Arthur Goldstein is a high school teacher in New York City. He blogs at New York City Educator.
The New York State Legislature gave Mayor Bloomberg control of the New York City public schools in 2002. Here is Arthur Goldstein’s assessment of Mayor Bloomberg’s decade of near-total control:
When Michael Bloomberg came into office, there was quite a lot of talk about mayoral control. After all, as always, the schools were in crisis. Op-eds warned end of the world was imminent if we did not address this crisis immediately. Mayor Bloomberg’s predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani, had attempted to procure control, but was frequently preoccupied with lawsuits (like the one demanding the right to bring his mistress into the home he shared with his wife and young children).
Bloomberg had a vision, a vision in which our Board of Education was replaced with a Panel for Educational Policy. In order to give some semblance of democracy to this vision, each borough president was allowed to select a representative. But Mayor Bloomberg would get 8 of the 13 votes, and any borough that stood in his way could go to hell. Also, any mayoral rep that voted against Bloomberg’s wishes, or contemplated doing so, would be fired. Thus, we learned much about Michael Bloomberg’s interpretation of democracy.
Also, to fix the supposed problem of educators presuming to run schools, Bloomberg would do away with the quaint notion of a master educator becoming principal, traditionally short for “principal teacher.” Instead, he’d get more business-oriented types to whip teachers into shape. I’ve only met one Leadership Academy grad, but I was amazed at his ability to speak jargon and slogans in lieu of English. Most teachers, like me, would much rather place their faith in someone who spent at least a good decade in the classroom.
To improve education, Bloomberg would close schools, and their problems were to magically disappear with their names. Large Neighborhood High School would become four schools, the International School of Niceness, the Michael Bloomberg School of Basket Weaving, or what have you. Only by the time the school opened, the Niceness principal was replaced with a Leadership Academy principal, and the basket-weaving principal would be replaced by someone who couldn’t tell a basket from a bucket.
New York City’s neediest kids, like the ESL students I serve, failed to disappear as planned and continued to pull down test scores, apparently the only thing Mayor Bloomberg cared about. No matter how many schools he closed, kids who didn’t speak English persisted in answering questions incorrectly. Being a lowly teacher, incapable of thinking out of the box, my instinct would have been to teach them English. But Mayor Bloomberg deemed it more productive to close more of their schools. As he closed schools in their neighborhoods, high-needs kids moved to nearby schools, which would soon close as well.
But Mayor Bloomberg (after getting Christine Quinn to help revoke a term-limit regulation twice affirmed by voters) had good news while purchasing term three. Miraculously, state scores had gone up! Diane Ravitch examined NY State’s NAEP scores and said it was too good to be true. And after she endured much criticism from Bloomberg and his minions, it turned out she was right.
Sadly, after having elected Mayor Bloomberg for yet another term, his much-vaunted accomplishments melted right before our eyes. Yet he was determined to stay the course, and went right on closing schools. I attended hearings at Jamaica High School where virtually the entire community got out and no one was in favor of its closing. UFT chapter leader James Eterno made a very persuasive case that the closing was based on false statistics. Yet Eterno, and indeed Jamaica’s entire community were ignored as the PEP rubber-stamped its closing (as it does for every closing).
More recently, Mayor Bloomberg tried one of President Obama’s initiatives, the turnaround model, for some schools. This, apparently, would draw funding and give kids who don’t speak English a chance to pass tests (or something). However, he was displeased when the UFT failed to agree with how to use junk science to evaluate teachers, and thus planned to close dozens of schools instead.
When the UFT finally agreed on a junk science framework, Bloomberg was horrified that 13% of poorly rated teachers could get impartial hearings, and decided to close the so-called turnarounds anyway. An arbitrator ruled against that. Though the mayor decided that the arbitration he’d agreed to was unfair, having not gone his way, he was shut down in court.
Even now, Mayor Bloomberg is still not satisfied the new junk science plan will realize his long-cherished wish of firing teachers arbitrarily and capriciously. That’s why he shot down the plan his DOE agreed upon on the last day it could’ve save $250 million, or 1% of NYC’s education budget. (Not much coverage was given to the fact that Mayor Bloomberg had already cut 14% of the budget, all by himself, since 2007.)
I have been teaching in a trailer for most of the time Mayor Bloomberg has been in office. Mayor Bloomberg promised to get rid of them by 2012. In 2007, there were about 400 trailers. Now, there are about 400 trailers.
