Showing posts with label Cathleen Black. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cathleen Black. Show all posts

Friday, May 3, 2013

Cathie Black Schools Chancellor e-mails

Cathleen P Black eMails - NYC Schools Chancellor - Village Voice public records request

Friday, March 11, 2011

Will the Rudin Family seek to profit from Mayor Bloomberg's spree of School Closings ?

OP-ED : After Rudin Management converts St. Vincent's Hospital into Luxury Condos, will the billion-dollar real estate empire next convert closed schools into more luxury condos ?

Since he has become mayor, Michael Bloomberg has waged a sustained campaign to layoff teachers and close schools. Once wonders why he is systematically attacking public education, which is such an important underpinning of our society.

Remember how New York University got away with demolishing the Edgar Allan Poe house to build a new mega-building ? Well, yesterday, word was received that St. Vincent's Hospital, which closed after mysterious back-room meetings last year, is being converted into luxury condos by the Rudin Family. Are we beginning to see a pattern ?

In the last 10 or so years, no public institution (not a historical landmark like the former house of the famous poet Edgar Allan Poe, not St. Ann's Church, not the fabled St. Vincent's Hospital, not even public schools, where children go for an education) has been safe from being condemned and closed down -- all in the name of more and more reckless real estate development.

It is time for people to wake up and see what is on the horizon : the time is going to come when children are going to be loitering in the streets, having nowhere to go, nothing good to occupy their time, and no future to create, after all the teacher layoffs and school closings. There will be less firehouses and fewer hospitals. What kind of urban design for a metropolis is Mayor Bloomberg creating ?

But according to the real estate development wet dreams of Mayor Bloomberg, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and other development-crazed politicians, that is exactly what they want. Their vision for a new ''partnership'' for New York must include closing down public institutions, like schools, firehouses, and our historical landmarks, to make room for more luxury condo conversions and mega-buildings.

What happened to wanting to live in an exceptional city ? Aren't we capable of being better than this ? We need to organize grassroots efforts to block the elitist urban-renewal projects of real estate developers, like the Rudin Family, who seem to be joining Mayor Bloomberg on a renewed campaign to destroy the fragile character and experience of our local neighborhoods. It's time to get organized and fight back !

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Bloombo Dicto Hosni Bloomberg

Maybe after #OpEgypt and #OpItaly, we'll have #OpCityHall or #OpCityCouncil ?

After Mayor Michael Bloomberg insulted parents who heckled Chancellor Cathleen Black, Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, compared Mayor with Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, reported The New York Post.

Ms. Black's ''Awwwwwww'' moment came when she mocked parents, who were going to desperate measures to save several schools from closing, and her insensitive mocking and juvenile immaturity has inflamed the anger of parents and has shocked the conscious of even some school officials. In response to the despair of parents, Mayor Bloomberg has predictably unleashed a ridiculous backlash against Ms. Black's critics.

Mayor Bloomberg, who subverted a public referendum to run for a third term as mayor, went on to say that angry parents were acting unpatriotic. "This is not democracy -- letting people yell and scream. That's not freedom of expression," Mayor Bloomberg said. "That's just trying to take away somebody else's rights. And if we want to attract good people to come and work for the public, you don't do this."

Under his tight fist of ''mayoral control'' over the school system, Mayor Bloomberg wields totalitarian control over the Panel for Educational Policy, which votes to close schools ; the Panel operates under the appearance of independence, but in reality the Panel is ''entirely undemocratic'' and takes its ''marching orders only from Bloomberg,'' according to the Post Mr. Mulgrew noted that if the Panel doesn't vote the way that the Mayor wants, he retaliates against them. ''The last time they voted against him, he fired them,'' Mr. Mulgrew said.

Even The New York Times Agrees : the ''Fix'' Was In.

Meanwhile, at a meeting on Thursday night, where more schools were voted to be closed, City Councilmember Charles Barron said, “You will let us scream until we get hoarse, and then we know what will happen — you’ll shut all our schools down.”

''The closing of struggling schools has been a key piece of Mr. Bloomberg’s agenda, and his eight-person majority has stood behind him, phasing out more than 100 schools, often replacing them with small schools and charter schools,'' reported The Times.

Update on Christine Quinn

While Mayor Bloomberg spent the week closing schools, firing teachers, and getting rid of classrooms and school lunches, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was using NYPD as enforcers against activists outside a fundraiser for her presumed candidacy for Mayor in 2013.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

NY Senate Democrats Outraged by Bloomberg's Disgraceful Comment

Senate Democrats Didn't Take Kindly To Mayor Bloomberg Calling Their Time In The Majority "A Disgrace," Reported Celeste Katz.

Earlier today, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in Albany for Gov. Andrew Cuomo's State of the State address, after which the mayor insulted the Democrat Senators.

"I thought, if you take a look, it was a disgrace what happened in the last couple of years in the Senate. Most people, regardless of party, think that," said Mayor Bloomberg.

