Showing posts with label Schools Chancellor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Schools Chancellor. Show all posts

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina 'Beautiful Day' Delusion As Killer Snow Storm Strikes New York City

New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina faced resounding criticism today as she decided to keep New York City public schools open on a day of a massive snow storm that destroyed a ferry ramp in Brooklyn and a snow plow ran over and killed a pregnant woman in Brooklyn. Chancellor Farina said of the weather conditions : "It's absolutely a beautiful day out there."

Carmen Farina Snow Day NYC My Cousin Vinny photo MyCousinVinni_zps1564191c.jpg

School attended was about 45%, according to The New York Daily News. Earlier in the day, Mayor Bill de Blasio added the controversies surrounding the city's response to the snow storm when the mayor insulted NBC Today Show weathercaster Al Roker. Before the snow storm struck New York, it had killed more than a dozen people. After Mr. Roker said that people should take this snow storm seriously, Mayor de Blasio said, "It's a different thing to run a city than to give weather on TV."

On Twitter, Chancellor Farina's "beautiful day" remarks were transformed into hilarious memes with lightning speed.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Cathie Black Schools Chancellor e-mails

Cathleen P Black eMails - NYC Schools Chancellor - Village Voice public records request

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

CityTime Mayoral Control Freak

Michael Bloomberg Has Been Advocating Mayoral Control Over Everything, Including Espousing An End To Progressive Era Reforms, But Mayor Bloomberg Accepts No Responsibility That Comes With Being A Control Freak.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has asserted mayoral control over the public education system, trans fats, and even sugary sodas.

We have even reached a state, where the famous photographer Clayton Patterson has described how citizens need protection from Mayor Bloomberg's out-of-control need to control (aka ''destroy'') everything that is good about New York City.

AND YET, in the aftermath of the theft of what may turn out to be over $100 million in taxpayer money connected to fraudulent consulting fees (Investigators and prosecutors can only now prove that $80 million was stolen, but the scandalous CityTime project is $650 million over budget, so the investigations and audits are not yet done.), Mayor Bloomberg claims he was caught unaware of the corruption. According to an editorial, The New York Post holds that Mayor Bloomberg is responsible for the ''breakdown'' that lead to the CityTime scandal.

Mayor Bloomberg, and his deputy mayor, Stephen Goldsmith, have been arguing that we need to end many progressive era reforms, which were enacted to put a check on this very kind of corruption, because, in their ideological worldview, they want city managers to have more discretion over the business of New York City.

City Councilmember Letitia James, who is acting more and more like a public advocate, is criticising Mayor Bloomberg for his negligence. Did the mayor and his deputy mayor not know that when you give city managers, including mayors and deputy mayors, unchecked discretion over running the business of the city, that you lay the groundwork for spectacular corruptions to take place ?

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Job Blocker Sues NY State Over Cathie Black's Appointment

Cathleen Black's Education Waiver Challenged in a Lawsuit by Students' Parent

The father of two New York City public school students filed a lawsuit against state education officials on Friday to stop Cathleen P. Black, a celebrity, from becoming the next New York City schools chancellor, reported The New York Times.

The lawsuit, which The Times described as an Article 78 proceeding, is a legal action intended for a court to perform a speedy review of governmental actions. The lawsuit was filed by Eric J. Snyder of Park Slope, and it was the first formal legal challenge to Ms. Black’s controversial appointment. The Times report added that more lawsuits are expected.

Meanwhile, it was separately reported last week that Mayor Michael Bloomberg personally ordered the removal of a teacher, Melissa Petro, who had blogged about her past sexual experiences. City officials, it was reported, believe that Ms. Petro's past love life constitutes ''conduct unbecoming a teacher.''

For her part, Ms. Black, the incoming New York City schools chancellor, also has a sordid past. One month before Ms. Petro blogged about her sex life, Ms. Black herself gave a radio interview in which Ms. Black was promoting a sex app, which Ms. Black described as, ''cheaper than a hooker.''

No word yet on whether Ms. Black's hot sex app constitutes ''conduct unbecoming a chancellor.''

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Mike Bloomberg Says Crow Tastes Like Chicken ; Schools Chancellor Deal is an ''Illusion of Concession''

David Steiner first opposed the Cathleen Black nomination, and Mr. Steiner made Mayor Bloomberg eat some crow. Nonplussed, Mayor Bloomberg said, ''Tastes like chicken.''

Mayor Michael Bloomberg reached a face-saving deal to rescue his tottering nomination of Cathleen Black to become the next New York City Schools Chancellor. In reaching his compromise, Mayor Bloomberg has agreed to appoint a career educator to serve as Ms. Black's second in command.

The New York Daily News is calling the Bloomberg-Black-Steiner deal an ''illusion of a concession.''

Ms. Black's new underling, who will hold the title of chief academic officer, is more qualified than Ms. Black herself, not only to overcome the judgment by the state education commission that Ms. Black lacks any qualification to be the next schools chancellor. But even The New York Times has reported that the duties of Ms. Black's new chief academic officer are actually the duties of the school chancellor. Who's your manager ?

From The Times report :

After several days of talks with state officials, Mr. Bloomberg agreed to create the position of chief academic officer to oversee curriculum and testing at the city’s Department of Education. Under the deal, that job would go to Shael Polakow-Suransky, a former principal of a Bronx high school who is a top official at the city’s Department of Education.

But exactly how much authority Mr. Polakow-Suransky, 38, will wield is unclear. A job description prepared by the city said he would have “the broadest scope for the exercise of independent initiative and judgment” and listed 25 duties, including many that would normally fall to the head of a school system. But Mr. Polakow-Suransky will still report to Ms. Black, who is accustomed to setting the agenda in the rough-and-tumble world of corporate culture.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Cathie Black Nomination Doomed

Opposition Grows to Mayor Bloomberg’s Pick for NYC Schools Chancellor

In The New York Daily News, the President of United Federation of Teachers, Michael Mulgrew, expressed criticisms of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's appointment of Cathleen Black to succeed Joel Klein as the next schools chancellor.

The appointment has created a public outrage that proves to expose growing voter anger at Mayor Bloomberg's misuse of mayoral powers, especially in the aftermath of the term limits scandal.

The same Daily News article reported that Chairman of the City Council's Education Committee, Robert Jackson, disputed the mayor's claim that the mayor had engaged in a public process in making the nomination. Councilman Jackson called the mayor's insinuation a, "lie," and Councilman Jackson added that he would hold hearings on the appointment.

The blogger, artist, and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy has even created a YouTube video in which she criticises Ms. Black.

Meanwhile, in a separate article in The New York Times, the mayor's office is described to be in serious damage control. The public ''uproar'' has ''frustrated City Hall aides, who feel as if they have lost control of the story line and who are looking for ways to beat back accusations that Ms. Black is unqualified, said an individual close to the process who requested anonymity for fear of upsetting the mayor,'' wrote the reporter Javier C. Hernandez in The Times.