Poll: budget cuts and grade the mayor
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Last week, we asked you what you would cut from your school’s budget if you had to make the difficult decision to let something, or someone, go. The most respondents, 39 percent, said that they would cut non-teaching staff, such as office workers and school aides. Twenty-two percent said that they would cut afterschool tutoring, remediation, and test prep. Letting go of arts and other specialty teachers was the least popular option, with only seven percent of respondents choosing it. Click here to see the full results.
Under Mayor Bloomberg, every school is graded annually, but this week, we want you to grade the mayor. Since the mayoral control law sunsets on June 30, school governance is being vigorously debated. Many argue that Bloomberg has staked his legacy on education - how do you think he has performed?
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Mayor Mike has a ways to go. He’s created more enemies among parents in the last year than in his previous seven — preK, overcrowded schools, K lottery, G&T system is a disaster, his Leadership Academy turning out unprepared principals. He’s letting down students at all socio-economic levels. And I’m not completely against mayoral control … I think the focus and energies have created a whole new set of problems.
I was at a meeting once where Rep. Anthony Weiner called the DOE an eight-headed Hydra and I cannot think of a better description.
Comment by Anonymous — May 29, 2009 @ 1:24 pm
I went to PS48 two years ago. IT was MS201. I was 10. It was acamp
Comment by Daisia — June 1, 2009 @ 11:45 am
i go to this school called ps/ms.15 so my school is one of the best school in the bronx so i will be happy if this website update there infomation of that school. 6/1/09 they mayer came to my school and said how good were doing so thank you
Comment by henry — June 2, 2009 @ 3:40 pm
Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t know anything about education. The teachers are the ones that should be given credit for the high scores on state tests. He does NOTHING! All he’s interested is in data. If teachers did all the data that was required, teachers would never teach children. He should not get mayor control!
Comment by Anonymous — June 2, 2009 @ 11:11 pm
As per comment 4, perhaps Anonymous is a teacher? The UFT may potentially be part of the solution, but at present it is part of the problem. The dirty secret is that our schools are overloaded with incompetent, barely competent, and indifferent lifers. Before the mayor required accountability, many magnet schools were just a way of separating the children of the savvy from the masses. Parents and teachers at those schools defended their programs, but reading and math test scores challenged cherished assumptions. The mayor has a long way to go, but who wants to go back to UFT-controlled local boards?
Comment by Roland — June 3, 2009 @ 7:39 am
it is a very good school.it is very clean.
Comment by anniet — June 3, 2009 @ 10:12 pm
The test scores are not representative. Principals are cheating on the scores. Low performing students get to take the state exam in a “special” room and are coached during the exam. Level one students are surprised when they get a level 3. This is fact. The scores are doctored. Ask a child in one of the lowere performing schools to write a summary of a newspaper article and they ask them what their ELA level is. There are students who cannot read and write and they are scoring level 2 on the test. GO FIGURE.
Comment by anon — June 4, 2009 @ 12:32 pm
What class has klein or Bloomburg taught?What classes have they taken in education? The schools are still a mess. The buildings are old and discusting. Bloomburg should invest some money in building state of the art buildings like in other cities. Some of these schools are over one hundred years old.
There is still a long way to go before the schools are up to par.
Comment by Alex — June 4, 2009 @ 4:42 pm
I don’t like the idea of giving schools progress reports; it’s insulting to be so reductive. By the same logic, as much as I disapprove of so many of Bloomberg/Klein’s initiatives, I hesitate to define him with a single grade…
Comment by kk — June 4, 2009 @ 10:16 pm
From 1st hand experience—I see Mayoral control systematically breaking down communities and destroying schools that are currently thriving. Our teachers and principals are highly educated and know more about how to teach children than anywhere in the US—Joel Klein’s policies and business model run counter to everything these people practice and stand for.
I have no faith in the future of New York City and its education system if mayoral control is to continue unchecked.
Comment by Harriet Spear — June 5, 2009 @ 9:11 am
While I support many of the administrative changes that Klein/Bloomberg have undertaken, such as Fair Student Funding and the High School and Middle School admissions processes, I am appalled by their negligence of school capacity issues and their indifference to young children having to be to bused long distances simply to find an available elementary school seat. They are doing everything they can to destroy neighborhood schools: handing space over to charter schools, overcrowding successful schools and ignoring parents. They are truly throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Comment by Disrict2Mom — June 5, 2009 @ 3:50 pm
The way Mayoral control is happening now does not work. Without any system of balances, Bloomberg and Klein have been able to run the education system according to only their beliefs. While they are opening the door to charter schools, they are pushing regulations and restrictions on non-charter schools that were previously doing well.
The NYC public school system is too broad to put the same regulations on every school and have them work, especially when the regulations are unhelpful and pointless.
I hesitate to actually give Bloomberg a grade because even though the school system now is based on accountability through grading, I think there’s a lot more to schools then a letter on a peice of paper can define. I will give Bloomberg more respect than he has given my school, and not define him by a single letter, but by many: Mayor Bloomberg, your performance has been poor. You have messed up many city schools and you should know by now that like in every other part in government, checks and balances ARE NEEDED.
Comment by A Student — June 6, 2009 @ 10:35 pm
The D.O.E. is a failure. When you give the Mayor the ability to “fix” his own holy DATA, it’s bound to show “improvement.”
The Leadership Academy is an absolute disgrace. It has produced, not trained, “leaders” that have no knowledge of ANYTHING. My child’s school in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn is run by a woman who runs by POWER only. Someone should do a documentary on the Leadership Acacdemy. Put someone on the spot and ask them WHAT their training REALLY is. How to get around the contract and threaten teachers… how to hold tenure over a teacher’s head… how to get away with being incompetent because you, being made a principal “legitimizes” the city spending that money on your training. Mayor Mike and his data lies and commercials should be held accountable for schools that have been destroyed by his caravan of blithering fools. This city does not need a mayor to be in charge of education. He’s only out to get people. Doesn’t anyone see that he can manipulate his own mindless DATA to make the system “look good.” If children are learning in NYC, they’re learning DESPITE Mayor Mike and his gang of sub par school administrators. Jack Welch worked at G.E., not a NYC public school. It just doesn’t work. Children first? What a joke!
Comment by Educator HSM — June 9, 2009 @ 11:25 pm
To “A Student”-well said!
Comment by Bronx mom — June 11, 2009 @ 8:49 am