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education mayor
July 21, 2009
Mayoral hopeful Bill Thompson says he would fire Joel Klein
(via GothamSchools' Flickr)
Democratic mayoral hopeful Bill Thompson said today that were he mayor, he would fire schools chancellor Joel Klein.
In a document released today by Thompson, the city’s Comptroller, a chart compares “Bill’s Vision” for the city’s schools to that of Mayor Bloomberg. Item two, below a promise to “Tell The Truth,” reads “Fire Joel Klein.”
“It’s time to bring back an educator to our schools who can lay out an educational vision that goes beyond taking tests and creates opportunities for our children to be successful in life,” the statement reads.
Thompson’s campaign spokesman, Jeff Simmons, said his candidate would appear on NY1’s “Road to City Hall” program at 7 p.m., reiterating this latest campaign promise.
The comptroller and Bloomberg have been feuding all day over an audit Thompson released today calling the city’s graduation rate intentionally inflated.
Before Thompson’s press conference could begin, the mayor’s campaign spokesman, Howard Wolfson, had already put out a statement crying politics and accusing Thompson, the city’s comptroller, of having his own “failed record on education.”
“The facts are clear: When Bill Thompson ran the old dysfunctional Board of Education graduation rates were flat and dropout rates increased,” Wolfson wrote.
Thompson’s spokesman, Jeff Simmons, defended what he called the “scathing audit” as not politically motivated.
“The Comptroller takes his charter-mandated role to audit city agencies and services very seriously and the audits are inherently non-political. It has been a tried-and-true, knee-jerk response over the last seven and a half years from the Mayor’s agencies and representatives to summarily cry politics whenever any criticism whatsoever is levied against them.”
Relations between the two campaigns are so frayed at this point that Thompson’s staff barred a Department of Education spokesman, Andrew Jacob, from attending the press conference. Simmons told the Daily News’ Liz Benjamin that he was tired of DOE employees following his candidate around.
“(A)t our last news conference, the DOE dispatched an aide to shadow every move by the Comptroller - so much so that one would have thought Bill Thompson was wearing a velcro suit,” he said.
Simmons told Benjamin that a DOE employee had called him “more than a year ago to threaten to unleash an attack on Bill Thompson if he ever criticized the Department of Education.” That call came from senior counselor for community affairs, Brian Ellner, he told me. Ellner did not return a request for comment sent this evening.
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July 21st, 2009 7:58 pm
That alone gets him my vote!
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July 21st, 2009 8:13 pm
I continue to be struck by the conflation of Tweed’s spin machine — paid for with our tax dollars — and the Mike Bloomberg for Mayor campaign.
There outta be a law.
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July 21st, 2009 9:28 pm
If you look at all the grade changes done on HSST, you will see the bold truth! Years ago when you had the old system of putting in grades, UAPC, only the programmer was allowed to change grades. Before the programmer can make any grade changes, teachers had to fill out a form. The form had to receive the principal’s approval. If approved, a copy of the grade change form was given to the programmer and to the teacher. Then the grade was changed. Additionally, code changes of a course was done by the programmer, not the principal. Now principals learned how to access HSST and make the necessary changes without the teachers being aware of those changes. Of course, there are those programmers who are at the mercy of their principals and do not want to lose that position and to receive unnecessary, excessive observations and will make those unethical grade/code changes. It is time to expose the mayor because of these inflations (remember the many warnings the public received about Enron, the unchecked oversight of subprime mortgages, and the lack of the SEC’s monitoring of Madoff) and to fire principals who were involved in these unscrupulous, unethical “credit-recovery” programs, changing of grades and giving of credits to students who did not earn them. Or is everyone going to wait until it’s too late and the damage is so great to the future economic prosperity of our country because everyone believed a billionaire who is not interested in the true future of our children!
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July 22nd, 2009 9:33 am
It’s interesting to me that Tony Avella say through the devestation that Joel Klein and the mayor created in the city school system - months and months ago. Avella has used this line often. I guess Thompson sees the reaction and wants to capitalize on it.
Avella would be the best mayor for education. He know that a good education system needs parents and teachers to make it work — not people like Klein.
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July 22nd, 2009 9:54 am
Want to really help Thompson? Volunteer for New Yorkers for Thompson at (212)608-6555.
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July 22nd, 2009 10:20 am
Oh God, Bill Thompson is a union-boot-licking windbag. There’s no way I’d ever vote for him and I didn’t vote for him for Comptroller either. I saw him on Good Day New York this morning “defending” his record as President of the Board of Education. Actually, what it appears is that he’d just love it if everyone forgot he led that cesspool for years, but I haven’t. Why is it that Democrats in New York City can’t come up with one single solitary condidate that has fresh ideas to run for Mayor? It’s always just more of the same, and that’s why I’m voting for Bloomberg.
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July 22nd, 2009 10:55 am
D,
If you decry “more of the same,” then voting for Kleinberg is the height of irony. -
July 22nd, 2009 11:54 am
As a student in high school and the son of a New York City Public School teacher, I experience first-hand the changes that are made by the DOE. Thomson is right to criticize Bloomberg’s education policy. Standardized tests do not help a student or prepare them for life outside of school, but rather takes valuable time away from teachers and requires an hour or two of prep a day for most of elementary school and middle school. The grades do not reflect actual knowledge, but rather how much time the student devoted to studying pointless information that they will never use after they leave school. Some tests are so easy that, in order to maintain a curve, students receive a four, rather than a five, for missing one question. The difference of that one question can drastically change the schools that they have a chance of moving up to.
Bill Thomson will change the direction and the focus of our school system, making it more productive and more worthwhile for the students.
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July 22nd, 2009 12:38 pm
Re NYC Democratic candidates in the Mayoral race, here’s what Congressman Anthony Weiner had to say on the subject in May, two weeks before officially declaring his non-candidacy:
“Mr. Weiner said that despite backing away from plans to run for mayor this year, he remains the target of a well-orchestrated smear campaign that can be traced to the re-election bid of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
The mayor, he said, is running “the most consistently and relentlessly negative campaign that I and many people I know have seen.”
Mr. Weiner characterized the research behind critical news articles about him as “daily Dumpster diving.””
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/nyregion/12weiner.htmlAnd let’s not even pretend that Bloomberg isn’t buying his way to a third term.
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July 22nd, 2009 1:50 pm
Wow, three years after Tony Avella has been saying he would dump Joel Klein and put in a qualified educator, Thompson decides he should steal another idea from Avella. If you want someone who will stand up to Bloomberg and not be a limp towel, vote for Avella and give Bloomberg someone who is honest and not another machine hack.
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July 27th, 2009 10:46 am
Tired of Mike Bloomberg? Bill Thompson, Democratic and Working Families candidate for mayor needs your help! To learn more about Bill, visit thompson2009.com or to help out with the campaign call 212-608-6555
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July 27th, 2009 10:50 am
Avella is too unknown to beat Bloomberg. Thompson has my vote. Bloomberg only cares about the wealthy. Thats why he backed Bush in 2004 and didn’t endorse Obama in 2008!
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October 23rd, 2009 12:31 pm
[...] Mayoral hopeful Bill Thompson says he would fire Joel Klein … [...]
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Mapping the Budget Cuts
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