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January 12, 2009
What’s important about Shelly Silver’s Joel Klein-phobia
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (via Flickr)
The New York Post’s headline today — “SILVER IS DISIN-KLEIN-ED” — is a fun, gossipy way of getting at a really important story.
The thing is, it’s not just Sheldon Silver, speaker of the Assembly, who doesn’t like Joel Klein. Many of Silver’s colleagues in the legislature are in the same boat. I first cataloged the grievances of a list of state senators and Assembly members in August. That was more than a year after an assemblyman from the Bronx, Ruben Diaz Sr., became the first public official to call on Bloomberg to fire Klein. Since then, I haven’t found any lawmakers who don’t complain about Klein. In fact, I’ve actually met one state senator, Kevin Parker of Brooklyn, who ideologically is in line with the administration, but opposes its reforms.
The best explanation for this bad blood that the Post provides is this one, from “an official who knows both men”: “You have two guys who both think they’re the smartest guy in the room. Those two guys aren’t going to like each other.”
But my understanding is that there’s more than personalities at play here. There’s a substantive difference in policy.
What lawmakers don’t like about Klein is actually the same thing they don’t like about mayoral control: Both make a point of shutting the political process out of the school system. Mayoral control abolished community school boards on the grounds that they had become corrupt sources of patronage. Klein takes the argument a step further, contending that school boards not only held the schools in a deadlock but exacerbated inequities.
So when lawmakers call seeking answers about, say, why a neighborhood school is getting closed or why a constituent isn’t going to her preferred school, they not only can’t turn anymore to the school board; they also are unlikely to get an answer if they turn to the Klein administration. This is a source of pride for Klein, but a source of rage for lawmakers, who say the administration has gone beyond abolishing patronage and abolished any consultation whatsoever.
It’s an interesting and important difference in opinion about the best way to run the public schools. But of course, the angry lawmakers are the ones who ultimately will vote on mayoral control this year, not Klein.
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January 12th, 2009 5:51 pm
It’s not just the sorts of questions you mention that Klein refuses to answer. As you quoted AM Audrey Pheffer in the NY Sun, “What kind of politics is he trying to take out of the schools?” she said. “Is it when maybe a politician calls and says, ‘Gee, I’d love this kid in this class.’ Is that what he’s talking about? Or is it when I call and say, ‘Gee, what are you doing with the extra billions of dollars that I gave you?’”
Klein (and Bloomberg) act like petty dictators, as though they can operate without any consultation, and do not have to respond or comply with state mandates, regulations, or the concerns of any stakeholder group. It is no wonder that legislators — as well as every other stakeholder group– are fed up with this administration.
As Gary Babad has pointed out on our parent blog, the real stakeholders of the public school system under Bloomberg/Klein are not parents, nor teachers, nor any elected representatives, but the the Gates and Broad foundations, the business community, and their billionaire buddies.
None of these groups have children in public schools, and none of them have ever been elected. What they do have is deep pockets, which is rather ironic because Bloomberg’s great advantage was supposed to be that he was so rich himself that he was uncorruptible.
Which makes it even more absurd the way in which Klein has teamed up with Al Sharpton to supposedly “represent” the oppressed masses.
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January 12th, 2009 8:01 pm
Maybe the legislators, Bloomberg and Klein could figure out how many schools would fit in the new Yankee Stadium.
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January 12th, 2009 8:05 pm
Doesn’t Klein personally respond to every email he gets? Don’t jump on me as the mole, I’m only asking a question! I’ve heard this tidbit and I tried it once and sure enough, he replied within minutes. Perhaps if I was angry, and powerless, he wouldn’t have replied at all - or the reply would have been nonsubstantive and a dead end. I don’t know.
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January 12th, 2009 10:57 pm
to paraphrase, “You like to be kissed before you are screwed,” Klein seems to take pleasure in totally cutting any elected official out of the process … no consultation, no acknowledgement of their very existence … the public votes for elected officials who are expected to vote for budgets … with absolutely no accountability … the Greeks called it hubris … false pride … a fatal malady.
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January 13th, 2009 6:49 am
Politics have not been taken out of the system but simply shifted exclusively to the mayoral level. The first and last consideration for any decision maker in the Department of Education is ‘How will this reflect upon the mayor?’. For example, the RAND Corporation was hired to conduct a comprehensive review of 5th grade test-based retention policy. Over 500 pages of reports, surveys and findings were produced but withheld from the public until when? August 2009, after the mayoral control is renewed or terminated.
Or consider another area of policy historically very politicized — school construction. The administration does not comprehensively assess the need for new capacity, then build the projects we can fund, instead they define the need as what can be funded. There cannot be any perception that the mayor is not meeting the needs of public school children.
Or simply look at the 12-14 staff who do press relations. If politics had been removed, then couldn’t the Chancellor speak to the press without having to extensively manage them?
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January 15th, 2009 7:53 pm
[...] Joel Klein has spent his tenure dissing State legislators , example after example of treating the electeds with disdain. Whether it be closing of schools in their districts, or transparency of funding or programs, announcements are spun out by the communication cadre at Tweed, totally ignored the needs, desires or questions of elected officials. [...]
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