Democratic NYC Mayoral Candidates Could Set Back Education

A brilliant op ed by NYC deputy mayor Howard Wolfson, who blasts Thompson and his fellow panderers:

When Bloomberg won control of the system in 2002, he began to chip away at the union’s prerogatives and put in place reforms meant to help our kids, not the adults in the system.

Among the most important measures: ending the practice that forced principals of schools in the poorest neighborhoods to accept the worst teachers; giving our parents more choice and more information about where to send their kids; and insisting on higher standards and metrics of accountability for teachers and students Failing schools were closed and more than 600 new ones were opened.

Many of those new schools were charters, which usually weren’t subject to the union contract. That gave them, and still gives them, additional flexibility to hire, fire and pay their staff, to teach longer hours and to offer innovative instructional methods.

The result of all of it, taken together, has been a revolution.

…Today, as the city prepares to elect a new mayor, the system is at a crossroads. For the last several months, the Democratic candidates, desperate for the UFT’s endorsement, have engaged in a shameful, fawning dance of genuflection before the union, parroting its demands and echoing its complaints.

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