The New York City Public School system is not Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s private plantation. It is obscene that any single man whether White, Black, Yellow or Green would feel that he has the right to announce sweeping, monumental changes in NYC public schools without first consulting parents of children, teachers, educational groups, elected representatives, community representatives, religious leaders and even children themselves. This is the kind of crude, contemptuous and disrespectful conduct that can only be expected of an arrogant, multi-billionaire whose success has been based on being a dictator.

Mayor Bloomberg has committed himself to innovation when it comes to our city's children. He has even been willing to rethink shortcomings in his own initial reforms. I applaud his desire to tackle teacher quality. I applaud him for giving principals the authority and freedom they so desperately deserve and for insisting that the money follows the child. I am still concerned, however, that the education bureaucracy is not adequately serving schools and that major deficiencies within the education system – like science education – have yet to be tackled. Our public schools are still not remotely customer service oriented. Parents have to fight as hard as ever to get their kids a good education. Mayoral control of the school system was a golden opportunity to get these things right, but time is running out.

The most interesting thing about the Democratic Party's decision to host its 2008 convention in Denver is the fact that New York apparently walked away from the contest.

There are at least three New York Democrats (I'm including Bloomberg here) who want to be president -- Mike, Hillary, and Eliot. And none of them fought to have the convention in their hometown, or committed to raise the money. Neither did Chuck Schumer.

For very different reasons, none of them saw that association with explicitly partisan politics, and with the Democratic Party, as a plus for their national reputations. Mike's Mr. Independent; Eliot has a government to run; and Hillary -- going national -- just didn't seem to care much one way or the other. (As someone pointed out to me today, Hillary's fighting for Denver might have been the only way to convince Dean to put it in New York.)

Have At It!

Alright all you salary pimps and whores.

The 2006 list of all city employees and their salaries (as of April 1, 2006) was just released.

Your tax dollars hard at work ... or not.

Enjoy!

Last names:  A-L, click here

Last names:  L-Z, click here

(c/o the Department of Citywide Administrative Services)