That’s symbolic of Mayor Bloomberg’s educational progress. A less visible symbol is the disappearing neighborhood school. To me, a school anchors a neighborhood much better than, say, a department store, or even a Moskowitz charter school. Francis Lewis High School, for my money the best neighborhood high school still standing, is one of the few large high schools Bloomberg has spared. Our neighborhood, our students, and our staff are better off for that. Nonetheless, we survive despite how the mayor treats us, not because of it.
And since Mayor Bloomberg does not believe in satisfactory or unsatisfactory ratings, I’ve devised a new one just for him—completely ineffective. I’m quite sure history will vindicate that rating, if only Michael Bloomberg is not paying the salary of whoever writes the history book.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It all depends on how you look at it.
If the intention was to destabilize schools and communities, and neutralize the ability of teachers to have some say over their work lives, then Bloomberg has literally been a smashing success.
If the intention was to improve the schools and opportunities for NYC public school students, well, not at all.
How much darker must it get before a glimmer of light appears? At the moment, the policies governing the public schools are a black hole of malice, incompetence and corporate groupthink.
Hear, hear!
Mr Goldstein, 3 quick questions: 1. Are you familiar with the Julia Richman complex, in which groups of teachers have been given the opportunity to create new small schools. This has been in operation for more than a decade. One of the people who runs a school in that building is Ann Cook, who has helped develop alternatives to the Regents exam.
2. Just wondering what you think of that effort.
3. Wondering what you think of the New Visions Schools – small schools throughout the city created by groups of teachers, sometimes with the help of a social service agency. Sometimes this produced small schools within large buildings. I’ve visited these a number of times with district educators and found the teachers think highly of the opportunity to do this.
Thanks for letting me know what you think.
And in Chicago we can anticipate all this coming soon. We can only hope Rahm isn’t reelected and work tirelessly to that end.
I can’t help but wonder why reformers are so intent on destroying schools. The argument exists that they want to create a nation of illiterate workers who will do what they are told. But to what end? If there aren’t enough middle class people to drive the economy with their purchasing power, who is going to buy the products of those workers?
Middle markets have been drying up for a long time now. The only markets needed will be the cheap junk market for the masses, and the high-end, upscale, luxury markets for the elite. Both the high-end and the low-end markets have been doing very well lately and there is plenty of money to be made in either.
Nittany89, as you appropriately wish people to respect the work of teachers, I hope you will respect at least the intent, if not the strategies, of many people trying to improve schools. I have spent 42 years at this, as an inner city public school teacher, administrator, parent, PTA president and in other roles.
I have worked with a variety of educators, deeply frustrated with the existing structure, who have helped start and work in charters. Some are delighted, some disappointed by their experiences with the charter public school world.
Opportunities also have come to work with governors, legislators and business people. In the vast majority of cases, I’ve found people deeply committed to improving rather than “destroying” schools. You may not like their strategies (and I agree sometimes and disagree sometimes) but I do not think they are about “destroying schools.”
Thanks for considering these ideas.
Joe, as a teacher myself, I absolutely respect what goes on in the classroom. I do understand that many want to imnprove schools, but so much of what has happened seems to fly in the face of reason. Perhaps living in Pennsylvania has skewed my perception. Our governor seems determined to dismantle public education, and it doesn’t appear that he is going to stop. A few years ago, he slashed the education budget, causing many districts to cut positions such as librarians, PE teachers, music and art teachers. All this while giving tax breaks to a company drilling for natural gas. There was also an attempt to quietly force through a voucher bill, I think, which failed.
I know many people do care, but it seems like many are following their own agenda.
Thanks for your note. I agree that many are following their own agenda. Having attended a workshop led by Saul Alinsky in Chicago in the fall of 1969, and having been involved in many efforts to improve district public schools, I completely agree that people follow “their own agenda.” A key is to find ways that people who may disagree about some things can find ways to work together on other, important issues.
For example, there is a large group of folks who want a major expansion of the way that schools and students are assessed, beyond traditional standardized, multiple choice tests. Some of us are working together. Part of the reason I post here is to find others who would like to work on that.
thanks again for your note.
Mayor Bloomberg’s primary goal is to “destroy” and “privatize” education in NYC.
Hello everyone , after reading this blog and all of your comments i have become increasingly interested in hearing what more people think of Mayor Bloomberg and his administrations education reform tactic. I’m a student at the School of Journalism at Stony Brook university and I am working on an article about the Public school system and would love to chat with a few of you to add your perspective to my story.