Dennis Walcott, the chancellor of the Néw York City Department of Education, has announced the selection of Andrew Buher, age 27, to be Chief Operating Officer of the 1.1 million student school system.
Buher graduated from college in 2007. He came to wirk for the DOE in 2010. He started at $75,000 but soon doubled his salary to $152,000 as the chancellor’s chief of staff.
The salary for his new job is $202,000.
I am speechless.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yet another totally inexperienced “teacher” in charge. Wow.
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Buher will become the new Rhee.
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This is truly insane and most disgusting. Our government is out of control.
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What government…?
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and of course his total teaching experience is . . . . zero???
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makes perfect sense. It’s like a private becoming a 5 star general in a few years and with little real world experience. welcome to the future of corporate education.
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According to the NYC dept. of Ed–Prior to joining the DOE, Buher worked with KIPP and the Equity Project Charter School in Washington Heights.
http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/mediarelations/NewsandSpeeches/2012-2013/041213_wallcottappoints.htm
Walcott is surrounding himself with Charter “groupies”. He couldn’t possibly find one with any experience!
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If he did have any teaching experience, he would not qualify for the job. It’s a brand new day.
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But he wears nice clothes.
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Ah…he wears a suit. Bet he is dressed by a marketer.
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He is a suit! An empty one at that.
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I sure hope other states don’t follow New York City. Like I wrote earlier, this is insane. Watch…I wonder what school district who claims no money who will follow suit.
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It’s been painful, watching this process in our NYC schools. Giving Bloomberg charge of the DOE (actually: BOE at the time) was the hugest mistake we’ve ever made.
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Oh it gets even better, take a look at his LinkedIn profile, and you will see affiliation with the KIPP Foundation and the Equity Project Charter School. This has Bloomberg’s fingerprints all over it. What better way to destroy public education, than to take control of it and sabotage it from the inside out! Question is what is Bloomberg’s endgame? He already has money, so I can only guess he is going after political power via helping out powerful friends and installing inexperienced educrats to do his bidding.
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TFA no doubt? Or Broad?
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Watch out is all I can say. Looks like a go gettum corporate privatizer to me. No real experience. Watch closely.
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Unmitigated gall is what it is!!
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People should be measure by their competence, not their age. Would you have hired Dewey or Freire at 20? I would have … if he screws up, then fine, but don’t base it solely on age … that’s agist …
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My 6-year-old grandson is brilliant and wise beyond his years. I think he would make a splendid Deputy Chancellor. I am not ageist.
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Diane,
Is it possible to upload a picture here? I don’t know how.
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Linda, I don’t know how. Several people have sent instructions but I have not had time to try.
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Ok..me, too…but check email when you can.
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On what grounds is he not fit besides his age? I realize its a blog, but permit me to ask? It has nothing to do with agreeing or not agreeing with you, its rather a question of where and when we draw that line and why …
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So, then, would you clarify the age that you are qualified to perform these duties? Is it 30? 35? 40? I would like to know the proposal.
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dianerav: you are most polite.
Permit me. Now we have to add the “obviously excellent by means of inexperience” proclamation along with the “argument from authority” and “proof by assertion” to the edubullies’ debate arsenal. This is sad and potentially very injurious.
There was absolutely no one else, with say 27 or more years of proven experience and competence and moral integrity [reference Atlanta PS and DCPS] who was available? A lifetime tested under the most trying conditions in public education who could be tapped? Chancellor Walcott had no other choice than to pay such an exorbitant amount for on-the-job training?
Perhaps a little perspective on, well, perspective: “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” [Mark Twain]
Since when have the lives and futures of 1.1 million students been considered such a trivial matter that Chancellor Walcott would wager them on such a long shot gamble? I am appalled too.
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And Einstein wrote the work for which he later received the Nobel award when he was 26 … Again, I reiterate, what are the ideological ground upon which he is opposed. That should be the focal point.
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1) Age is nothing compared to experience. He has precious little of that.
2) These are the New York City PUBLIC Schools. His limited experience is with PRIVATE affiliated schools. Even with the advantages of smaller hand picked classes, state of the art technology and supplies, and no special needs children; these schools have proven themselves to be, at best, on par with the public schools they’re compared to and, most often, less effective.
3) Seriously: need you ask what the problem is with this appointment? The message is clear…it has been for more than a decade…but this is a smack in the face. This is not education reform. This is education deform.
