Good news is where you find it, I guess.
Following last year's DC election, when voters ran Michelle Rhee out of town, the neoliberal assault on public education has today suffered a second important personnel setback. Cathie Black must go, thanks to a mix of popular opposition and rejection by Bloomberg administration officials.
Of course the schemes of the Billionaire Boys and their federal allies will continue. They will keep pushing to privatize, charterize, rate and merit-pay, surveill and computerize, and do anything else as long as it doesn't mean hiring more teachers to reduce class size and paying them what they deserve. Or god forbid, acknowledging that maybe the neighborhoods could use some help, too.
Today's signal is that there are actually limits on the monarchical corporatist power of Prince Bloomberg to appoint his business cronies as satraps. Fact is, this brief happy moment only came about because Black worked so hard to make a fool of herself.
She was misanthropic and nasty with the public, didn't know how to camouflage the dictator style she learned as a corporate bosschief, and so painfully unqualified and ignorant of education that last week her deputies started quitting on her. No one wanted to appear in public alongside her.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/cathie-black-is-out-as-chancellor/?hpUpdated, 1:09 p.m. | Cathleen P. Black, a magazine executive with no educational experience who was named New York City schools chancellor last fall, stepped down Thursday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced.
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Ms. Black’s resignation, which comes on the heels of the departures of several other high-ranking education officials, was nearly as surprising as her appointment. When Mayor Bloomberg plucked her from Hearst Magazines to run the nation’s largest public school system, people in New York and across the country — including some of the mayor’s closest aides — were stunned.
Ms. Black will be replaced by Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott, who has long aided the mayor in educational matters, Mr. Bloomberg announced at the news conference, at 11:30 a.m. at City Hall.
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Ms. Black’s time as chancellor was troubled from the start. During her three months on the job, she offended parents with an offhand joke about birth control and bewildered City Hall aides when she seemed to mock a crowd of parents protesting the closing of a school. Aides complained that she required intensive tutorials on every aspect of education policy. And on Monday, a NY1-Marist poll put Ms. Black’s approval rating at 17 percent, the lowest ever for a Bloomberg administration official.
Black at the public meeting where she mocked parents protesting school closing:
Walcott at press con:
Walcott interview, light biographical questions, at least he's been involved with public schools, education and social work in various capacities his whole life:
http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/SchoolNews/CitySchools/Issues/022009/walcott.htmNow the less encouraging news:
Different Chancellor, Same Agenda; Meet Dennis WalcottBy Azi Paybarah
April 7, 2011 | 1:42 p.m
Lee Saunders, a boisterous national labor leader, interrupted a speech he was giving in midtown this morning to read from a piece of paper handed to him by an aide.
"Cathie Black is resigning?" he said, somewhat unsure. The crowd jumped to their feet, applauding and cheering.That's pretty much how the rest of New York City greeted the news that Mayor Bloomberg was ending the three-month tenure of Ms. Black, which was highlighted by verbal sparring with parents, repeated departures of top aides and among the worst approval rating of any New York City official ever.
Taking over for Black will be Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott, who's been with Mayor Bloomberg since the Wall Street entrepreneur first stepped inside City Hall in 2002. Before that, he was president of the Urban League (which got fund-raising help from all sorts of people, including the rap group Public Enemy).
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http://www.observer.com/2011/politics/new-chancellor-old-agenda-dennis-walcott And a very bad endorsement:
Michelle Rhee on Dennis Walcott: 'Committed to Bold Reforms'By Reid Pillifant
April 7, 2011 | 2:45 p.m
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"Through Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott's work for the last several years in the Bloomberg administration, he has proven himself committed to the bold reforms New York's schools and students deserve," Rhee said in a statement to The Observer this afternoon.
Rhee has long been a champion of Mayor Bloomberg's reform efforts, and the two enjoy such an overlap of education ideology, that there were rumors she might succeed former Chancellor Joel Klein.
Instead, Bloomberg picked Cathie Black, with Rhee issuing an optimistic statement saying Black's professional experience had "no doubt prepared her well for the challenges that lie ahead," which turned out not to be the case, as Black's brief tenure will mostly be remembered for a series of gaffes.
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"A former teacher and a product of the city's school system, he is uniquely qualified to connect with students, teachers and parents," she said. "I applaud Mayor Bloomberg's ongoing commitment to mayoral control of New York's school system and to ensuring that every child has access to great teachers and excellent schools."
http://www.observer.com/2011/politics/michelle-rhee-walcott-committed-bold-reforms Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose?
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