice is ignored, when given, and the DOE is deaf when it comes to teacher complaints.  Be it incompetent and vindictive principals or lax student discipline.  Even complaints about academic fraud is more likely to get the teacher disciplined then the perpetrators.  Shouldn't our union leaders be pressuring the Mayor and his staff to empower teachers since empowered teachers result in better student academic outcomes.

Parking Passes:
How about giving school staff their parking passes back?  School staff was the most affected by Michael Bloomberg's limiting parking passes and made life more difficult for many teachers.

Unfortunately, our disconnected union leadership rather be the Mayor's valentine rather than demand "takebacks" for our support for his reelection.

Now Is The Time To Purge The Bloomberg Ideology From The DOE.

When Bill de Blasio replaced Micheal Bloomberg as Mayor of New York City most educators were hoping that a new spirit of cooperation between the DOE and schools would replace the antagonism that was foisted by the Mayor and his Chancellor, Joel Klein.  Instead, the new Mayor selected a Klein insider, Carmen Farina, as the Chancellor.  Sure, she was a long term educator but she also had a history.  First, being principal at P.S. 6 where she oversaw the turnover of 80% of her teaching staff and played games with student selection and funding.  Then as a Brooklyn District Superintendent who oversaw the Cobble Hill Regents cheating scandal and claimed knew nothing about it to investigators. Finally, as the Deputy Chancellor under Joel Klein, she imposed questionable learning programs from Columbia Teachers college on the public schools.  Yet our union leadership seemed pleased with the selection and told the members that there was a new tone at Tweed.

While the Chancellor did get rid of the useless and money sucking Children First Networks and any new applicants to the Leadership Academy must have at least 5 years of school experience, she retained 80% of the Bloomberg policymakers at DOE Central and froze school budgets.  Moreover, class sizes actually rose during her first three years and the ATR crisis remained unresolved.  Worst of all, the school based Fair Student Funding system remained that forced principals to hire the "cheapest and not the best teachers" for their schools.

Now that Bill de Blasio is up for reelection, he wants the UFT's endorsement and no longer has to worry about the news media since they blast him daily anyway.  Therefore, look for significant changes, starting with a new Chancellor, the end of the wasteful ATR pool that cost $100 million dollars yearly, and changes in school funding. This might be wishful thinking on my part  but I do look for significant changes at the DOE if Mayor Bill de Blasio wins a second term.

Regardless, its time to purge the Bloomberg ideology that hurts schools and student academic achievement.