New York City Hopes That NYC Chancellor Carmen Farina Retires Permanently...We Don't Need Her

Carmen Farina

From Editor Betsy Combier:

The Carmen Farina I know is far worse than the person described in the media.

In the article written by Susan Oschorn below, you can read
"...her leadership a study in alienation, mistrust, and a careless disregard for democratic governance."
and,
"She was a good soldier in a regime driven by standards-based accountability, market forces, and wealthy financiers..."

When my youngest daughter was four years old, my husband and I decided that we would try to get her a seat in the well-documented, well-funded PS 6 near us on the upper east side of New York City. I and my other 3 daughters all attended the all-girls' school Nightingale-Bamford, on Manhattan's Upper East Side, but we believed in the public school system, and wanted to be part of the diversity in the New York City Department of Education.

Nightingale reunion, 2017 (me at the far right)

I applied Marielle to PS 6 which had a TAG (Talented and Gifted) program. However, my daughter only got onto the waiting list because we were not zoned for PS 6. So I wrote Carmen a letter telling her about how my husband came from Peru, (Carmen is also spanish-speaking, from Spain) and the hard work he was doing. The next day I received a call from Carmen, and she told me, "Betsy, you really know how to play the game".

I had no idea what that meant.

When we started in September 1997, at the parent orientation Carmen came over to me and welcomed me. She said that she knew that I was in the arts (my mom was a Broadway producer, funder) and I taught playwriting, and she wanted me to think of a way to get funding for the arts at PS 6 and PS 198 located at 96th Street and 3rd Avenue. PS 198 had a vastly different school population than PS 6, with a majority of the families being African-American and Hispanic.

Gloria Buckery

The PS198 Principal, Gloria Buckery, was herself African-American. I liked her. She now works for the Leadership Academy.

I was honored to be asked to help Carmen, so I went home and spent the night creating the Arts Together Community Partnership, with a brochure, how it worked to involve the parents and community, and an initial budget. I was paid nothing at any time. In fact, I told Carmen, when she told me she loved the project, that I did not want to handle any money. Carmen agreed to be in total control of incoming funds. This was my mistake, but I trusted her.

Cover of ATCP Brochure
Drawing by Leigh Zagoory,
PS 6 kindergartner

Gloria Buckery was the first member of the ATCP.

For two years Carmen and I worked on this project, and I gathered parents and members of community businesses together to create a partnership for the arts at PS 6 and PS 198 and continue to fund arts programs after the $225,000 grant from the Annenberg Challenge For the Arts ran out, in 2000. Carmen paid for Great Books to train me, and I co-taught an after school program at PS 6.

What Carmen never told me or anyone else was that the money went to the Center For Arts Education, and no arts programs were set up at PS 198. I did not find this out until May 23, 2000, when Carmen asked me to talk about the ACTP at the Annenberg Challenge Conference at Riverside Church. I spoke about the PS 6/PS 198 partnership, and how Gloria Buckery and Carmen were setting up arts programs to follow up on the grant received from Annenberg, when two teachers from PS 198 came over to me and told me that there were no arts programs at PS 198, and Principal Buckery never mentioned anything about a grant or the ATCP.  Many years later, Arts Education still failed the students in NYC - the money seems to be going somewhere other than to arts programs.

I saw PS 6 Assistant Principal Alice Hom (now Principal at PS 124) at the conference (Carmen was not there) and I went to her and asked her what was going on. She said in a non-convincing voice "Oh, I don't know", and rushed out.

Alice Hom

When I returned home later that day, my telephone rang, and it was Carmen. For the next 20 minutes she screamed curses at me, called me a thief, a liar, and b**** and many other things. I hung up on her after I simply could not take it anymore.

I resigned from the PS 6 Executive Board, not because I did anything wrong, but I did not want to be in the room with Carmen Farina. I was still a parent of a student in the school. Then parents and teachers started talking with me about the "real" Carmen. They told me they were too afraid to speak against her when she walked around the school with her arms around me. They told me that she despises the UFT and tenured teachers, they told me. She also despises Gifted and Talented programs, (she ended the G&T Program at PS 6) and thinks all children should be equal, and get to level 2 or 3, not 1 or 4. She pushed a terrible math program, TERC, to the detriment of the children at PS 6, who valued traditional math with long division and addition and subtraction. When my daughter Marielle wrote an article about TERC and this article was published in the Riverdale Review, she was removed from the PS 6 math Team, and told she was too stupid to be on it. Before her self-esteem got too destroyed, I signed her up to take the Center For Talented Youth (CTY) Test, and she succeeded in getting into the math and English programs with a 99th percentile score. In 6th grade she moved on to the G&T school NEST+M, from which she graduated as a member of the National Honor Society.

For Marielle, it was a close call. She was almost a victim of the NYC Department of Education's mobbing.

I reported Carmen after her screaming lunacy for not setting up the PS 6 School Leadership Team according to the regulations and law. She was reprimanded by the NYC DOE and she was removed from PS 6 in February 2001. Stunningly, she went to District 15 as District Superintendent and set up the ATCP there, under the title "First Tuesdays". I own the copyright for the ATCP as I was never paid for the work I did on it at PS 6, so I let them know at District 15. I found out that she was working closely with Bill De Blasio, so I contacted his office.

Then my other 3 daughters, in 2001-2010 all in the public schools of New York City - 2 at Stuyvesant High School and 1 at La Guardia High School - were all attacked by their teachers and/or administrations of their schools. Carmen's long arm of revenge reaches far and wide.

Scandals followed Carmen until, to the dismay of all the parents and teachers at PS 6 and beyond, Joel Klein brought Carmen back as Deputy Chancellor. She was told to "retire" or "be fired" after the Lee McCaskill scandal and then Bill De Blasio brought her back again when he was elected Mayor.

See
"

The Case Against Carmen Farina, Former Bloomberg/Diana Lam Partner in Crime

"Carmen Farina: Politics Wins With Her Appointment as Deputy Chancellor in New York City"
"A Question For Carmen Farina, NYC Chancellor: Where's The Money?"
"DOE Axing Wife of Retired Brooklyn Tech High School Principal"
"The Problem With Carmen Farina being Chancellor Is...."
"Carmen Farina: Politics Wins with Her Appointment as Deputy Chancellor In New York City"
(2004)
"Despite Too Many Questions of Improprieties, Carmen Farina is Named Deputy Chancellor For the New York City DOE"

Let's all wish her well as she retires again, but please, politicians everywhere, don't hire her again for any reason!!!!

