GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Edu_scientist, having followed Bill Thompson’s career since he joined the Board of Education in the 1990s (and before my second son had been born), I can say with confidence that the best way to defeat Bill Thompson is just to let the man run his mouth. He didn’t know what he was talking about in the 1990s and he certainly doesn’t have a clue now.

You know what bothers me about this whole Fire Klein and put in an educator business.
“Today” Joel Klein surrounds himself with brilliant educators with proven track records in the BOE / DOE. That may not have been the case 7 years ago when he stepped in. There was without a doubt too many lawyer types talking policy.

The people who report and advise Klein are people like Eric Nadelstern, a brilliant educator. Santi Taveras, Laura Rodriguez to name a few.

I guess most people have no idea who these people are and what they have done.

* Message to the DOE – Start posting the names of all the brilliant educators who work at Tweed and around the city.

To think Klein is sitting there coming up with this stuff on his own is completely silly. He’s a leader of the largest school system in the country… he holds a lot of people responsible to make sure things get done.

He was probably brought in to deal to with Randi who pretty much chewed up and spit out prior chancellors. Negotiating Labor agreements takes a lawyer.

Was Randi ever a teacher? Finally a teacher will run the UFT!

Thompson doesn’t speak his mind; he speaks to what he thinks the most voters will want to hear, and slamming Bloomklein at every turn is the way to do it. Bottom line: he had his chance as president of the board of education, and in the end, he blew it. He didn’t make a dent in the dysfunction, in fact he propagated it. Why anyone would ever trust this man with their child’s education or their career is beyond me.

Those letter grades that are given out to rate a school cost millions of dollars that might actually be used in supplying the classrooms or hiring more teachers to bring down class size. The time and energy that schools put into trying the impress just for this rating event could also be spent in working to improve the school environment for those inside the school.

Most teachers feel that Klein does not respect them. The comment about Klein having educators advising him is only partly true, he does have some, but the majority of them are either Ivory tower educators who have never spent a day in a public school classroom as teachers, or they are educrats. Having met groups of them a number of times on various issues, I know this to be a fact.

Corrrection: “too” happy. Darn public school background.