For the past dozen years, New York City has had a procession of school chancellors who were not educators: a banker, a prosecutor, a publisher, a former deputy mayor.
Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio made a daring–and wise– decision to select a professional educator to run the nation’s largest school system, which enrolls 1.2 million students. His search narrowed to three excellent candidates, all of whom are career professional educators: Joshua Starr, superintendent of the Montgomery County public schools, known for his strong stand against standardized testing; Kathleen Cashin, a member of the New York Board of Regents, who has valiantly opposed its unwise emphasis on high-stakes testing; and Carmen Farina, a seasoned educator and former deputy chancellor in the city school system.
De Blasio selected Farina, who promises to bring a new era of collaboration with parents, teachers, and principals. She brings humor, passion, and intelligence to the job. She spoke at the announcement about the joy of learning, a term unheard in the past dozen years. She spoke of celebrating the good work of dedicated professionals.
It is a new day in New York City. The era of punishing, blaming, and shaming professional educators is over. De Blasio announced that he will immediately scrap the A-F grading system that Mayor Bloomberg picked up from Governor Jeb Bush. He will initiate a moratorium on school closings and charter co-locations. Watch for more changes in store.
This is a great turn of events, not only for New York City, but for the nation.
Thank you, Mayor de Blasio.
Congratulations to our new Chancellor, Carmen Farina.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great news for you, New York! Congratulations!
SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE!!!! GREAT!!!! Now… to get this to spread to the other states…
After having worked as a teacher for 11 years under Bloomberg, it will be interesting to see what Ms. Farina brings to the position of Chancellor. I’m being cautiously optimistic, and adopting a wait-and-see attitude here.
Wow! de Blasio is off to a great start. Happy New Year!
Hooray!
Congrats NYC!
I’ll be the first to admit I’ve been skeptical, but my optimism meter has taken a noticeable upward leap since this announcement. This bodes well!
….the pendulum at work?
I hope it goes well and spreads to my state.
I too congratulate Chancelor Farina. Again I say support public schools but not the old ones, a new public school with a new system and philosophy. Only support schools with a plan. And this plan must realize that kids blossom differently and at different rates.
Real reform is a process, take that process to the next step as quickly as possible. This will clear the waters http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/is-stumbling-and-bumbling-good-thing.html
Now that’s what I call real hope!
let’s not forget this mayor’s political roots…. guess what, he was no centrist, no liberal; he was deeply committed to radical politics; it does the heart good to watch the emergence of a true progressive mayor. brick by stinking brick, the bloomberg legacy will be dismantled for the good of all new york public school students, parents and teachers. let us see how far the new mayor will go and buck the entrenched power brokers. quite a beginning.
Not to be a “Debbie Downer”, but do you consider either of these folks “radical” choices?:
William Bratton (Police Commissioner) (Rudy’s first commish)
Alicia Glen (Deputy Mayor for Housing) (Goldman Sachs Exec)
Also, it doesn’t give much hope to progressives like myself that he is going to be sworn in by Third Way / DLC Democrat Bill Clinton.
I expect we’ll see the same as we’ve seen from our current President: change on the outside, continuity on the inside. 😐
AABrown,
I lean in the direction of agreeing with you, but we shall have to wait, watch, and see. We shall also have to hound our city officials and representatives to always give OUR feedback to Mr. De Blasio.
Farina was better than all the other candidates . . . .
What GREAT news to start off the new year.
Hallelujah!!!!
Time will tell… sounds promising… but we shall see!
Can the first meeting between Tisch/King/Farina be streamed? 🙂
Let the hunger games be aired . . . .
Just saw a piece on the local news. Governor Cuomo will be shirking his traditional New Year’s responsibilities so he can attend DeBlasio’s inauguration; apparently unprecedented protocol. The commenter suggested that Cuomo needs the association with DeBlasio in order to appeal to progressive/left-wing democrats, all designed to improve his chances in the national presidential primaries.