Betsy Combier
Editor, ADVOCATZ.com
Editor, ADVOCATZ
BlogEditor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials

Bill De Blasio's Schools Chancellor Is Leaving: Who Will Restore The Joy to Early Ed?
LINK
Susan Oschorn, ECE Policy Matters


Not long before New York City’s public schools closed for winter break, Katie Lapham posted to Twitter a drab black-and-white photograph of a testing manual she had found in her mailbox, the imprimatur of Carmen Fariña in the upper left-hand corner. An elementary school teacher and long-time critic of education policy, Lapham felt sick. “We will continue to refuse the tests,” she wrote, with the hashtag #OptOut2018.

Within days of the delivery, Fariña confirmed that she was stepping down from her perch as chancellor—four years after Bill de Blasio had coaxed her out of retirement to run the nation’s largest school system. Her appointment had elicited guarded optimism among the city’s educators. They took comfort in her half-century of service, including a longtime stint as a teacher in Brooklyn and principal of a well-regarded elementary school in Manhattan. But Fariña’s more recent work was suspect.

As deputy chancellor under Joel Klein, her predecessor in the administration of billionaire Michael Bloomberg, Fariña was tasked with carrying out a policy agenda that many found problematic, if not repugnant. She was a good soldier in a regime driven by standards-based accountability, market forces, and wealthy financiers—from which, despite de Blasio’s best intentions, he has failed to fully extricate himself.

At the press conference convened to announce the news of her retirement, Fariña noted that she had not taken the job to win a popularity contest. She said she was “most proud of bringing dignity to teaching, joy to learning, and trust to the system.” De Blasio called her departure “bittersweet,” announcing a national search, already underway out of public view, for her replacement.

After a lifetime of service, nearing 75, Fariña is entitled to put the finishing touches on her narrative. But the cognitive dissonance could not be more acute.

She has left teachers and parents with an acrid taste, her leadership a study in alienation, mistrust, and a careless disregard for democratic governance. A battle with the parents of Central Park East I, an elementary school known for child-centered, play-based learning, became a flashpoint of her tenure as she continued to support an incompetent and abusive principal, out of sync with progressive ideals.

Fariña’s response to the city’s entrenched segregation—highlighted by a damning report issued by U.C.L.A.’s Civil Rights Project in 2014—reflected astonishing tone deafness. Let the children get pen pals, she urged; her solution to a deep wound and massive systemic failure seemed heartless and woefully inadequate.

The chancellor brooked no dissent. While Fariña softened her opposition to test refusal amid early talk of retirement, she was a staunch opponent of opting out, silencing critique of the city’s policies, and directing her deputies and administrators to follow suit with parents and teachers. In 2015, the New York City Council passed a bipartisan resolution in support of informing families about the right to have their children boycott the tests. Yet, as the season of the high-stakes Common Core exams began last year, the department of education had not cooperated, parents left in the dark.

De Blasio shared custody with Fariña of universal preschool, his signature education initiative. I welcomed the mayor’s bold venture, which began with a historic number of four-year-olds—more than 50,000—in the fall of 2014. Designed to address New York’s deep income inequality, “PreK for All” represented an attempt to level the playing field. Last fall, a limited number of three-year-olds joined their older peers. A “game-changer,” he had called the expansion, conceding the challenges that lay ahead.

The mayor, however, neglected to mention the risk to child well-being of toxic education policies. During his first term, the Common Core standards cast a dark shadow over our youngest children, condemning them to a treadmill of benchmarks and assessment before they can even lace up their running shoes. Their human right to a rich, joyful educational experience has been violated, rote learning, worksheets, and scarce time for play foisted upon little ones whose social-emotional and fine motor skills are in formation.

I posted the news of Fariña’s retirement to my Facebook page on the day of the winter solstice. Within minutes, a group of early childhood educators had gathered, offering their appraisal of the chancellor’s tenure and venting long-held grievances. The thread quickly grew longer.

The term child abuse appeared. A growing number of early educators across the country are anxious about the harm they’re inflicting on young children, the legacy of misguided education policies in place since the early aughts. Malpractice, they call it, and many are leaving, beaten down by the stress.

The vast wage gap between public school teachers and those in community-based organizations also cropped up. Most of the city’s three- and four-year-olds are enrolled in settings outside the public schools. Like the children in their care, these practitioners often live in difficult circumstances, while moonlighting to make ends meet on their subpar salaries. Such is the case nationally, the subject of a recent New York Times Magazine piece by Jeneen Interlandi. But the problem is especially urgent in New York, threatening the sustainability and success of de Blasio’s program.

Here, I’ve extracted some comments by early childhood educators, lightly edited:

I truly hope they get someone who will respect children, teachers, families, and child development principles, and who knows and respects that children need play and outdoor time and FUN!—Ellen Jaffe Cogan

The department of education requires two hours and ten minutes of play-based learning and one hour of gross motor (skill-building) in preKs. Unfortunately, many preKs—both school- and community-based—believe they must get children ready for kindergarten. If kindergarten was developmentally appropriate, there would not be pressure to do more rote-like teaching—Lisa North

The chancellor has no meaningful understanding of what early childhood education should look like, or respect for the work of early childhood teachers—Jeannette Corey

Since Bloomberg, kindergarten has not been an early childhood grade. That has helped to turn kindergarten into first grade. Disgraceful!— Renée Dinnerstein

The teachers are not supported by administrators. They are trained to be developmentally appropriate…but are told by their administrators to follow a canned curriculum that does not individualize. There is very little time for open-ended, spontaneous play—Dana Doyle

Those who are not on the ground don’t really understand the current situation and the gross inequities—from salaries to lack of nurses and security—between community- and school-based preKs. What they fail to realize is 3K for All and PreK for All are completely dependent on the community-based workforce, the physical spaces we have, and the expertise we all bring—Chloe Pashman

Who will, indeed, restore joy to learning, dignity to teachers, and trust to the system?

In this closely guarded search process, most of the people whose names have been floated haven’t captured my imagination. Missing are Michael Hynes, the superintendent of the Patchogue-Medford school district on Long Island, and Jamaal A. Bowman, founder and principal of the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action middle school in the Bronx. Each of them makes a powerful case for bringing joy and excitement back to learning, and they live and work by their words.

During Hynes’s four years in his large, diverse district, he has doubled recess time in kindergarten through fifth grade, brought yoga and meditation to all students, and reintroduced play and project-based learning into kindergarten through second-grade classrooms, from which they have been rapidly disappearing. He understands that children cannot be deconstructed, that their physical, emotional, academic, and social selves are inextricably linked.

