Education is the great equalizer in society. Education is something no one can take from you. With an Education, one can go from the ghetto to the top of the world. I’ve lived firsthand what education can do.
Education should never be a political football, passed around from one interest to another, or a life-time tenure jobs program. 
Why do I think the city should gamble, literally roll the dice on a non educator like Cathie Black?
Well I start with my own education. Something is wrong when you have the dubious distinction of a teacher at the elementary school you attended was allegedly a one-time prostitute. (P.S. 70 off of the cross Bronx Expressway in the Bronx where we had a “play area“ on the roof of the school that was gated in with metal) Then you look and one of the High schools you attended, John F. Kennedy in the Bronx, and Kennedy is among the list of failing schools slated for closure.
The graduation rate at Kennedy was 46 percent this year, and only 25 percent of students earned the tougher Regents diploma.
Listen, many of us always knew we received an inferior education, (turn lemons into lemonade, run the race with your hands tied) but come on! Something has to give.
If you’re a Kennedy parent, would you take those odds with your child? 46 percent graduation rate?
Are you being a responsible parent knowing up front your child has a one in two chance of graduating?
It’s the Kennedy statistics are not enough to make you think twice, last year, the school gave new meaning to bake sales to “benefit students, and school activities.”
The principal at Kennedy stepped down after the state controller busted employees for swiping $90,000 in student bake sale money.
The teachers union, which successfully sued to stop the closing of 19 schools last year, has not ruled out legal action, but respectfully, what’s the point in keeping open some of these failed schools?
Based on the graduation rate at Kennedy. Again 2 kids enter, and 1 will graduate. Some schools have lower graduation rates.
I really do believe that educators should be, well, educators. but I also feel when something isn’t working we have to try something different. Think outside the box, throw a hail Mary. Do something! As the NY Post yelled at Mayor David Dinkins at the height of the crime wave. “Dave do something.”
Mayor Bloomberg thought outside the box with the Fire department when he appointed ACS commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta to head the FDNY. What if, just what if, Bloomberg proves correct with education.
These are trying times.
Two-thirds of the students in the nation’s largest school system are poor enough to qualify for free meals. As a grown man I can say I am still so thankful for those meals. Sometimes, they were the only meal of the day, and it’s scary to think about today I could have been one of those children that fell through the safety net.
I’m passionate about education because I have witnessed first hand what happened without an education. Girls I grew up with in the Bronx ended up dead after dropping out of school, unidentified at the morgue, or turned out in the worlds of prostitution or crack cocaine.
I’m passionate about education because even today I still receive letters from male friends that dropped out of school and are doing life at places like Attica, and Elmira.
Critics have locked onto the fact that Ms. Black has acknowledged that she and her children only attended private schools. We all know the words that come next for why some feel Black can not succeed. Privileged, silver spoon in her mouth.
Maybe you can say I have on rose colored glasses, that my perspective is the glass is “half full” rather than “half empty.” But maybe, just maybe Ms. Black can bring some of the private school professionalism —some of the private school expectations to her new job. Maybe, just maybe her gender alone can benefit the children. In other words, as the first woman chancellor, she may bring a perspective that has been missing all along.
It’s time to think outside the box. A Chancellor with education experience is great, but what does it really matter with the statistics we are looking at across the country. It seems it can’t get any worse.
Critics question the 20 percent graduation increase under Joel Klein. Granted. But at this point isn’t some success better than none.
So is it really shocking when the Incoming Chancellor says “I don’t know” when asked if she would send her kids to a city school? Black’s answer may not be the best one politically/public relations wise and of course it’s not what parents want to hear, but isn’t it at least refreshing that she was honest.
Unless your child is in one of the better schools like for example on the upper East or West Side, if you could afford it, be honest, would you send your child to public school? So Black is correct when she says It’s about choice for parents.
Most of us can’t afford to send our children to the best schools money can buy, so in an ideal world we should at least have some choices.
So am I such a cheerleader for Cathie Black. At the end of the day it really doesn’t have anything to do with her personally. She succeeds, our kids succeed. It’s that simple.
Something has to give. So my perspective is I don’t care how many toes we step on, put the bull in a china shop and make it happen. Yes, Cathie Black has one hell of a learning curve, but give our children something they can be proud of.
Like myself, 50 years from now, I don’t want another graduate of the NYC public school system having their inferior education thrown back in their face, knowing their high school closed because it was such a failure, and their elementary school stands out for the worlds oldest profession.