So, maybe, just maybe, DeBlasio will have some influence over Cuomo’s rush to testing.
Time will tell.
The first article in the NYT about this appointment had this about the new chancellor’s background:
At P.S. 6, Ms. Fariña turned a school once ranked as 76th on a citywide reading test to fourth. Her strategy included replacing 80 percent of the staff — a difficult task, given tenure protections for teachers. “Once you create a climate in a building that is hard-working, people will find out whether they are comfortable with it or not,” she explained in 1999. “And then they have decisions to make.”
It should be interesting to see how public schools in NYC change.
That was 16 years ago.
Is it possible that she’s changed?
Will it ever be possible that you will also?
If this were a “reform” chancellor, there would be an agonizingly detailed analysis of the school’s demographics during this transformation. It would reveal that a highly selective (Fariña was known to brag that it was as hard to get into as Harvard) gifted-and-talented program and changing neighborhood residential patterns were likely responsible for the increase in scores.
I am super-excited (but also understandably skeptical) by her stated intention to make the DOE more responsive to parents (and hopefully that means all parents). And nothing in the world would make me happier than an emphatic, forceful, top-down edict that as of Jan 1, the massive overemphasis on test prep will end (test prep and adults freaking out over the tests are something the DOE can control, unlike the actual administration of the state tests, which they cannot).
Who pays you to write here? You can’t possibly be a real caricature? Even Pinochet liked nationalism and Howard Hughes liked hypochondria.
No one pays me to post here.
Can I pay you to not write here?
Do my posts make you that uncomfortable?
Do you have anything intelligent to ever offer?
If you are speaking to me, of course I do.
If you are speaking to Nano, I have hope that he/she will eventually do something other than try to find an ad hominem argument against me and address the real policy problems the country faces.
Guess who I was speaking to, TE . . . . .
I am not sure, as poster nano seems to have little to say other than to call me names and asked about how I earn a living. Do you think those are important contributions to discussing how to archive a better education for all?
Diane,
I am not raining on your parade or anyone else’s.
I am happy about this news.
But let’s really wait and watch as this proceeds . . . . .
Robert Rendo: I agree.
Cautiously optimistic…
Hope for the best, but be ready for whatever comes our way.
😎
P.S. Last I heard, this blog and a certain Señor Robert Rendo (among others) are not going away anytime soon. So there will be plenty of folks that will hold the feet of the education establishment to the fire if need be…
Thank you for all your efforts.
Yo le conozco, Senora (Senor? Senorita?) ?
Gracias para lo que parece un vinculo entre nosotros . . . . . y siempre para su comentario . . . Valen sus penas.
Yo he trabajado con Usted en el pasado, quizas?
One worry: is it true he brought in Rahm Emanuel’s advisory team for consultation? And if so, was it simply a gesture of politeness, or will he listen to folks who believe shutting down neighborhood schools was a move to be emulated? And what about testing, CCSS, APPR?
We have to quit talking about which people we should deamonize and start looking at actions. The leader will chose the direction. If they take every child from where they are, this will happen, and it will be only the beginning http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-personal-map-to-success.html
I agree that all students should have an IEP. How wonderful for parent(s) and child to meet with teachers, administrator, guidance counselor, etc. to discuss progress, direction, and goals.
Your idea of MAPS is interesting as well. But what makes you think that this isn’t already happening? Maybe not to the extent you are envisioning, but much of what you state has been a part of our local schools for a long time. Students do take courses at local colleges, sometimes the professors even come right to the school. And internships are also commonplace, both during the school year and over the summer. Electives are taught by Skype, so schools can share a teacher. We definitely need more innovations like these.
The main issue is that the CCSS is over riding the quality education which has already been developed with a substandard curriculum, thereby disregarding all progress achieved in education in the past few decades. And their flimsy excuse is that some children aren’t succeeding. Then they create a ridiculous test which almost everyone fails to prove their point.
And that is why we blog.