Bowman caught my eye in 2015, when he wrote an op-ed for the Daily News, a paean to the whole child. A former teacher and the father of a preschooler, he understands the richness that all students bring to the process of teaching and learning, and the urgency of getting it right. As he wrote in a piece I published at my blog a year ago:

There is unlimited talent and potential within our schools. Children come to us full of excitement and infinite ideas. They believe and know that anything is possible. They are fearless, and not tainted by age, time, or the ridicule of failure. They are natural leaders; and when they find a passion, they’ll work vigorously to achieve mastery without provocation.

For New York’s next chancellor, we need a radical change of direction. The stakes have never been so high.

NYC Gives $25 Million To Boost Arts Instruction

It is always fascinating to watch Carmen Farina at work, pulling a fast one on the public via her photo opps ("opportunities") and newspaper friends. Where money is concerned, there is always someone who is willing to take it for him or herself. Always.

When my youngest daughter was admitted to kindergarten at PS 6 (pictured above) in Manhattan, Carmen was the principal. At the welcoming party for new parents I introduced myself, and she told me that the Annenberg Challenge For The Arts had given $75,000 for 3 years to PS 6 and our sister school, PS 198 on 96th Street, and would I please think about how we at PS 6 could continue to fund the arts after the 3 years were up.

I went home that night thinking that this was a momentous honor, to be asked to help the principal raise funds for the arts. My mom was in the Broadway arena as a benefactor of the theater and Trustee of the Neighborhood Playhouse, so I grew up sort of "on Broadway". I also have my own company, Theater Kids, Inc. Two of my daughters were signed up to sing at the New York City Opera at the ages of 9 and 5, so I consider myself a person of and in the arts.

I designed the Arts Together Community Partnership (ATCP) and brought it to Carmen the next day, or a few days later. She loved it. I became her arts program lead parent, and I also was on the Executive Committee as the "Director" of the ATCP. My one condition was that I would not handle any money, checks, accounting, etc. Nada. Carmen said that was ok.

Carmen Farina

We worked on this project together for two years, and Carmen spent $2000 on the brochures I wrote describing the project which was distributed to the parents, staff and neighborhood. Then, on May 23 2000 after I came home from the Annenberg Conference at Riverside Church in Manhattan to which Carmen had sent me, and where I had asked "where is the money" to the PS 6 Assistant Principal (PS 198 teachers also there had told me at the Conference that they had no information about ATCP or any arts programs), Carmen called me at home and screamed for about 20 minutes vile and insulting accusations about me. I hung up on her.

I have never been given an answer to that question ("where is the money - $225,000- Carmen?").

On or about May 24, 2000 Carmen and parent (and Corporation Counsel Attorney) Jane Gordon threw away the ATCP brochures, I was told. I have 5 of them.

I wrote a report and sent it to Annenberg, and in 2003 they published the Summary findings. I suggested that there be accountability measures more clearly in place to prevent misuse of funds. Without this, the programs would continue to fail.

I wrote this in 2004:
Carmen Farina: Politics Wins With Her Appointment as Deputy Chancellor in New York City

In fact, Carmen told the parents and media back in 1999-2001 that this would "bring the arts back to NYC schools"

What did she say in her photo opp captured by Ben Chapman?

"Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña says the plan has "brought the 

arts back in a very serious way."

Strangely familiar. Follow the money, folks. Know where it is every step of the way!!!!!!

(Ben - are you doubling as Carmen's press person? Your article reads like a press release?)

Betsy Combier, Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter

NYC’s $23M plan introduces 22,000 kids to music, dance, art

Ben Chapman, NY DAILY NEWS

LINK

The city’s $23 million plan to boost arts instruction has introduced about

22,000 public school kids to subjects like music, dance and visual art since 

2014, a report released Wednesday shows.

The Education Department’s report also says the school system has added 

arts teachers to 113 middle and high schools across the city.

The Big Apple’s 1,800 public schools now employ 2,568 teachers who 

specialize in the arts, the report says — the most in a decade.

“We believe that this is fundamentally every student’s right and not just a privilege.”

The report also says 96% of city middle schools offered arts classes in 2015, 

up from 92% in 2014.

Education experts have long believed arts education has a positive influence 

on students in terms of academic achievement and future employment.

The Carmen Farina Chronicles: NY Times Starts The Carmen Spin

The article below raises some red flags. I worked closely with Carmen Farina, the new public schools CEO, at PS 6 for two years, until May 23, 2000 when I asked where the money was for the Annenberg Challenge For The Arts Program. Carmen had asked me to attend the Annenberg Challenge For The Arts Conference at Riverside Church, and she told me that I would represent PS6's arts program. We were partners with PS 198, also in Manhattan. In the afternoon, two teachers came over to me from PS 198, after they had heard me speak about how PS 6 and, I said, PS 198, had followed up with fundraising, and they told me that they had no arts program and had never heard of the Annenberg Challenge For The Arts Grant. PS 198 Principal Gloria Buckery had been the first member of the Arts Together Community Partnership when I created for Carmen as a fundraising tool for the schools (PS 6 & 198). I had trusted Carmen when she told me she was working with the Center For Arts Education on getting the arts into PS 198.

I have no idea where the authors of the Challenge Journal below got their information
about the PS 6- PS 198 arts collaboration cited in their report below after the NY TIMES article, but the teachers told me they knew nothing about it.

The NY TIMES cites Carmen's "success" after she got rid of 80% of the teachers, when indeed, the scores of the children and the overall rating of PS 6 fell drastically during her reign. Carmen put in dumbed down math or TERC, Balanced Literacy, and other programs as well as ended the Gifted and Talented Program. Doesn't anyone remember the changing of grades for seniors and the public anger that followed?

Whenever the UFT contacted Carmen expressing any kind of dismay, Carmen told them not to call back. No one did. Carmen openly disparaged the Union and told everyone not to worry, "they would not get in her way".

The most worrisome in the NYTIMES piece is this fabrication:
"Ms. Fariña said she had left the Bloomberg administration because of the issue of professional development, though other education insiders alluded to other philosophical differences as well."

Carmen was shown the door, however way she wanted to leave the Deputy Chancellorship (retire, resign, be fired) after she gave a free seat to the daughter of Lee McCaskill, Principal of Brooklyn Tech (his wife was also a DOE employee) in a District 15 elementary school even though the family lived in New Jersey. The DOE allowed McCaskill to resign. We heard that Cathy Furman McCaskill resigned her position as well.

Brooklyn Tech Principal Lee McCaskill
 

The McCaskill scandal arose while Steve Ostrin, a Brooklyn Tech teacher held in the Brooklyn rubber room for almost 7 years, went to trial and McCaskill resigned his position immediately following his testimony. Eric Nadelstern also resigned after I exposed a memo written by Teresa Europe and DOE Attorney Cheryl Smith Massena.

