Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Bus Routes: Just Another Bump in the Road for Klein
The bus route fiasco showed the effectiveness of the $15 million that went to the A&M consulting firm to save money on the backs of the kids. To the DOE the inconvenience is a temporary bump in the road. But to parents and kids waiting on cold streets, that is a mountain. Bloomberg said today the city had a limited amount of money. He said this just days after giving back 1 billion in taxes. He could have taken the measly $10 million out of that.
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3 comments:
It's funny when the city's broke we get nothing and lend them money. When it's flush we get increases that don't match cost of living.
And no matter how much money is floating around, good teachers, small classes, and decent facilities are always unacceptable expenses. The school bus fiasco, bad as it is, is just one small example of what's wrong with this city's priorities.
I live in a neighborhood where this change affects a community nearby. The entire area is middle and upper middle class. We have been marginalized by the Bloomberg administration in so many ways. The sudden disappearance of school bus routes is just another slap in the face of the hardest working people with the highest tax burdens. This is all occurring while KleinBloomGarten ruin the once great New York City school system, replacing teaching with test prep and insane, educationally unsound priorities and programs. I read somewhere that their (the current regime's) strategy is a corporate version of "shock and awe" (remember that???). Changes occur so fast that the onlookers are confused and disoriented, and cannot react or respond immediately; there is initial confusion. Of course, there seems to be confusion emanating from the source, somewhere in downtown Manhattan, in a galaxy far far away. I am getting the distinct impression that they are wasting billions of dollars using DOE no bid contracts with nice under the table deals with huge edu corporations such as Pearson which is the old Prentice Hall and AGS. The nature of the way business is done at the DOE is just avaricious and deceitful. These dictatorial, authoritarian "leaders" just do not care about the future of this city, which is slipping in stature. I am not fooled, unfortunately, nor are people in the outer boroughs, where royalty does not reside.
They say they save $12 million out of 1 billion. A drop in the bucket. But even if you want to justify these savings, why make the change in the middle of the school year in the coldest month? Why not wait until September? Also, why not change one geographical area at a time and get it right?
Above all else BloomKlein have done to the system, their incompetence makes the old gang look like geniuses. And the press reports each instance like it's just another news story without tying it all together as a consequence of putting people with a corporate mentality in charge -- people who have no sense of how it will impact people on the ground,which at least educators who really worked in schools and then rose through the ranks have.
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