Dennis Walcott Makes Case For Cutting His Salary
Diane Ravitch points us to a piece by Lisa Fleischer in the Wall Street Journal about the complete lack of accountability at the top of New York's City's schools under Generalissimo Mike Bloomberg's rule:
Yeah, see, Dennis Walcott is only in charge of the schools - he's not actually in the schools! It's completely different! It's like, we have to know how well teachers are doing - but we don't have to know how well their bosses are doing! It's just so obvious...Top administrators at the city's Department of Education haven't been subject to formal evaluations during the Bloomberg administration, a break from past practice and an unusual occurrence among school districts across the U.S.The disclosure follows the culmination of a yearslong battle by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to implement tougher teacher and principal evaluations in the district.Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, who has been on the job since April 2011, said formal job reviews weren't necessary because he informally evaluated his staff daily, and he was evaluated daily by the mayor. Teachers, he said, were in a different position."They're in front of the classroom and teaching our children, and we need to have a sense of how well they're doing," he said. "With us, we're not teaching children directly, we're setting policy. And I don't think it's hypocritical at all." [emphasis mine]