DOE Attorney Cheryl Smith Massena
on ch. 2 quiz show (she lost)

Also, there was the matter of Diana Lam's husband getting a job without going to the Conflict of Interest Board.

Talking about conflicts, why does Bill De Blasio say he is opposed to Charters, and his SEO is very much enamored with the Ascend Charter Schools Network? What is that about?

We must not forget, but let's see what she does now. Maybe we can forgive. But let's get the facts right.

Betsy Combier

Update: on January 5 2014 the NYPOST says that Carmen's salary is going to be double that of the Mayor's. I have an idea: why not ask Carmen to donate her salary to creating arts programs in schools that have none?

What do you say, Carmen?

 

 

Schools Chancellor Brings Joyful and Fierce Style

By GINIA BELLAFANTE, NY TIMES

LINK

Late in the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, Carmen Fariña was preparing to have 10 people over to dinner, a plan, she joked, she wouldn’t have made had she known that the next day would mark the beginning of her tenure as the city’s new schools chancellor. Perhaps out of a subliminal sense of premonition or foresight, or just grandmotherly efficiency, she had arranged for a caterer.

In our conversation, rather than trying to get into the granular details of how she would deal with unions or charter schools, ideas and tactics clearly evolving, Ms. Fariña and I talked about her philosophical approach to actual teaching and leadership.

By various accounts, and what is suggested in her own telling, Ms. Fariña is both fierce and dexterous. As a 40-year veteran of the city school system, she accrued numerous and enviable successes as teacher, principal and superintendent, rising to deputy chancellor in the early years of the Bloomberg era.

Serving as the principal of Public School 6 on the Upper East Side during the 1990s, she overturned 80 percent of the staff, greatly improving the school’s standing. One teacher was so awful, Ms. Fariña told me, that the incompetence became consuming. “I’d wake up during the night thinking about the children who had to deal with this teacher,” she said.

Her management took the form of a Machiavellian benevolence — the kind of approach you imagine is taught to aspiring executives in certain classes at Wharton, whereby the party about to be demoted or fired is encouraged to believe that what is happening is the best possible result for him or her. At P.S. 6, Ms. Farina got rid of only three teachers outright, she told me. The rest she counseled out, helping them to see — presumably in some instances where they couldn’t obviously see it for themselves — that they were really better suited for other things. When she rose to higher levels and oversaw principals, she worked in much the same way, assisting one principal, who wasn’t doing a particularly good job, for instance, in finding a new, more bureaucratically oriented position within the system.
“It turned out she liked paperwork,” Ms. Farina said. “You think no one likes paperwork.”

One of the most contentious challenges the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio will face is contract negotiations with the teachers’ union, particularly around the question of the so-called A.T.R. — the Absent Teacher Reserve. These are teachers who are receiving full pay even though they are working as substitutes or in clerical positions, having been dismissed for poor performance or having lost their jobs to school closings or budget cuts without getting rehired. Because Mr. de Blasio and Ms. Fariña are not fully in the reformist mind-set, their critics speculate that they will be reflexively acquiescent or at least highly vulnerable to union influence, but it’s hard to imagine someone with Ms. Fariña’s record prodding the mayor to consent to outrageous and possibly perilous demands.
Ms. Farina is a progressive educator who speaks movingly about returning joy to the project of teaching children. “We’ve lost the spirit that education is a calling,” she told me.
She is passionate about social studies and science; she is not opposed to the Common Core or to testing generally. “Life is a series of tests in many ways,” she said. What she opposes, she explained, are myopic systems of learning in which real knowledge becomes a casualty of test knowledge, and what she calls “the gotcha mentality” of the Bloomberg years, when teachers and principals were often abandoned instead of being given whatever support they might need to improve.
“Even the worst principals work hard,” she said. “When we support them, then we can hold them accountable.”
Ms. Fariña said she had left the Bloomberg administration because of the issue of professional development, though other education insiders alluded to other philosophical differences as well.
Ultimately Ms. Fariña’s biggest task may be to broker an ideological peace between those who believe that joy and rigor are compatible and those who don’t, between those who believe that progressive education works only for children growing up in prewar apartments with parents who have read every John Updike novel twice and those who believe that disadvantaged children can benefit from it as well.

Ms. Fariña is a fan of “balanced literacy,” designed chiefly by Professor Lucy Calkins of Columbia, an approach rooted in the idea that children build reading skill by reading books that they love and that engage them. The Bloomberg administration favored this approach until a study two years ago, following 1,000 city school children in 20 schools from kindergarten through second grade, indicated that those second graders taught with a curriculum focused more on nonfiction scored higher on reading comprehension than those in the comparison schools. At the time, Ms. Fariña criticized the study for focusing on too few schools.

Ms. Fariña said there were many potential ways to approach context-based learning and, for instance, to improve vocabulary. Giving children actual lyric sheets when they are singing in class, she said, could be one way of exposing them to new words. One method for going forward might be to teach fundamentals in a more traditional way until fourth grade or so, to lay the groundwork for more expansive learning, and then take things in more experimental directions. TheAscend network of charter schools, educating some of the poorest children in the city in central Brooklyn, has had great success with that model, borrowing the humanities-driven approach of progressive private schools once children are beyond the earliest elementary grades. By sixth grade, Ascend students are reading “The Iliad.” The network’s test scores have been impressive.

Dialogue, debate and excitement in the classroom should obviously be the goals of all educators. “Once I was about to visit a principal,” Ms. Fariña said, “who told me, ‘You’re going to love coming here because you can hear a pin drop.’ I said, ‘I better not come because that isn’t going to make me happy.’ ”

EMAIL: bigcity@nytimes.com

The Annenberg Challenge

Annenberg Institute

How the Arts Transform Schools: A Challenge for All to Share VOLUME 3, NUMBER 1 FALL 1998 LINK