Upon hearing the mayor's insult, Senate Democrats reacted with anger.

"The actual disgrace is failing to manage a fatal blizzard because you and all of your top aides were on vacation and nobody was left in charge," a Senate Democratic source told Ken Lovett of The New York Daily News.

For the past two years, Democrats in the New York State Senate carried out Mayor Bloomberg's Republican agenda, and now Mayor Bloomberg has expressed a lack of gratitude by calling the Democrats a ''disgrace.'' Where have we heard the word ''disgrace'' come from the mayor before ? Oh, that's right. When the mayor was confronted with his ''rationale'' for extending term limits, Mayor Bloomberg called the brave reporter a ''disgrace.'' Here is that famous video :

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Job Blocker Sues NY State Over Cathie Black's Appointment

Cathleen Black's Education Waiver Challenged in a Lawsuit by Students' Parent

The father of two New York City public school students filed a lawsuit against state education officials on Friday to stop Cathleen P. Black, a celebrity, from becoming the next New York City schools chancellor, reported The New York Times.

The lawsuit, which The Times described as an Article 78 proceeding, is a legal action intended for a court to perform a speedy review of governmental actions. The lawsuit was filed by Eric J. Snyder of Park Slope, and it was the first formal legal challenge to Ms. Black’s controversial appointment. The Times report added that more lawsuits are expected.

Meanwhile, it was separately reported last week that Mayor Michael Bloomberg personally ordered the removal of a teacher, Melissa Petro, who had blogged about her past sexual experiences. City officials, it was reported, believe that Ms. Petro's past love life constitutes ''conduct unbecoming a teacher.''

For her part, Ms. Black, the incoming New York City schools chancellor, also has a sordid past. One month before Ms. Petro blogged about her sex life, Ms. Black herself gave a radio interview in which Ms. Black was promoting a sex app, which Ms. Black described as, ''cheaper than a hooker.''

No word yet on whether Ms. Black's hot sex app constitutes ''conduct unbecoming a chancellor.''

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Mike Bloomberg Says Crow Tastes Like Chicken ; Schools Chancellor Deal is an ''Illusion of Concession''

David Steiner first opposed the Cathleen Black nomination, and Mr. Steiner made Mayor Bloomberg eat some crow. Nonplussed, Mayor Bloomberg said, ''Tastes like chicken.''

Mayor Michael Bloomberg reached a face-saving deal to rescue his tottering nomination of Cathleen Black to become the next New York City Schools Chancellor. In reaching his compromise, Mayor Bloomberg has agreed to appoint a career educator to serve as Ms. Black's second in command.

The New York Daily News is calling the Bloomberg-Black-Steiner deal an ''illusion of a concession.''

Ms. Black's new underling, who will hold the title of chief academic officer, is more qualified than Ms. Black herself, not only to overcome the judgment by the state education commission that Ms. Black lacks any qualification to be the next schools chancellor. But even The New York Times has reported that the duties of Ms. Black's new chief academic officer are actually the duties of the school chancellor. Who's your manager ?

From The Times report :

After several days of talks with state officials, Mr. Bloomberg agreed to create the position of chief academic officer to oversee curriculum and testing at the city’s Department of Education. Under the deal, that job would go to Shael Polakow-Suransky, a former principal of a Bronx high school who is a top official at the city’s Department of Education.

But exactly how much authority Mr. Polakow-Suransky, 38, will wield is unclear. A job description prepared by the city said he would have “the broadest scope for the exercise of independent initiative and judgment” and listed 25 duties, including many that would normally fall to the head of a school system. But Mr. Polakow-Suransky will still report to Ms. Black, who is accustomed to setting the agenda in the rough-and-tumble world of corporate culture.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Cathie Black Nomination Doomed

Opposition Grows to Mayor Bloomberg’s Pick for NYC Schools Chancellor

In The New York Daily News, the President of United Federation of Teachers, Michael Mulgrew, expressed criticisms of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's appointment of Cathleen Black to succeed Joel Klein as the next schools chancellor.

The appointment has created a public outrage that proves to expose growing voter anger at Mayor Bloomberg's misuse of mayoral powers, especially in the aftermath of the term limits scandal.

The same Daily News article reported that Chairman of the City Council's Education Committee, Robert Jackson, disputed the mayor's claim that the mayor had engaged in a public process in making the nomination. Councilman Jackson called the mayor's insinuation a, "lie," and Councilman Jackson added that he would hold hearings on the appointment.

The blogger, artist, and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy has even created a YouTube video in which she criticises Ms. Black.

Meanwhile, in a separate article in The New York Times, the mayor's office is described to be in serious damage control. The public ''uproar'' has ''frustrated City Hall aides, who feel as if they have lost control of the story line and who are looking for ways to beat back accusations that Ms. Black is unqualified, said an individual close to the process who requested anonymity for fear of upsetting the mayor,'' wrote the reporter Javier C. Hernandez in The Times.