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Forget age. It’s about the lack of experience. I too have academic credentials with an MBA in management and a BS in secondary education–both from fine universities. I earned these degrees by the time I was 23. However, I was green behind the ears when I took my first teaching job. You don’t know anything in those first five or so years. You second question every decision you make because of lack of experience. At that point in your career, you have no business running a school, let alone a city full of schools. How do you get this experience? You roll up your sleeves, get down in the trenches, and you teach. You teach children in poverty. You teach wealthy kids. You teach academic standouts, and you teach those who struggle. This gives you perspective. Then you advise clubs and learn that those clubs that the budget makers want to cut are actually where some of the kids feel at home. Those clubs are the reason some of them come to school. Then you coach some sports and that’s where you find out that some poor performers in the classroom can really be leaders. You serve on contract negotiating teams so that you can get perspective of both sides, management and staff. Then you live through horrific events with your students like when one of their siblings commits suicide on your homecoming day. You hold hands for support with your students when two of them are killed in a car accident during the week they are taking their Regents exams. These experiences happen over time. Then once you have enough experience that you can tap into to help you make decisions, then you are ready to be someone in charge. You have walked in the shoes of an educator. It took me 20 years to live through all of these examples, and I can guarantee that someone with my experience would be quite a bit more qualified for the position than this inexperienced appointee. My age does not matter. My experience matters because its the basis for every managerial decision to be made.
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For the same reason we don’t, generally, allow a person with no experience to be in charge of anything in this country.How about old enough to have experienced the day to day enormity of running the largest public school system in the country? He may be a genius, a savant, an amazing young man but he has not lived long enough nor experienced enough of life’s vagaries to be able to make good decisions about the NYC public school system and the plethora of problems, crises, and issues that arise on an hourly basis in such a system. I wish him well and I wish the NYC public schools well. They are in for a long and bumpy ride.
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Well, then let’s have an educated debate about that instead of presuming that there is some assumed cut-off age. What is it? 30? 35? Someone elsewhere on this site was complaining about a secretary at the fed being 35! That’s seems extreme. Also, although perhaps what you say usually pans out statistically speaking, aren’t there some outliers who break that rule? Some truly exceptional young minds that we should include in our efforts?
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That’s ridiculous. He doesn’t have the experience to be hired. There must be tons of applicants with more experience. Just because someone appears to be intelligent doesn’t mean they should lead people with far more experience. I can’t believe you are seriously saying this person should be given the right to leap frog people with real experience.
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Oemb1905,
“On what grounds is he not qualified?” I changed your question a bit because “fit” can be interpreted in a number of different ways. To answer the question, plain lack of appropriate experience. It’s the ol “not what you know but who you know” scenario.
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Thanks.
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I’ll tell you why this dude is not qualified. He’s a business person and education is not mean to be run the way a business is. He has no experience in the education field. Think of this way: Would you want a 27 year old who only has a background in business performing open heart surgery on you? Walcott should have picked an educator who has had at least 20+ years experience working for NYC public schools.
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If not age, maybe experience. And it seems to me that if he’s COO of a DOE a little TEACHING experience might be relevant to his position. But honestly, as an incredibly tired teacher who has served underprivileged kids through most of my career, I am most offended by that salary. It’s easily 4 times what an experienced teacher in most states is making. It speaks worlds of our values and the patriarchal nature (conquer, control, dominate, protect) of our institutions.
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Please don’t shove Dewey or Paulo Freire into your silly gotcha cannons. Freire was in college at 20, became Chancellor of the Sao Paulo Schools in 1989 at 68.
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How about just his lack of time to have any experience then…it won’t be ageist.
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Experience and age are directly correlated. Thankfully, wisdom is not. Now, I am not saying he has that wisdom, but I am not seeing anywhere here where there is criticism about how he does not …
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I am less concerned with his age than with his lack of teaching experience…I am increasingly concerned about people moving into education and making decisions for students and teachers who have NO idea what goes on in classrooms…
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I second that.
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…and third, thanks.
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Age…no big deal, there are a lot of talented people who are young. Total lack of teaching experience and a background full of involvement with those in the anti-public-school movement? There’s your big deal.
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Diane,
A bit slow tonight and off to bed soon, but I figured out a different way..see here:
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I love it!
