City Comptroller John Liu compared the Department of Education to a corporation with public schools “treated like business divisions.” His predecessor, former Comptroller Bill Thompson, accused the Bloomberg administration of “union busting” when he referred to the recent school bus strike over job protections. Public advocate Bill de Blasio compared the D.O.E.’s reliance on test scores to the worship of “false idols.”
But City Council Speaker Christine Quinn got a chillier reception. When asked point-blank if the next chancellor should be an educator, unlike the three leaders chosen by Bloomberg, all of the candidates said yes, except for Quinn. “Not necessarily,” she said, to boos. A few minutes later, she appeared to dig herself in even deeper.
“I don’t want to rule out today all the good advocates we know out there who may have dedicated their life to education, but not necessarily taught in the classroom,” she said. “Or look at somebody like Arne Duncan, now our Secretary of Education.”
As the audience booed again, Quinn hung in and stated that she would not appoint anyone currently at the D.O.E.’s headquarters in the Tweed Courthouse. “Nobody in Tweed right now,” she said, adding that there might be good educators in the rest of the system.
As council speaker, Quinn is viewed with skepticism by many teachers who believe she has been too cozy with a mayor whose reforms they oppose, namely the reliance on test scores for grading schools and teachers, the closing of about 140 struggling schools and the opening new charter schools that often share the same buildings as district schools. Quinn also supported doing away with term limits for locally elected politicians, which allowed both her and the mayor to serve a third term.
She thinks someone like Arne Duncan, our current Secretary of Education Privatization, would be a good choice for chancellor.
Says everything you need to know about Quinn.
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