Yaaaaay! A public school teacher and principal! Someone who has walked in our shoes, classrooms, and schools. That speaks volumes – and says it all.
As a NYC teacher, I’m holding my opinion. I just heard a soundbite of Farina speaking. She said that it is time teachers got comfortable working with parents. What has she think we’ve been doing? It has been the Bloomberg administration who have not listened to the parents’ voices, not teachers. Hate to be pessimistic, but all she sounds like is another blowhard looking for a scapegoat. After years and years of being demoralized, the last thing we need is another condescending egomaniac.
Imagine actually picking someone who understands education to be a leader in education? What a creative idea.
It’s a step in the right direction. It almost gives one hope in the election process. The new mayor and chancellor have a lot of work to do (or should I say undo). Their success could translate to a new outlook on education for the whole state. We know Cuomo is watching. Perhaps those other two candidates might be a good replacement for King. Let’s finally use politics to favor the “common” folk and not the “common” core. Good luck to all.
The tide is turning, as I always knew it would. The American people are not stupid.
The past practices of politicians Is a sign of the disdain felt for educators as leaders in the field of education. There’s an attitude of “anyone can manage a school system – no experience required (after all, I was a student once so I know everything I need to know). This attitude has also led to the model of schools run as a business. The key sticking point is that children are not commodities, teacher’s aren’t factory workers, and principals are not foremen.
We are hopeful for NYC, because DeBlasio is actually putting control back in the hands of an experienced educator. We want Farina to be successful, not just for the million plus students in NYC, but because we want this model replicated across the state and country.
It’s okay to be hopeful. You go, girl!
Yes, I am very hopeful because I have confidence in the American people, who are mostly supportive of the hard-working teachers who elect to be with the children each day.
Good luck in NYC where the nation will soon see the vast amount of political power that parents and teachers have.
(I was born in Brooklyn.)
Linda – I was born in Brooklyn, too. Flatbush and Church. Lived near Erasmus HS went to PS249.
Let the healing begin. May the recovery of our public schools be one that shows true success for all our children.
Wonderful news from NYC, where all of the attacks on public ed began, remember? This is a huge step forward from a real progressive . . . and we expect to hear other great things as this mammoth system morphs into semblance of what we all envision as our PUBLIC schools of the future! My hat’s off to DiBlasio . . . actually taking ACTION on his promises. (I know, what a concept!)
Reblogged this on Crazy Crawfish's Blog and commented:
Great news for New York, and perhaps one of the first nails to be hammered into what I hope to see as the coffin holding the tarnished remains of school reform and reformers. We have our own elections for Governor and BESE coming up. I hope we make the right decisions for our children and our people and reverse the horrible education experimentation Jindal has wrought on our state.
Way to go, New York City! May your successes under your new Mayor quickly spread throughout the rest of your state as well as to all other states in the nation!
At least she seems to be capable of being realistic about the changes possible.
Bloomberg’s reign was characterize by radical drastic reforms, which left gaping holes to be gamed, that were later exposed, and either denied, excused, closed conveniently later, or justified as change being gradual when the reforms were anything but.
We do need some more radical changes from her – but of the anti-shock doctrine variety. We also need to see that the road plan doesn’t call for insane goals that will never be met. I get we need high expectations – but the system works better when people feel they can achieve the benchmarks set for them.
I am a parent of a NYC middle schooler as well as a speech therapist in the NYC public schools. I see firsthand everyday the effects of failed Bloomberg policies have on our city’s youngest and most vulnerable..and the ones without a voice. We are their voice. And tonight, after hearing this news, this voice rejoices.
Reblogged this on Middletown Voice.
Wonderful news. An educator in charge of educating!
Now how can we emphasize the importance of restoring kindergarten as an early childhood grade?
Farina sounds good, but she didn’t express (in your summary) opposition to high stakes testing. What you so hopefully hailed, will, I suspect turn out to more of the same-old, same-old, though I hope not.