Carmen Farina to the Head of the Class?  Alonso Succeeds Carmen Farina As Klein Deputy Former Deputy Chancellor Carmen Farina Retired Because of Her Complicity With the   McCaskill Wrongdoing CLASSY TOP AIDE TO JOEL IS LEAVING   The Arrogance of Immunity and the "Resignation" -or Retirement - of NYC DOE Deputy Chancellor Carmen Farina The Case Against Carmen Farina, Former Bloomberg/Diana Lam Partner in Crime UNDER-FIRE KLEIN NAMES DEPUTY By Carl Campanile, March 12, 2004 Schools chancellor Joel Klein yesterday named a 40-year veteran educator to replace his top aide, Diana Lam, who was ousted in a nepotism scandal. Carmen Farina, superintendent of Brooklyn’s Region 8, was named acting deputy chancellor for teaching and learning. Before becoming a superintendent, she was a principal at PS 6 on the Upper East Side, one of the city’s highest performing schools. Farina, well regarded within the school system, said she supported the controversial curriculum implemented by Klein and Lam “150 percent.” She also backs the new policy to hold back third-grade students who do poorly on standardized reading and math exams. Klein’s first choice to replace Lam, policy adviser Michele Cahill, was rejected by state officials because she doesn’t have an education degree. Klein, a businessman and lawyer, got a waiver to become chancellor, but Albany said the law provides no exception for other positions. Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg gave the beleaguered chancellor a vote of confidence yesterday, hoping to put an end to the nepotism scandal. “[Klein] is standing with me and he’s going to be standing right with me for the next six years. Make no mistake about that,” Bloomberg said. The mayor was instrumental in getting rid of Lam, who was accused of using her clout to get two department jobs for her husband, Peter Plattes, without clearance from the City Conflicts of Interest Board. Klein’s legal counsel, Chad Vignola, was forced to resign after a report by schools investigator Richard Condon found he attempted to cover up the scandal by referring to Plattes as a volunteer, not an employee.    Diana Lam, Deputy Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, gets Fired   Despite Too Many Questions of Improprieties, Carmen Farina is Named Deputy Chancellor For the New York City DOE False Claims of Special Education Successes Cloud the Bloomberg/Klein Reform Carmen Farina: Politics Wins With Her Appointment as Deputy Chancellor in New York City NYC Deputy Chancellor Rewards Gifted, Privileged Kids in NYC Public Schools by Raising 4 Years of AP Grades    PS 6 School Leadership Team Bylaws written by Carmen Farina in 2000    DOE reprimand of Carmen Farina's SLT violations Annenberg Challenge

 

The Case Against Carmen Farina, Former Bloomberg/Diana Lam Partner in Crime

There is a lot of talk about Carman Farina returning to a position of power over the New York City Department of Education.

This would be, in my informed and personal opinion, a huge error. Carmen invented fear as a way to run a school. She got rid of 80% of the teachers there when she took over, and if a parent or child got in her way, there was no mediation. Retaliation was immediate. I don't now, nor have I ever, bought into the "curry-favor-to-get-where-you-want-to-be", but this is Carmen's weapon. Her allies are the people in power at the moment, her assistants and friends, the people too scared to say no to her.



Carmen Farina

Nothing takes away the fact that Carmen Farina diverted the Annenberg Challenge For the Arts money from the school. Where did it go? I worked with Carmen for more than 2 years, setting up the Arts Together Community Partnership, a great program with a goal to raise arts money from the community for the school. Carmen loved it, until I asked, "Where's the money?" In about 1 day she - Carmen Farina - called me up at home and cursed at me with words I have not heard since. She screamed the curses at me and I listened, then I hung up. I couldn't move or breathe. Carmen then told me and my ATCP committee that she had thrown the entire project into the garbage, and we must never speak of the Arts Together project again. The following February she was removed from PS 6 to become the Superintendent of District 15 in Brooklyn, her home borough.
A source told me that a request was made to PS 198 Principal Gloria Buchery to "create" paperwork on the Annenberg Grant, but she refused.

My youngest daughter entered PS. 6 on the upper east side of Manhattan (81st and Madison Avenue, to be exact), in September 1997. My daughter got accepted into the Gifted and Talented program there. After two years, Carmen ended G&T because "all kids can learn".

None of my other three children had been in public school for kindergarten or any elementary grades, so I was really excited about this new adventure into NYC's finest education. I knew many people who had attended PS 6 when I was at Nightingale Bamford, a private school on 92nd street a few blocks away. My twin sister and I attended Nightingale grades 1-12.

PS 6 was a great school. Before Carmen changed it into a "Do it my way or take the highway".

Sorry, Bill, I'm not with you on this one. She retired because of her complicity in the scandal involving Lee McCaskill, and then there is the un-democratic manner in which she invented teacher terror, parent intimidation, and children's suspensions. See also this article. And then there is Bill De Blasio's reliance on Carmen, and this is the disaster about to happen, if he goes with her to be Chancellor. He is being seriously misinformed if he believes she is a leader worth bringing to the NYC public school system once again.

I fully expect Carmen , her too afraid allies, or her husband Tony to start an immediate retaliation scheme against me. Go ahead!! You will see it on this blog. To the readers of this blog: when you hear that someone is "crazy", a "criminal", everybody hates him/her, or whatever, you should never believe it until there is proof. There is a method to my advocacy that makes them characterize my "madness" this way in order to justify their wrongdoing.

Betsy Combier

Carmen Farina: Politics Wins With Her Appointment as Deputy Chancellor in New York City
Parentadvocates.org has spoken to teachers, parents and administrators for more than three years about Mrs. Farina and her actions as she rose in the ranks of the New York City Department of Education. E-Accountability OPINION: unsatisfactory; Recommendation: resignation or termination

re-posted from my website, Parentadvocates.org 

It is much too early to tell whether she'll have the job permanently," Bloomberg told the Daily News in March. "But I have not heard one bad word about her."

From the desk of Betsy Combier, former Executive Board member of the PS 6 PTA, who worked closely with Deputy Chancellor Carmen Farina for 2 years until May 23, 2000. That afternoon, after finding out that PS 198 did not receive equal part of the $225,000 Annenberg Challenge for the Arts Grant money in partnership with PS 6, (at an Annenberg Conference Ms. Farina sent me to at Riverside Church), I asked "where is the money?", a question that spurred a telephone call from Ms. Farina to my home during which she accused me of hiring/firing all the arts teachers at PS 6, taking the money (I never touched any money, never saw checks, never knew anything about the finances of the school), and speaking for PS 6, my worst crime.

Carmen Farina's appointment as Deputy Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education is as clear a message as the the New York City public has received to date that our Mayor simply is not listening to anyone outside of his immediate inner circle.

For the past three years The E-Accountability Foundation has interviewed parents and teachers at PS 6, in District 15 (Brooklyn), and from region 8, where Mrs. Farina was Regional Superintendent before being appointed Acting Deputy Chancellor of the NYC DOE in February, 2004, and then made Deputy Chancellor in May. Her disdain for parents - aside from those who she brings into her closed circle of friends - is legendary, and her School Leadership Team Bylaws at PS 6violate almost every clause in the "Green Book" on SLT Regulations. She was reprimanded by the Director of the Parent Advocacy and Engagement Office, Jamal Young, in a May 2001 letter to me, sent to Carmen, Superintendent Shelley Harwayne, and several other people. Nothing was done about the Bylaws or the SLT at PS 6, but Jamal's aunt Birdie Blake-Reid was found guilty of improper payments of public funds to employees, and fined by the Conflict of Interest Board soon after.

