Exorcise Bloomberg’s ‘Business Model’ from the DOE

 

    I’ve been reading and hearing about Bloomberg‘s demon kings, queens, princesses, princes and jokers running amok for the past six years. That’s the number of years Bloomberg has been gone. Nothing was done about it while ‘It’s a beautiful day’ Farina was chancellor. During the Bloomberg regime, Mulgrew was muzzled and chained. With Bloomberg gone, Mulgrew was so gratified he became Carmen’s lapdog. Now there’s a decent guy, Carranza, who’s trying to exorcise the demons of Bloomberg from the haunted halls of the DOE. May G-d be with him. I’m serious - many of Bloomy’s demons are hateful vile creatures that have no feelings for students, teachers or education. Bloomy also left his vampire queen Eva to feed off the system. They all follow the ‘Business Model’ - you know the same one that Trump, Gates, the Koch Brothers (one passed this week - the NY Post has been crying daily) and the Walton family follow.

  The Business Model looks only at increasing profits and cutting costs, or in Bloomy’s scheme - attempting to turn teachers into at will minimum wage employees and students into one sized widgets. This ignores the basic fact that schools are not businesses. Schools are social institutions that require input into shaping and educating the lives of students. (School leaders should be helping teachers help their students - not plotting ways to punish, humiliate and terminate them.) We don’t get to pick and choose our students. We are not machines working on widgets traveling on conveyor belts in some dismal factory - but that model is the reality in many schools. The leaders of those schools were indoctrinated with the business model and all it entails. Many of them had no education background and never taught. If Bloomberg wanted to a get school leaders he could have just as easily raided a Chuck E. Cheese, Rite Aid or Walmart - at minimum he would have been able to get the same quality school leaders that currently inhabit many of our schools. My guess is that he would have gotten a much higher quality school leader, in that many of those retail managers have some people skills, but my guess is he didn’t want to step on the toes of his friends. The ‘Business Model’ is at the heart of everything that is wrong with the DOE.

   If Carranza wants to greatly improve schools and the education of millions of students, he must  publicly reject Bloomberg’s ’Business Model’ and all its evils. I believe the UFT needs to do the same. Mulgrew and Carranza could do so together. This one action can have the powerful potential of
restoring justice to our students, teachers, schools and society. It would also greatly improve everyone’s view of the UFT and DOE. Then the UFT and the DOE could work in unison again to help students. Redemption for all.