Rep. Weiner Gives Bloomberg a ‘D’ on Education Reform
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.
A Democratic mayoral candidate, Rep. Anthony Weiner, gave Mayor Bloomberg poor marks on education reform yesterday.
“At best it’s an incomplete. But I give him a ‘D,'” Mr. Weiner, whose congressional district is in Brooklyn and Queens, said yesterday after his first policy speech on education as a mayoral candidate. “He hasn’t failed yet.”
In the third of a set of policy speeches – the first two were on hunger and economic issues – the candidate advocated returning greater control to principals, as well as raising salaries to retain teachers. Mr. Weiner said 40% of the city’s public school teachers have less than five years’ experience, and he attributed the exodus of veteran teachers to low morale and low wages.
Mr. Weiner also said that a lack of safety in schools was a major issue and that principals and teachers should have greater leeway in discipline. He criticized what he said was a labyrinthine suspension policy that took 105 days to complete, citing a study published late last year by the nonprofit organization Common Good.
Though he did not wish to see a revival of the Board of Education, which formerly had headquarters at 110 Livingston St. in Brooklyn, Mr. Weiner said that in taking control of the schools, the mayor has merely created a new bureaucracy.
“The bureaucracy has not been reduced, it’s just moved to the Tweed building,” Mr. Weiner said after a breakfast yesterday sponsored by the West Side Chamber of Commerce, which plans to invite all the candidates to speak.
Mr. Weiner is a product of the city’s public schools, and his mother – who attended the breakfast – is a retired teacher. He was first elected to the House in 1999 and touted his Washington experience as a man who can fight for federal funds.
Though the mayor said Monday that Governor Pataki’s proposals for education and other services for the city “fall short,” Mr. Weiner put the onus on Mr. Bloomberg for failing to secure enough money.
“We have learned the hard way that courteous talk with the governor simply doesn’t work,” Mr. Weiner said.