Mrs. Farina is a Master at threatening retaliation for any deed that she does not support, and she follows up her threats quickly and forcibly.

Mrs. Fariña has been given the task of defending the city's work with special education students and the mayor's third-grade retention plan, among all the other items on the Mayor's agenda. She gets an A for spinning information that is false and misleading, making it sound legitimate, and silencing anyone who questions the data or her presentation. She has the power to have people who work for her scream and threaten parents and teachers so that she doesn't have to do all the work herself. This is a Master at work, as we uncover the major disgrace that is special education in New York City. Mrs. Farina gleefully told a packed Hunter College auditorium in May that she completed 12,000 evaluations in the month of March. We did our math, and divided 12,000 by 23, the working days in March. This means that more than 521 children were 'evaluated' every day, and the only way this could happen is if someone was paid to sit in a room, put a signature to a stack of evaluations, and throw the children's needs into the garbage. We do not believe that an in-depth evaluation of all the services and requests for assistive technology for each child was done.

What else do we know about Carmen?

Carmen Farina was the Principal of PS 6 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan for 10 years. During that time she developed a highly efficient teaching group, she kept the scores on standardized testing high, she implemented an almost total "fuzzy math" curriculum, ended the Gifted and Talented Program, kept teachers in their place by instituting fear for speaking out against her in any way, and denied parents who dared to confront her on anything any involvement in the School Leadership Team or on the PTA or any school committees. Parents asked questions about $225,000 for three years' partnership with PS 198 under the Annenberg Challenge for the Arts Grants, but this money was never accounted for. Under the grant guidelines from Annenberg, the Principal was responsible for establishing the evaluation. This, we believe, was a mistake. We wrote letters, tried to reach by telephone, and attended events of, the Center For Arts Education in order to ask questions about the implementation of the arts programs at PS 6 and PS 198, but no one would speak to us. District 2 Superintendent Shelley Harwayne would not speak to us. Ms. Cynthia List, former person in charge of School Leadership Teams, told me that she had "been told not to speak with me." We also wrote the Special Commissioner For Investigations, Mr. Ed Stancik. His office never replied:

Mr. Edward Stancik
Special Investigator
65 Court Street
Brooklyn, New York 11201 May 17, 2001

Dear Mr. Stancik,

I am writing this letter to ask you to investigate Mrs. Carmen Farina, and her actions pertaining to the allocation of money received from the Annenberg Challenge For the Arts Grant.

Mrs. Farina was Principal of PS 6 from 1982 to February 1, 2001. She left in February to become Interim Acting Superintendant of District 15 in Brooklyn. In 1997 the Annenberg Foundation gave PS 6 and PS 198 in Manhattan a grant of $75,000 per year ( thus giving these schools more than $225,000 for performing arts programs ). This partnership between PS 6 and 198 was supposed to be used by both schools in partnership, and was to hire artists and groups for both schools.

I started working with Mrs. Farina at PS 6 on a program called The Arts Together Community Partnership (ATCP) in 1997. This group was designed to follow the Annenberg grant and raise money for the performing arts at both schools after the grant ended. I did not work on the grant itself, and had no knowledge of the money or artists involved with the Annenberg Grant.

In May, 2000, Mrs. Farina called me up and, completely out of the blue, accused me of taking the money from the Annenberg grant, and of hiring and firing all the artists in the school. She threw my work on the ATCP in the garbage, and wrote The Center For Arts Education and ArtsConnection that I was hiring and firing everybody.
Since this time I have found out:

1. No one knows what arts programs PS 198 had, if any. Some people I spoke with said that there seemed to be no partnership at all.

2. The Principal of 198 at the time, Ms. Gloria Buchery, has been removed, and has refused to tell anyone what partnership existed, if any. She has not spoken with anyone about the Annenberg money.

3. The Treasurer for PS 6 has told me that even though all the Annenberg money was kept at PS 6, no one on the Executive Board knew what was being spent, or to whom it was going to. Mrs. Farina had total control over the funds.

4. This year, the 5th Grade at PS 6 did not have arts classes, even though the Grant does not end until June of this year. My daughter, in 3rd Grade, was told that her drama class was cancelled due to lack of money.

We parents at PS 6 and PS 198 want to know where the $225,000 was allocated, when, and to whom. Please investigate this and Mrs. Carmen Farina.

Thank you. Mrs. Farina may be reached at:

District 15
Acting Superintendant
360 Smith Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
718-330-9300

Home: 29 Tiffany Place #PH3
Brooklyn, NY 11231

Please let me know, as a member of the parent organization desiring this investigation of Carmen Farina, what you find.
Betsy Combier

The Annenberg money was particularly troubling, as there was no accountability for the funds, and indeed the Annenberg Foundation does not consider this a successful program.

In October 1997 I spoke with Carmen about helping her fundraise for the arts. She asked me to help her find a way to raise money for the arts at PS 6 when the Annenberg grant ran out. Over the next several days I thought about a parent-driven project that would be centered around a community association for the arts. Carmen loved the idea, so for the next 8 months I and several other parents discussed what is now known as "The Arts Together Community Partnership".

PS 6's grant from Annenberg was part of the Annenberg Challenge for the Arts, designed to partner two very different schools so that each could provide and share the grant money and arts programs. The Arts Together Community Partnership worked as a parent-driven organization that brought funds into both schools through a membership/community association. In March 2000 Carmen gave us $2000 to produce the ATCP brochure, and we were able to print 1000 copies for $1995. She loved it.

Carmen asked me to speak with the partner school's Principal, Gloria Buckery (former PS 198 Principal, now Region 6 Superintendent). I went over immediately with the brochure, and Gloria joined the Arts Together Community Partnership on the spot, donating $25.00. I brought the check back to PS 6 and left it with Carmen, as one of my rules is to never hold money that belongs in a school bank account.

Then, a strange thing happened. Carmen did not let me know what she would want the parents to do. We were meeting in the school cafeteria, but whenever we had a logistics problem, Carmen just did not answer. Then she told me that she wanted me to attend the Annenberg Conference on how to follow the grant with arts-funding ideas. I went to Riverside Church on May 23, 2000 for the conference, and went to an afternoon session at which I spoke very briefly about the ATCP. Two teachers from 198 told me at the end of the day that they had never heard of The Arts Together Community Partnership! They seemed very surprised to see the logo, with PS 6 on one side, and PS 198 on the other, because they did not know if, indeed, there were any arts programs at 198 funded by Annenberg. I was very concerned. When I returned home I received a telephone call from Carmen Farina, and she was extremely upset. She screamed that I was firing all the Annenberg artists, I was hiring others, I was taking the money, and I would not get away with it. She said, "You have NO right to speak for PS 6". I was stunned.
The next day I did exactly what she wanted, and that was to resign from my lunchtime club - helping 4th and 5th graders learn about charitable organizations - and my position on the PTA Executive Board. A few days later I received a letter in the mail that told me Carmen and Jane Gordan, the PTA President as witness, had thrown all the Arts Together Community Partnership materials into the garbage. Carmen wrote that I would NEVER set this project up at PS 6. Luckily, I had several brochures at home.

