Backward Bloomberg
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Mayor Bloomberg was asked the other night about vouchers, charter schools, and other alternatives to the existing public school system. He gave the following response: “The first thing we are going to do is improve the public school system, the traditional public school system, to serve the 1.1 million kids. I’ve certainly never been opposed to trying new things, but the burden is on us to first and foremost make the public school system work dramatically better for the 1.1 million kids. If we can do that then you can look beyond the traditional system at other opportunities. The charter school system clearly has enormous potential and we have some charter schools and I’ve been supportive of them as has the chancellor. But the charter school system is just a small percentage of what we do. We’ve got to get back to the major responsibility we were asked for and given and that is to produce results and not get caught up in ideological battles that take us elsewhere. We first have to earn the respect of the public and prove to them that we know what we are doing. Then we’d be happy to consider anything else. But make no mistake about it, the department of education is here to do what the traditional school system needs and make it better for all our kids.”
“The department of education is here to do what the traditional school system needs.” There you have it, the circular logic of public education policy in a nutshell. If, rather than sneering at “ideological battles,” the mayor would actually engage in this one, he’d no doubt realize that after the traditional schools are “dramatically better,” there won’t be much need or demand for vouchers and charter schools. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein apparently better understands the virtues of competition and privatization. The New York Post reported Saturday that he’s looking to bid out accounting work that is currently done by unionized city workers. Imagine if Mr. Bloomberg had responded to that proposal by saying, “We first have to make the in-house accounting system dramatically better. If we can do that then — and only then — we might consider bidding it out.” It’s backward.