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Well, he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night…
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Is this the “take over education” cohort?
http://www.educationpioneers.org/what-we-do/alumni-cohorts?year=2009&loc=New%20York
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Is this the “take over education” cohort?
http://www.educationpioneers.org/what-we-do/alumni-cohorts?year=2009&loc=New%20York
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Read the “Our Mission and Values” statement. Everything is based on the assumption that our educational system is broken and needs to be replaced by these people and their like minded cohorts.
Our educational system is not broken. The numbers have been rigged and the blame for those manipulated numbers has been assigned to “self serving” teachers who have no regard for the welfare of the the children they teach.
This is an advertising campaign. Pure and simple. Do you want to market your product successfully? First deride and destroy public confidence in the already existing product. Then create a large scale campaign that will portray your product as the far superior, up to date one that will “save the day”.
How I wish the public could see what I’ve seen in our schools. The corruption, waste, fraud, and lies. Do they really think that it ended with the dissolution of the BOE? It was all just replaced by a better polished one with a much, much different agenda.
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Sure, he has an impresive resume. But to run operations for the largest school District in the nation? Are there really 0 people in the United States who can do this job who have a tad bit more education experience than he has? He has less education experience than TFA-ers! But, I get it, the education reformers believe that the key to improving public education is to actually get more people who don’t have education experience telling people who do have experience what to do.
I have heard that TEP is a mess too (but I can’t verify that for sure. Someone told me he heard from someone else who works there….so it’s a few degrees removed from me.)
Cohort: 2009 New York
Fellowship Placement: The Equity Project Charter School
Education: M.P.P., Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs
Current Position: Chief of Staff to the Chief Operating Officer, New York City Department of Education
Andrew Buher joined Education Pioneers in New York City in the summer of 2009. As a Fellow, Andrew worked at The Equity Project (TEP) Charter School where he was responsible for a portfolio that included development, operations, and event planning. Before graduate school, Andrew served as President/Chief Operations Officer of College Outreach, a national non-profit organization that seeks to educate low-income high school students about the advantages of a college education and provide information to them about the entire process of preparing for, choosing and applying to college. Additionally, he worked as an independent public sector consultant where he dealt with both school districts and hospitals. As an undergraduate, he was one of 85 students selected nationally to serve as a Presidential Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency in Washington D.C. He also has a long history of local and state government involvement having served a term on the Lawrence Township Affordable Housing Committee and in the office of the New Jersey Governor. Andrew will complete his Master’s in Public Affairs from Columbia University in 2010.
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I see nothing that impresses me. Why would he be chosen?
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Weak minded “leaders” need sychophants who will worship and never question them.
They live in the same deform bubble and do not put up with dissension. They are always the smartest person in the room.
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Educator, DeeDee and Linda: yes, yes and yes.
There was something that kept nagging at me after I went to the ”Education Pioneers” website and looked at the “Bios: 2009 New York” of their “Alumni Cohort.”
I suddenly remembered. David Halberstam’s THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST (1972) detailed how the “whiz kids” of another time pursued in Vietnam “brilliant policies that defied common sense” in large part because they fancied themselves above such constraints as experience and real-world consequences. Any of you remember Robert McNamara, one of those whiz kids from Harvard? See THE FOG OF WAR.
If time travel really is possible, maybe we in the twenty first century have been invaded by the ‘best and brightest’ of the twentieth.
And they still can’t seem to get it right.
But you three are. Keep posting, I will keep reading.
🙂
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I started teaching the same year this man was born. I earn exactly half of what he makes. That is little short of criminal.
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New Yorkers have had it. I give him a couple of months before he realizes he’s just a figurehead and his inexperience will be evident through his fumbling responses to the likely barrage of scrutiny from the grassroots movement. It will virtually impossible for him to field inquiries from the people. He will not be allowed to cause any more damage.
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Why is this so shocking when our secretary of education has appointed a 35 year old, Massie Ritsch, as Acting Assistant Secretary, Office of Communications and Outreach. This young man has no education background, but is our top dog for communicating our education agenda to the United States and the world. Now that is shocking.
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I am not sure if this is the same person, but during the recent USDOE Occupy event, high school students from Colorado and Washington met with an outreach person who they reached out to (not the other way around) and as reported by the teens, he was not aware of any of the recent student protests, MAP or state testing. He didn’t know anything about it.
