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It’s so amazing that Bloomberg doesn’t recognize the irrefutable correlation between unfair funding/cutting the budget in “our” public schools and the subsequent failure of it’s students(black and latino). Afterall, the last time I checked, 1 + 1 = 2, right?

Something is very wrong with this picture…..

Of course this is very result ordered thinking, the emperor does not see the entire process as a continuum, and is not happy with the result so lets try to change the end product.  Where did all these unemployed Black/Latino men come from? Answer- underfunded,neglected elementary schools, middle schools and high schools (assuming they did not drop out after middle school).  It also came from underbudgeting social services programs so parents could spend more time with their children to provide homework help, and a sense of value and responsibility.  This Bloomberg initiative should specifically go to improving social services programs to help families navigate the NYC school system from elementary school to high school, and improving the districts so that every area of the city  has the resources that District 2 and 3 have. This Bloomberg initiative as it stands now, is purely cosmetic because it does not take into account the root of the problem.

Yup.  You can throw in Gates, Walton, Broad, and Tilson while you’re at it.

reasonable people can disagree, and even have interesting arguments. that you take it as an unassailable fact that the mayor himself created this “problem” suggests that you’re either given to hyperbole or not reasonable. 

and correct me if i’m wrong, but i believe nyc spending on education has increased every year that bloomberg’s been mayor.  

so maybe it’s not quite so simple as bloomberg’s a bad guy.  (or “the emperor,” as people here like to say — why does everyone seem to adopt the insipid style of maureen dowd around here? it is putrid.) 

Dear Flerpo,

When was the last time any of these “feel good” “help” programs like this new Black/Latino men’s initiative ever had a deep and permanent impact, whether funded by the public sector or funded by the private sector?

Among other things, this is another tax deduction for Bloomberg and his cronies.

I know your heart is in the right place.  I’m with you there, brother or sister.  At least it’s private money, and not public money.  And I do applaud his challenging other fatcats to chip in their surplus money to help people.  The money would probably be better spent on other more worthy endeavors, however. 

Let’s follow this men’s initiative program’s participants for the next ten years.  I’d of course like to see them succeed and break out of crime and poverty.  If this works, great.  But I don’t see how this is substantially different from Job Corps, CETA, CDBG, and many other well-meaning programs.  Did they make substantial, permanent differences, after all of the billions thrown at them over the years?  How much did each true and permanent “success” cost?

But it’s an awfully pretty band-aid, ain’t it?

Flerpo, He is called the Emperor because he bought a third term, creating an exception to the term limits law agains the will of the public for himself alone.    The following pretty much sums it up for those who have been sleeping for the past decade, from NYC public school parents blog:  “This is not democracy—letting people yell and scream,” the mayor declared on his weekly radio show. “That’s not freedom of expression—that’s just trying to take away somebody else’s rights.”  How positively Orwellian hearing Mayor Bloomberg lecture us on what is or is not democracy. This is the man who fired every member but one of the Panel for Educational Policy who didn’t agree with him on grade retention and replaced them with members who did—and always will.  This is the man who said he strongly supported term limits until he came to the end of his second term, and then forced the city council to overturn the will of the public so he could run again.  This is the man who dipped into his inexhaustible personal fortune to fund the most expensive campaign per voter in history, thereby creating such an uneven playing field that any challenge to him was impossible.   This is the man who chose a school chancellor from his circle of country club friends and denied the public any input in the selection process. In fact, there was no selection process.  This is the man who tolerates a “democracy” where 400 people spoke against school closings last year, only one spoke in favor, and the PEP voted with the one.  In a nutshell, the mayor’s version of democracy and freedom of expression comes down to telling the opposition to just let him do what he wants.-Lynne Winderbaum, retired teacher and former UFT representative for Bronx high schools

If the top 1% payed appropriate taxes, then, there could be money for a jobs program which would address our broken infrastructure,or perhaps for special programs that would comprehensively address the needs of this population who have become un- hirable dropouts.Cuz the programs now in place, really don’t cut it. This population ,however, is also affected negatively by a multitude of social factors that are caused by themselves, as well as the larger societal inequities/systems.

How is a 2, which is below standard, considered a “pass”? Those kids are lucky that they needed to come into summer school and try to get ahead, since a 2 isn’t going to get them anywhere.

The City implemented a policy where students needed at least  2 to be promoted.   Students who did not meet a “cut score” were not allowed to attend graduation and had to retake the test in the summer.  The DOE then finds out that some of the kids actually received a 2, knows it, but makes the kid take the exam again because NYS Ed takes four months to grade an exam that was scored 4 months ago