When Mayor Bloomberg first took office, I was actually still a student in it at Beach Channel High School in Rockaway Park. I remember clearly in one of my college Inquiry class at BMCC the professor telling us about the dirty way the Bloomberg took over control and how this was going to be the beginning of the end for public schools in New York. At the time I wasn’t really in the frame of mind that could take in all the major factors of the scenario , nor did I have the knowledge to see the smoke for the trees. As it turns out, my professor was right, but not only about Mayor Bloomberg, she was also right about the trend of public education around the country.
Before I go forward, it’s probably fair to warn that some of my peers in education assert that my thoughts on the following prediction are radical, unlikely, and possibly over-exaggerated. Obviously, I don’t feel that way about my own predications, otherwise I wouldn’t share them…I’d seek professional help.
It is in my opinion that, owing no small part to privatization measures that have been espoused by both the George W. Bush, and Barack H. Obama administrations, as well as strong efforts and shattering practices by Mayor Bloomberg that Public Education is an endangered species. In New York, the first step towards extinction was taken when the Board of Education was abolished and the schools were restructured under the Mayor’s Office directly. Nationally, it started with the business minded tenants of the (erringly named) No Child Left Behind Act, and the questionably useful Common Core Standards have born that torch into a new decade. Both lend themselves to the attack of the American institution of public education in their own way and have yet to yield any positive benefits to the students or the institution of schools in a quantifiable or measurable way.
The Truth Be Told.