NYC mayor Bloomberg has pushed the retention proposal through - and, say some, has signed his "death warrant" as well:
The proposal — one of the key components of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to reform the nation's largest school system — became particularly contentious during the past several days as parent groups and political leaders came out to oppose the idea. It was approved by an 8-5 vote Monday.
Three members of the education panel were fired by Bloomberg and were quickly replaced before the vote when they refused to support the mayor's plan.
"A few of the members didn't agree or were afraid they would be pressured by outsiders, politicized, so I replaced them with people who agreed with my views," Bloomberg said after he ordered two of his appointees removed. "This is what mayoral control (of the schools) is all about."
I suppose that's one way to look at it, although some critics say that his methods seem fit for a "Sopranos" episode. Bloomberg's made his challenge to the voters as well:
The Republican mayor has made improving the foundering 1.1 million-student system the focus of his first term and has said repeatedly that if he fails, voters should not cast ballots for him when he runs for re-election in 2005...
Monday's four-hour public meeting of the panel was interrupted frequently by shouts from some of the 300 audience members, many of whom opposed the mayor's plan.
"You've turned this into something political," Anthony Sarnikoff, the father of a third-grader, told the panel. "Now we parents are going to make this something political. Parents are a powerful voting bloc, and the mayor has signed his (political) death warrant tonight."
For a man who's courting death, Bloomberg seems surprisingly relaxed; he's surrounding himself with clowns instead of bodyguards.
Update: More from the NYTimes here:
Facing almost certain defeat in his effort to end automatic promotion for third graders, Mr. Bloomberg resorted to firing two of his hand-picked appointees to an educational advisory board to ensure that a new policy preventing the promotion of failing third graders passed.
The battle to end the practice of promoting children, whether they are ready or not, a procedure also known as social promotion, was one that Mr. Bloomberg was in no way willing to lose. The mayor sought control of the schools through state legislation the year he took office, and has made improving the schools the centerpiece of his administration. Just last week, he made clear that he would tolerate no distractions from his goals and called for the resignation of the deputy chancellor who had become shrouded in an ethics scandal...
Whether last night's episode becomes a victory for the mayor with parents and voters depends partly on how his tactics are perceived and at least as much on whether the new policy is a success. The end of social promotion in the third grade is greeted with skepticism from most education experts and has had mixed results in other cities. However, it will be years before this program can be judged in New York, and Mr. Bloomberg faces re-election in 2005.
On a related note, the New York Post gave victims of social promotion some ink:
High-school dropouts now enrolled in GED and job-training programs said they're victims of social promotion. Many of the 17-to-21-year-old students at the second-chance Brooklyn Job Corps Academy said they were promoted to high school unprepared - and now they're paying the price...
Kevin Raymond said he flunked math in the eighth grade, but was promoted to ninth grade anyway. "I jumped ahead to algebra, which I didn't know," said Raymond, a 20-year-old former Boys and Girls HS student. "That probably caused me to drop out"...
Christopher Barnes, 17, who dropped out of Westinghouse HS, said his problems started early on. "In elementary school, there were a lot of things I didn't know. I should have stayed one more year in elementary school," Barnes said.
"They just pushed me along to junior high school. When I got to high school, there were things I didn't expect. I saw a lot of math I didn't see before." Barnes said officials had twice threatened to hold him back in junior-high school, but promoted him after he attended summer school...
Kids who are passed along from the lower grades despite academic deficiencies hit a wall in high school - where there's no social promotion and they have to pass five Regents exams to obtain a diploma.
Former Canarsie HS student Amy Wreesman was cruising along, but then she flunked all her Regents exams, and couldn't graduate.
"The tests were too hard for me," she said.
Want to bet someone will read this and think, man, those Regents exams have got to go?
Posted by kswygert at March 16, 2004 10:19 AM