NYC Educator: No Excuses

NYC Educator: No Excuses:

No Excuses

by NYC Educator

Naturally, I was shocked and stunned to discover the high school graduation rate had fallen under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. After all, we are the reformiest place on earth, and UFT teachers now have a new evaluation system despite not having had a raise in almost five years or a contract in almost four. Mayor Bloomberg boasted about having the toughest evaluation system, bar none, and not having had to give a goshdarn penny to acquire it.

It's a given that anyone would admire a man that reformy. And yet, the reformier things get, the better they are. Why, then, would the grad rates go down? Well of course we can blame the individual teachers, and we can certainly expect them to whine about learning disabilities, poverty, kids not knowing English, and other such trivial nonsense.

But Michael Bloomberg is Perfect In Every Way. In fact, we had to change a law twice affirmed by voters to make sure he could but that indispensable third term. Therefore I do not expect this from him. Certainly he is not adding value here, and thus, I'd have to rate him ineffective. Now I'm not some wacky extremist, so I'm not waving my arms and screaming he ought to commit ritual suicide with a Samurai sword. Yet still, you'd think a man who raves about putting people's feet to the fire would, at the very least, hold himself up to his own standards.