Those Darn Kids in "Failing" Schools
Boys and Girls High School is in trouble. For one thing, it's only graduating 40% of those boys andgirls. This makes it look bad, and since there are no excuses for looking bad, there must be steps taken. The step favored by Mike Bloomberg would be to close the school and send all those boys and girls elsewhere.
This was a useful tool to Bloomberg, because once the boys and girls showed up in another building, he could then blame that building and close it too. In fact, he even closed some of the new schools he opened when they failed to produce results. Thus you have an endless stream of failing schools, you close them, open new ones, and nothing whatsoever is your fault. It's a thing of beauty.
Of course when you're closing and opening schools people notice it's not working. It's then necessary to expand the blame. Since nothing whatsoever can ever be your fault, you blame the teachers. Of course you've always blamed the teachers, but now you can take action. You attack their method of layoffs, saying you cannot get rid of the new teachers. They are all wonderful and all the experienced teachers suck. The only way to fairly dismiss teachers is to give you absolute power to fire anyone you like, arbitrarily and capriciously. The good thing about that is if you don't get what you want, you can now blame the law.
And that's what's happening in the Vergara case. Kids can't learn because their teachers suck. It's not that they failed to study. It's not that NYC Educator: Those Darn Kids in "Failing" Schools:
