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citizen's arrest
July 7, 2009
Charles Barron: Chancellor Klein is illegally occupying Tweed
City Council member Charles Barron outside Tweed Courthouse yesterday. (GothamSchools Flickr)
City Councilman Charles Barron tried to haul Schools Chancellor Joel Klein off to jail yesterday but left Tweed Courthouse empty-handed.
His attempted citizen’s arrest came during a rally yesterday to protest Mayor Bloomberg’s continued school control even after mayoral control legally expired last week. Midway through event, Barron took the microphone and ascended Tweed’s steps, some of the crowd following him.
“They are in there illegally,” he said when he got to the doors, which were closed. “They should have to leave. This is the people’s building now.” The doors had been open earlier during the event.
“This is a citizen’s arrest,” he declared, ostensibly because Klein did not vacate his offices after mayoral control technically ended. (In fact, the newly convened Board of Education voted the next day to rehire Klein as chancellor and give him the same authority he had before the mayoral control law expired.)
“Is the chancellor in there?” he asked the security guards on the other side of the glass doors. “No? Tell him I’m looking for him.”
Barron, who has called for Klein to be fired before, said a longtime community activist, Jitu Weusi, should be the chancellor. Weusi was a lead organizer of yesterday’s event, which attracted about 100 people from across the city. (View more pictures from the rally.)
Back down on the sidewalk, City Councilman Robert Jackson, head of the council’s education committee, said he supported Barron’s move. “Clearly, people need to express themselves,” he told me.
Jackson said he was surprised last week when all but one of the borough presidents lined up to use their Board of Education picks to support the mayor’s power. “What surprised me most was that a resolution was put forward by the Board of Education to encourage the Senate to keep the same rubber stamp,” he said, referring to the fact that the school board under mayoral control, known as the Panel for Educational Policy, never rejected any of the mayor’s policies. Jackson and other speakers praised Patrick Sullivan, the lone PEP member who voted against the mayor’s policies at times. Sullivan attended part of the rally but did not speak at it.
People attending yesterday's anti-mayoral control rally program Sen. John Sampson's number into their cell phones. (GothamSchools Flickr)
Over and over, speakers encouraged attendees to call Sen. John Sampson to urge him not to back down in the mayoral control fight. Sampson has said he is pushing for more parent involvement in school decision-making.
At least one of those calls happened during the event. A woman dialed Sampson’s office and held her phone up as Muba Yarofulani, a Brooklyn parent leader, described her vision for greater parent involvement.
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July 7th, 2009 2:31 pm
Serious question as to the Chancellor’s powers:
Are they not now GREATER than pre-June 30?To whit: On July 1, the Bored (sic) of Ed voted to officially imbue Chancellor Klein with all of the contracting power he had given to himself.
Had the PEP ever done that?
Did the now-sunset Mayoral Control Law?
Are these powers not greater — at least during this interim period — than even the Assembly’s Silver bill?Re BoE voting to endorse further potted plantedness. Again, irony — and mockery of the law — alive and well at Tweed…
P.S. Note to KS: 100 > 6. Amazing what a last-minute flyer can do. Cheers.
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July 7th, 2009 2:39 pm
Charles Barron is a council member, not an assemblyman
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July 7th, 2009 3:58 pm
Charles Barron is a big windbag. Just by closing his mouth we could solve global warming.
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July 7th, 2009 4:10 pm
Take a look at Clarence Taylor, “Knocking At Our Own Door, Milton Galamison and the Struggle to Integrate New York City School, (2001) … strikingly deja vu again …
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July 7th, 2009 4:59 pm
I have the greatest respect for councilman Robert Jackson. He has been the strongest fighter, most outspoken advocate for education. His persistent oversight on educational issues in NYC and for not sitting on his laurels after finally winning the CFE lawsuit must be commended. If he is there with councilman Charles Barron, most likely it is because another education law must have been violated by this last-minute, quasi-BoE. We must allow our councilmen to investigate why the setting up this BoE committee was permitted, why Chancellor Klein was rehired, especially since there might be a conflict of interest when three of the BoE members are beholden to the mayor, and why the BoE members are still NOT listening to the people of NYC? Is Bloomberg’s billions and his megalomania having some very subtle affects to the powers that are being allowed to be? For many, many years Albany denied the children of NYC equal fiscal funding. The people of NYC won the lawsuit and fiscal equity is the name of the money game for our children. Unfortunately, now for over 7 years the mayor, the chancellor, the ill-prepared, psuedo-Tweed educrats are ignoring and avoiding the same people who fought to bring billions to the children of NYC. I have always supported Councilman Jackson’s in all his effort with respect to education, policies, and fundings andd I will continue to support Robert Jackson, Charles Barron, and the people of NYC who only want the best for the children by fighting hard and showing those educrats that they will be exposed for their chicaneries, guiles and selfish, hidden agenda. Education is about the children; it was not meant for a billionaire to push his political career ahead of the children.
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July 7th, 2009 9:28 pm
peter
i just ordered that book online after reading your post…needed some summer reading -
July 8th, 2009 9:16 am
Again, mayoral control is not really the issue or the solution here, the solution is giving ALL parents CHOICE in the schools their children attend. Don’t let educrats decide, don’t let citycouncil members decide, and certainly don’t let zip-codes decide…LET PARENTS DECIDE. So simple, so powerful, so clearly a good idea that this entire debate misses. Who cares how many people are on hte PEP/BOE/DOE/CEC/CSD…Blah blah blah. What should matter is whether parents, including poor parents in tough neighborhoods, can say…I like PS6, I want my child there. I like KIPP, I want my child there. I like Brandeis I want my child there. By doing so, bad schools would close, good ones would be over subscribed and force new space to be assigned to them. Give the parents the choice they deserve!
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