In 2003 Carmen spoke at the New York City Council about her new community Organization Program, "First Tuesdays". She said that all the restaurants in 15 were joining this program to supply needed After School money to district schools. The idea was very similar to the ATCP. So, I guess Carmen liked the ATCP after all! Just to make sure, I called Mr. Weiss up at the District 15 office, and asked him about "First Tuesdays". He told me that Carmen had thought up this wonderful program while at PS 6, and had set it up there very successfully. I asked him to send me the information, which he did.

On February 1, 2001 Carmen Farina became Superintendent of District 15 and left PS 6. As many of my friends wanted me to run for PTA President at PS 6, I decided to run. On April 24, 2001 I presented my program to the PS 6 community in the auditorium, and noticed Carmen entering the room. She started screaming that I had maligned her name, that no one should vote for me, that I was suing everyone at PS 6 and should never be allowed to run for any office, and other statements equally defamatory. I did not see anyone in the room breathing. Carmen sat down in the front row and glowered at me. I lost to Jane Gordan, who was removed early into the 2002-2003 school year by her own Board.

Carmen never wanted parents to be involved at PS 6, and was often shutting parents out of the school and the classrooms. She does not like School Leadership Teams, as she told us when the "Green Book" on SLT regulations came out, and she told the Executive Board "we are not going to do this." The SLT Bylaws that she wrote with the help of a few members of the Executive Board stated that there were "4 members of the PS 6 SLT: the Principal, the Assistant Principal, the PTA President and the PTA Vice-President. [The regulations are that SLTs must have between 10-17 members]. Article 6.2 of the SLT Bylaws states that " As Open Meetings Law does not, according to Central Board apply to SLTs,"and that parents would not be allowed to attend SLT meetings unless invited. When we parents questioned this policy, we heard that Carmen told the District 2 office that she had received a waiver from the rules. Ms. Gwen Hopkins, at the Board of Education Parent Engagement Office, thought this was very funny. She called me and told me that she heard the waiver claim, and that the one person who had the only copy of this waiver took it with them when they left the BOE. So no one knew where it was. Teachers we spoke to were very happy to see her leave. Below is an email from a retired special education teacher [parentadvocates.org is protecting her by not posting her name]:

"As the parent of a public school student and a retired special education teacher who worked in District 15 during Ms. Farina's tenure as superintendent, I strongly disagree with your take on her. She was autocratic and a whole language and constructivist math fanatic.She came into schools with a nasty attitude and a clipboard checklist and cared only about bulletin boards, word walls, desk arrangements and book leveling. It was Farina who set up the deliberately misleading introduction of the new curriculum at P.S. 172, claiming their remarkable success was due to "Month-by-Month Phonics" when the school had in fact been using Open Court, a highly structured reading program, at the time of the test results. She brought in Laura Kotch, an even colder, nastier proponent of lock-step whole language, who introduced the insidious Month-by-Month Phonics, designed to shut up those of us concerned with results while failing to teach decoding. [any] praise of Carmen Farina was disheartening to many of us who worked with her."

On April 30, 2004, the NY SUN published our letter:

Carmen Farina's Old School:
No one represents, in my opinion, all that is wrong with the New York City Department of Education better than the new acting deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, Carmen Farina. ['Farina's Old School Finds It hard To Match Her Results", Julia Levy, Page 1, April 23, 2004]. I am a former PS 6 parent who believes in transparency, accountability, respect for everyone, and honest reporting of statistics and test results. Carmen, unfortunately, seemed to be not interested in any of these.
She did not believe in School Leadership Teams, so she set up the PS 6 Team with 4 appointed people (the minimum allowed are 10, and all members are supposed to be elected) and wrote Bylaws which clearly opposed any parent involvement - Clause 6.2 of the PS 6 SLT Bylaws reads:
"By directive of the Central School Board, "open meetings" laws do not apply to SLTs, therefore uninvited guests will not be permitted to attend or participate in the meetings."
"Univited" guests are, of course, PS 6 parents, teachers, anyone outside the 4 people (who were the Principal, the Assistant Principal, the CSA representative and the PTA President). She pushed these Bylaws through Central by telling everyone that PS 6 had a waiver. No one ever found a copy.
Carmen, as she always does, retaliated. After leaving PS 6 and in the position of Superintendent of District 15, on April 24, 2001attended the PS 6 PTA meeting at which I spoke about running for PTA President. As soon as I finished my campaign speech she screamed that I should not be elected for undermining her, maligning her name, and other equally defamatory remarks to the 70 or so parents in attendance. No one who was in that room that evening ever forgot this outburst.
Carmen never told us where the Annenberg Challenge For the Arts money was. We saw that PS 6 had some arts programs, but our partner school, PS 198, did not seem to have any. She would not answer our questions. When we asked where the funds for PS 198 were, Carmen went on the attack, and threw the Arts Together Community Partnership, a parent-driven organization designed to help fund and publicize the arts at PS 6 when the Annenberg grant ended, into the garbage. She then accused us of interfering in the allocation of the Annenberg money by hiring and firing the dance teachers, a claim that was totally unfounded and ridiculous. We did stop asking questions, in fear of the welfare of our children at the school.
We were told by teachers that Carmen took the brightest kids randomly out of testing rooms to give them as much time as necessary to complete tests. We would compare notes after the tests to find out which children had been moved to another room.
Carmen stopped the PS 6 Gifted and Talented program, and to the present day parents of exceptionally bright children try to move them elsewhere. She implemented policies of "fuzzy" math and whole language to the extent that many teachers told us "their hands were tied",and "get instruction from a tutor". Scores at the school in math have gone down since she left.
Carmen gathers around her a group of loyal supporters who do not allow anyone to say anything uncomplimentary about her. Nothing anyone says outside of this clique is listened to or respected.
When I was in grade school I learned that history repeats itself. Carmen Farina as Deputy Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education is a step back into the dark ages of school reform where transparent budgets, people respecting the views and opinions of others, and accountability just dont exist.

