New York City Mayor selects an educator -- Carmen Farina -- to head nation's largest school system
[Editor's Note: The following just came in from Diane Ravitch's blog and is reported here as it was reported there. Despite the fact that she attempted to get the New York City's chancellor's job, Chicago Schools Chief Executive Officer Barbara Byrd Bennet was never in the running because of her slavish promotion of corporate school reform and the agenda of Chicago's reactionary mayor Rahm Emanuel. George N. Schmidt, editor].
For the past dozen years, New York City has had a procession of school chancellors who were not educators: a banker, a prosecutor, a publisher, a former deputy mayor.
Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio made a daring--and wise-- decision to select a professional educator to run the nation's largest school system, which enrolls 1.2 million students. His search narrowed to three excellent candidates, all of whom are career professional educators: Joshua Starr, superintendent of the Montgomery County public schools, known for his strong stand against standardized testing; Kathleen Cashin, a member of the New York Board of Regents, who has valiantly opposed its unwise emphasis on high-stakes testing; and Carmen Farina, a seasoned educator and former deputy chancellor in the city school system.
De Blasio selected Farina, who promises to bring a new era of collaboration with parents, teachers, and principals. She brings humor, passion, and intelligence to the job. She spoke at the announcement about the joy of learning, a term unheard in the past dozen years. She spoke of celebrating the good work of dedicated professionals.
It is a new day in New York City. The era of punishing, blaming, and shaming professional educators is over. De Blasio announced that he will immediately scrap the A-F grading system that Mayor Bloomberg picked up from Governor Jeb Bush. He will initiate a moratorium on school closings and charter co-locations. Watch for more changes in store.
This is a great turn of events, not only for New York City, but for the nation.
Thank you, Mayor de Blasio.
Congratulations to our new Chancellor, Carmen Farina.
