Chairman of the Education Committee of the
NYC Council
I looked at the program, and the program says “Reflections on
the restructuring,” well it’s not over, it’s just beginning.
As you know, it was reported in the paper, and I don’t think
it’s been denied, this is the third major restructuring in five
years and so anytime you try to move a huge ship, like they did the
Intrepid – you saw what happened to that – what I’m trying to say
is it takes a long time to move a system with 1.1 million school
children and about 160,000 employees.
I say that when anytime you’re going to have a major reform like
that, what you want to do is consult with the
constituents. The constituents that you represent are the
students and their parents. And, you want to consult with the
people who are actually doing the educating and they are the
teachers, the school aides, the paraprofessionals, the AP’s and
principals. You want to consult with them before a major
reform takes place and quite frankly, with respect to the city
council, the legislative body, you would think that you would
consult them also.
The Department of Education has agreed to form committees to
discuss some of the more contentious issues, such as class
size. They are going to also talk about tenure, they are also
going to be exploring opportunities to create student success
centers in collaboration with the Bergen Youth Collaboration, a
city-wide group of young people that are advocating for a students
bill of rights.
I know that students have a right, teachers have a right,
principals have a right, anyone in the schools has a right and
clearly, from what I’ve heard – that the students are seeking a
bill of rights and quite frankly, I support them on that.
We as the city council need to make sure that we maintain a
vigorous oversight over implementation of these reforms.
The most important thing we must do at this point in time is to
be involved in every step of the way of the restructuring, because
quite frankly, I do not believe that they know every step of the
direction that they are going.
Clearly, they intend on moving forward and we, members of the
city council, and you, members of the public, must be informed
every step of the way to ensure that our children, the children of
NYC, receive the best education possible.