Betsy Combier
parentadvocates.org

And those "high scores" that PS 6 reports are not what they seem. Parents compared notes on how many of the brightest kids were taken out of the testing room and tested separately - presumably to give these kids all the time in the world, so that they could get perfect scores? These kids certainly did not have special needs or 504 accommodations. The scores themselves are suspect: this just in from our Math experts:
Keep in mind, Carmen Farina left PS 6 in January, 2001. In 2004 the National Academies reported that there is no scientific basis for Carmen's math programs.

~If one tracks cohorts of PS 6 kids (3rd graders in 1999, 4th graders in
2000 and 5th graders in 2001), the number who score in Level 4 in math drops
precipitously each year.

~In 2000, PS 6 had the greatest decline in District 2 in Performance Level 4
math achievement on the 4th grade test (28% pt drop!) - much greater than
any other schools'. Some schools' 4th grade Level 4 scores actually rose.
Districtwide, 4th grade Level 4 achievement dropped 6% pts that year.
Districtwide, 4th grade passing scores remained flat at 76% passing in 1999
and 2000.

~In 2001, PS 6 had the greatest decline in Performance Level 4 on the city
test (3rd and 5th grades) (23% pt drop!) - greater than any other school's
Level 4 declines, some schools' Level 4 scores rose. Districtwide, Level
4 scores on the city test dropped 6% pts (same as in 4th grade the year
before ) Districtwide city test passing scores dropped 3% pts, 2000: 61.2
2001: 58.3

~ There were nowhere near the precipitous drops out of Level 4 4th grade
scores (state test)that PS 6 showed (1999-2000) in the other TAG schools. In
the same year (2000-2001) PS 6 Level 4 declines were also highest among TAG
schools on the 3,5,6 grade test (citywide test) One TAG school's scores
improved slightly (PS 11) while the others showed some decline (following
the district trend), PS 124 and PS 130 came close to the level of PS 6
decline.

Betsy Combier,
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Founder and President, The E-Accountability Foundation
President, ArtsNexus and The Arts Together Community Partnership (thrown into the garbage by Carmen Farina May, 2000)

PS 6 School Leadership Team Bylaws written by Carmen Farina in 2000

NYC Deputy Chancellor Rewards Gifted, Privileged Kids in NYC Public Schools by Raising 4 Years of AP Grades

For more on Carmen Farina and District 2, go towww.nychold.com

Related Articles:

False Claims of Special Education Successes Cloud the Bloomberg/Klein Reform

Despite Too Many Questions of Improprieties, Carmen Farina is Named Deputy Chancellor For the New York City DOE

Carmen Farina to the Head of the Class?

LINK

by Ben Max

Speculation is heating up about who Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio will appoint as the next chancellor of the City’s Department of Education. Many names have been bandied about for months, with rumors emerging of late about certain individuals who de Blasio has been interested in, but are not interested in the job, and others who may be qualified, but don’t quite align with the mayor-elect’s education philosophy – or that of his teachers union, parent, and advocacy group allies.

And then there’s Carmen Farina.

Farina may fall into that former group, that of those de Blasio is interested in for chancellor, but are not interested in the job. Reports of late say that de Blasio has been attempting to convince Farina, his long-time adviser and ally, to come out of retirement to run the school system. Whether or not she will do so should be known soon and as they negotiate and she deliberates, Capital New York wrote about how the relationship between de Blasio and Farina began and developed over the past two decades, aptly titled “The woman who shaped de Blasio on schools.”

Farina, a former deputy chancellor, superintendent, principal and teacher appeared on an education policy panel at the CUNY Graduate Center on November 11th, part of an event focused on progressive recommendations for the next administration. The event, co-hosted by CUNY’s John Mollenkopf and City Council Member Brad Lander (de Blasio’s successor on the city council and co-chair of the council’s Progressive Caucus) was entitled “Moving New York City Forward in 2014 and Beyond.”

Deeper speculation about the possibility of Farina becoming the next chancellor prompted me to revisit my notes from her appearance that day – as far as I know, her most recent public statements on education policy.

Farina gave her initial remarks after each of the other five panelists had spoken and she immediately expressed her agreement with the parent representative on the panel, Ocynthia Williams. Williams had, naturally, spoken about the importance of the next administration creating more connectivity among parents, teachers, and the Department of Education. She advocated for the community school model and repeatedly hit on the theme of changing the overall culture of the DOE and the specific cultures at many of the city’s schools.

Moving into her own comments, Farina said that while smart people have been running the school system, the City has lost the heart and soul of educating. She said that education must be based on joy, not fear, and that the city must focus on seventh grade, help PTAs grow and partner, take a new approach to educating (and even housing) homeless youth, and establish school-union partnerships which lead to students graduating with a union card.

The meat of Farina’s comments were laying out her broader vision for the city’s schools, which, she said, is “five ‘C’s and one ‘E’.”

Farina’s five ‘C’s are collaboration (as opposed to competition, she said), communication, capacity building, content, and “celebration, celebration, celebration.” Her ‘E’ is efficiency.

 On collaboration, Farina advocated for establishing “sister schools” by which similarly populated schools, one that is struggling and one that is working, would partner and their principals would communicate regularly. Explaining her second ‘C’ of communication, she discussed the need for DOE and school leadership to be consistently providing for open dialogue, asking what principals and teachers need, offering help, and fostering more personal contact.

 She said that the Panel for Education Policy, or PEP, must be a real policy check, speak for communities, and listen to Community Education Councils (CECs) to gain better understanding of the cultures in different neighborhoods.

On capacity building, Farina said that the Department’s quality review must be better, that the quality reviewers must be carefully evaluated themselves, and that quality reviews must be followed with support.

Her thoughts on content included praise for the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the implementation of which continues to be the source of much conflict. Farina noted that CCSS needs tweaking for some schools, especially those for career and technical education. She also said that teacher professional development must be returned to being school-based, where teachers stay at their schools to work together, teach each other, and, at times, bring someone from the outside into the school to lead sessions.

For her fifth ‘C,’ celebration, Farina, fittingly, became the most animated, saying that teachers are tired of hearing how bad they are, that people become educators because they want to make a difference and we must stop berating them. She said that teachers must be allowed to experiment, to have fun – noting that she did “all sorts of crazy things” when she was teaching, including having her class secede from the school when studying the Civil War. Testing in a limited and targeted way is important, she said, but so is celebrating successes, both large and small.

On efficiency, Farina argued that there is too much redundancy in the system, that a clearer hierarchy with more stability and consistency is needed. Educators need to know who to call when, she said, and that all those working in the system need to know who they are accountable to and who is accountable to them.

Will Ms. Farina soon have the entire New York City public school system accountable to her and vice versa? Stay tuned.

 [More on Mayor-elect de Blasio and on his transition and administration]