What Is That Rancid Aroma Coming from Tweed? Is the Department of Education Crumbling?

A bad week for the Mayor and the Chancellor, a really, really bad week. A four day weekend, Easter, you would think a quiet time and only one week before the Spring break. Wrong.

The Chancellor had an announcement: The highly regarded Carolyne Quintana, the Deputy Chancellor for Teaching and Learning, the division in charge of the new Science of Reading initiative and the soon to be announced revision of the Algebra curriculum will be leaving at the end of the school year. A superintendency in another city?  No announcement as to where she is headed. 

Next: the Division of Teaching and Learning, will be disbanded, the staff members would be dispersed to the districts and the support of the program will be delegated to the superintendents. Needless to say the staff in the Division are scrambling for jobs and superintendents are recruiting. Two former superintendents, Rux and Pate and one current superintendent will manage educators supporting the new phonics-based Science of Reading and the phase out of the Division of Teaching and Learning.

Banks continued, “No one would be laid off,” of course not, they are all senior teachers.]

“Someone” releases the results of the “screener” tests, the 3X a year reading tests that the Department was refusing to release, show flat scores, the Department communications spokesman is outraged the scores were released. An accident or wanting to embarrass the administration?

What’s going on? A battle for power in the passages of the Tweed Courthouse?

A rancid aroma: the former lightly regarded superintendent is under investigation, Susan Edelman in the NY Post writes,

Pate was promoted despite a complaint to the DOE ethics officer –and Banks — alleging Pate violated conflict of interest rules by charging fees to NYC employees — and for using her DOE title to benefit the business and herself. She is under scrutiny by @NYC_SCI. Instead of being assigned to a rubber room Pate is promoted with a jump in salary, when Banks became chancellor Pate was not continued in her superintendent’s job, in spite of her district’s data being poor, she was assigned to a 200+K job at Tweed.

Perhaps the guide to surviving and prospering at Tweed is Cleopatra’s Guide to Good Governance,

At 18, Cleopatra VII inherited the most lucrative enterprise in existence, the envy of her world. Everyone for miles around worked for her.

From the moment she woke she wrangled with military and managerial decisions. The crush of state business consumed her day. Partisan interests threatened to trip her up at every turn; she observed enough court intrigue to make a Medici blush. To complicate matters, she was highly vulnerable to a hostile takeover. Oh, and she looked very little like the other statesmen with whom she did business.

Herewith her leadership secrets, a papyrus primer for modern-day Washington (or the Department of Education)

Obliterate your rivals. Co-opting the competition is good. Eliminating it is better. Cleopatra made quick work of her siblings, which sounds uncouth. As Plutarch noted, however, such behavior was axiomatic among sovereigns. It happened in the best of families.

The knives are out, Quintana is eliminated and her rivals have their thrones, Banks queried the Mayor, who, with a wink walked away.

While the conspiracy was a one-day story in the media it resonated in Albany. In spite pleadings from Mayor Adams the legislative leaders all specifically noted, the extension of mayoral control will not be in the budget. The legislature adjourns on June 6rh, a hard date, the party primaries are on June 25th and the incumbents need time to campaign.

The Department of Education, actually the commissioner (Betty Rosa) and the chancellor (Lester Young) are well beyond the date specified in the law for a report on the regional mayoral control hearings,

The legislature can allow the law to sunset, revert to a seven member board, one member appointed by each boro president and two by the mayor, or, add an additional member appointed by the City Council and CECs, a nine member board. 

David Banks implied he would resign if mayoral control was not renewed, if the legislature choses a board as I describe he might be asked to remain, let’s not get too far ahead.

John Liu, the chair of the Senate NYC Education Committee is the key player. He previously served as NYC Comptroller, and is highly regarded.

The legislative clock is ticking, the state budget could be resolved in days, or weeks, and each day without a budget is one day less for other business.

The budget hang-ups are not Democrats versus Republicans, the hang-ups are middle of the road Democrats who fear chasing away voters with “woke” policy choices and the progressive wing who see themselves as the bastion of liberal progressive policies.

On June 25^th Democrat v Democrat in the primaries: the State Assembly and the State Senate as well as Congressional seats. The Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives due to the loss of seats in New York State.

For NYC voters, mayoral control is unpopular, for suburban voters mandated state testing is unpopular.

A dog-eared copy of The Prince is probably close at hand for legislators, the Medicis for whom Machiavelli wrote the guide never read it, and imprisoned and tortured him. And Adam and his cronies are neither loved nor feared