Comments on: Thompson says he’s inclined to end “foolish” progress reports

By: em

em — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:58:23 +0000

It’s great that Thompson is speaking out against this ridiculous practice. Why would the city continue to follow such an arbitrary system of ratings for something as crucial as public schools?

By: Michael M.

Michael M. — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 18:12:13 +0000

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

By: Michael M.

Michael M. — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 18:11:10 +0000

I’m confused.
Thompson was never the Chancellor. And Thompson was never the Chancellor of a centralized system.

Even with that last point in mind, those who want to compare Thompson to someone might want to compare him to the president of the current Board of Ed, Deputy Mayor Walcott, who was only to happy to turn over the keys to the kingdom to Klein, with absolutely ZERO financial oversight, and adjourn until September.

By: Spock

Spock — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:36:55 +0000

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.

By: Pogue

Pogue — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:17:46 +0000

I agree with edu-scientist. I’d like to see a list of educators helping Klein, including Weingarten, and the length of their teaching, AP, and principal careers. Seriously. I want to see the history.

By: KitchenSink

KitchenSink — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:14:49 +0000

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.

By: Thompson gets my vote

Thompson gets my vote — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:45:42 +0000

Thompson is on the right track. It’s unfortunate that Klein and Bloomberg have essentially bought the major tabloids and trashed him and his reports. The Department of Education is unable to weather criticism about anything. Think back to the bus route changes midyear, and how long it took for them to react. Someone should start to really examine all spending on consultants and on central office staff. And not believe everything the Department says. if anything Thompson speaks his mind, whether you agree with him or not. I give him credit.

By: edu_scientist

edu_scientist — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:14:04 +0000

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!

By: Michael M.

Michael M. — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:36:24 +0000

#1 – Fire Klein.
#2 – Make sure the next Chancellor is an educator.
#3 – Dump the PRICEY random letter generator.

Sounds good so far.

By: Dissenter

Dissenter — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:17:57 +0000

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.

By: edu_scientist

edu_scientist — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 20:05:51 +0000

Let’s be absolutely clear about what a student needs to graduate:

A 65 in Math, Global History, U.S. History, Science for Regents Diploma and Foreign Language, Geometry & Trig, and a 2nd Science for Advanced Regents Diploma.

Those are STATE Requirements. You want to change standardized testing – talk to the state. To put standardized testing on Bloomberg & Klein is a misguided approach.

This man offers no solutions. He is just trying to pick on things that are unpopular issues with the gripers and is hoping people jump on his dysfunctional bandwagon.