I guess they “reach out” only when the story fits their false narrative: kids who love testing, teachers who don’t want due process rights….I suppose this DOE drone checks in with Gates and Broad before he starts work everyday.
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Now, your second point, that he has no education background is completely overlooked, even by allies such as myself, when you wrap it in language that bashes age instead of content.
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I’m totally with you on this, oemb1905: the importance of semantics in debate is indisputable. Key points are so often overlooked because they are coupled with concepts that are based more on opinions that may contradict other listeners’ points of view…which ends up stalling the communication.
In this case, particularly: I work with some brilliant teachers who are 24 years old. The age isn’t really a factor with these people. They will be excellent teachers. They still ask me for guidance, at times…and I’m happy to give it.
They ask me for advice because of my experience. They’re smart enough to know when they need that help.
I’m sure that Mr. Buher is a very bright fella. Well…actually…I’m sure Cathie Black is pretty bright, as well. But look where that got her and the rest of the city during her brief tenure as Schools Chancellor. She had no business being appointed to that job and everybody knew it.
I digress: I agree with you. We too often turn off the other point of view when it’s coupled with opinions that are more debatable. Age isn’t necessarily a determiner of experience. I think the coupling, in this instance, comes from the fact that experience is, for the most part, acquired through years of time spent in a field or fields of expertise. Which is called “experience”. To truly lead, one must have a full understanding of what it is that he or she is being put in control of, in the first place.
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I am sure that this young man and the rest of these young people picked for these high positions in education, will go on to run for political positions. They have found a quick and easy way to do it. Like the young people on American Idol. We have become a country of lazy and fast. Insread of wanting to put in the time and the effort to make a name for themselves they want the prestige and money right now.
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Who would be dumb enough and corrupt enought to hire them in the first place?
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So ……Who wrote his resume and…..who is he related to ??? Does he play basketball??
Marge
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Well, he went to school and college, so he is obviously smart. Because he went to school, he can run one, right? It can’t be that hard, can it? (Obviously, I am being sarcastic)
Our department head is not much older than Mr. Buher. When she first took the position, she was always calling one of my colleagues for advice on what to do and how to proceed with certain things. Young people can be competent, but a young person without a lot of teaching background is not a wise choice. But I don’t think Bloomberg is going for wisdom.
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And a young, inexperienced no body will lead them. This boy will take directions well and will ask no questions. The perfect fall guy.
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Exactly! Just another Yes Man!
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Yet you supported a college junior for a school board position. How do you reconcile the difference in your reaction?
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Ededed
Stephanie is running for office in a democratic election. That is everyone’s right in a free society.
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Just as it’s a right to appoint a 27 COO. We aren’t talking about democratic rights legality, but best practice. You aren’t saying the 27 year old appointment is illegal, just probably not the best choice.
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This is becoming a new thing everywhere. Where I live at, there is 30 year old CEO of a major hospital (2,000 beds). He has zero experience in nursing or clinical medicine. The factor is organizations are being ran like business, whether it is a hospital or a school.
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My friend and I have been comparing notes about our work: hospital (medicine) and school (education.) We realize they are the same parallel path of destruction. What a way to impact almost every individual, young and old, in a country and hold them hostage at every stage of life!
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Well…it just goes to show that it’s not what you know…but who you know.
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27 years old. I guess their paying for wisdom. :>)
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should be they are…
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Another young whipper-snapper on the rise? Future superintendent of MNPS?
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013304140080
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So many wisecracks. So little time.
A) I hope he’s in my bunk at camp this summer.
B) He is an excellent choice to run the school system since he just got out of school.
C) The CUNY Chancellor position just opened. Perhaps, he’s interested in applying. He could double his salary, and, as a recent college graduate, he’d be one of the gang.
D) He was hired because the first choice wasn’t available until June 22 when he graduates.
E) Who’s his relative?
F) He could probably do the job for another 50 years.
G) I wish him luck. But it’s comforting to know there’ll be no late meetings because dinner is served promptly at 6.
H) It’s not often you get a COO with a paper route.
I) Forget COO, there’s still time for him to be schools chancellor before the year’s end.
For those who think age should not be an issue, there is nobody alive who, at age 27, has the appropriate experience to run a school system with 1.1 million children and a multi-billion dollar budget. It’s not that it’s his age. He hasn’t done anything.
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