The Mayor's Incompetence and the Chancellor's Neglect and Lack of Skills Leave Parents On Their Own For September

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio

According to parents, many NYC Department of Education teachers are not doing their jobs remotely and kids are just getting written assignments without any live teaching.

And according to UFT President Michael Mulgrew (UFT= United Federation of Teachers, the teachers' union), teachers will not be going back anytime soon:


Teachers will return in the fall if...
The city’s teachers union boss explains the COVID protection conditions for going back to school
By Michael Mulgrew, June 26, 2020
Opinion

This leaves parents, students, staff and employees wondering what will happen when September rolls in. This is not good. We are seeing two powerful men (Michael Mulgrew + NYC Chancellor Richard Carranza) battling for the $34 Billion dollars handed to the NYC DOE last year. It's always about money. Remember that.

This is the beginning of the end for the patterns and practice of the NYC DOE for the past two decades since Mayoral control took over, and changes were made to the UFT contract in 2005 (an example: in 2005 Randi Weingarten removed from the teachers' collective bargaining agreement the right to grieve letters to file). 

This is a good thing. In my opinion, the incompetence of Bill de Blasio points to the very obvious need to undo Mayoral control, elect all the members of the school board (the Panel For Educational Policy), and give parents once again the right to be heard and not pushed aside as trash.

Parents and teachers are not the only people who are frustrated with NYC's Mayor Bill:

Wiley Norvell (right), City Hall communications director, and Freddi Goldstein, the mayor’s
press secretary (Twitter)

City Hall ‘demoralized’ by de Blasio as staffers jump ship

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

Our politicians are slow learners: School approaches, and parents are left on their own

by Harry Siegel, NY Daily News, July 3, 2020

“We’re full steam ahead,” says the mayor.

“Schools will be opening in September. Each school will have a maximum number of kids that can be in that school with social distancing, using every conceivable space in that school” so that at least “some schools will be able to have all of their kids.”

But then the governor’s office says that “all such decisions are made by state government and not local government,” and that “the public should not be confused.” Confusingly, he hasn’t said a thing about his own policy — just that he alone has the power to make it.

And the teachers union says that “new federal funds, now being held up in Washington, are the only possible way New York City will be able to invest in the protective measures and staff required for schools to safely re-open in September — even on a limited basis.”

The union also says, more quietly, to teachers that they aren’t required to do synchronous instruction (you know, actual classroom teaching).

And Trump says, “I think we’re going to be very good with the coronavirus. I think that at some point that’s going to sort of just disappear, I hope.”

Man proposes and God disposes, of course, but no one is seriously proposing much here. The federal government hasn’t given any real guidance to the states. New York State hasn’t given any real guidance to local governments. (As Errol Louis noted: “New Jersey has a 104-page plan for reopening schools. New York has the usual petty power-play BS from Albany. And no plan.”) The city hasn’t offered any guidance to parents that they have any reason to trust.

Sure, Trump is a jackass and a menace, and yes, the fish stinks from the head. But “leaders” at every level of government keep talking about how they’re going to get things going again, without clearly defined rules and guidance. Everyone keeps outsourcing responsibility, so that it falls on parents to figure things out for themselves.

As The News noted, de Blasio has continued to put off hard budget choices even as tax revenue has plummeted. If Washington leaves a big hole in Albany’s budget, as it well might, there’s little doubt that Cuomo will pass that hole on to the city and the rest of the state’s local governments. Everyone keeps passing the buck, while talking about their leadership.

Hours after de Blasio’s big talk about reopening on Thursday, UFT boss Michael Mulgrew told NY1′s Jillian Jorgensen that City Hall “has refused to engage on any sort of how-to plan” about reopening schools. He added that for the mayor “to just pop up today and say ‘I’m opening schools’ is not going to give any comfort whatsoever.”

It was one thing to close schools through June in April, but quite another to have no plan for September in July. There’s still no evidence that Zoom school works for students. There’s no question that it’s been a disaster for working parents, and children with special needs, and a huge obstacle to restarting the economy or anything else.

The first four examples of child neglect provided by New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services are “failure to support a child’s educational need…failure to provide adequate food, clothing, or shelter, failure to provide medical or mental health care…and leaving a child alone who is not developmentally able to be left alone without adequate supervision.”

With the CARES Act unemployment benefit due to end later this month and New York City’s eviction courts back open again, many parents are facing a terrible choice between breaking the second rule of neglect, or breaking the first, third and fourth. Who wants to choose between supporting their children and neglecting them?

For parents who have the luxury of working from home, the same fundamental dynamic applies. Who can afford to lose their job — and their health insurance — now?

If you leave a 7-year-old in their room all day, every day, that’s child neglect. It’s also what the government is effectively telling parents to do.

harrysiegel@gmail.com

Former de Blasio Employee: The Mayor's Socialist Utopia Has Failed

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio

Many people in New York City are unhappy with Mayor de Blasio, and a lawyer who worked for him gives many reasons why.

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

Inside my nightmare working in de Blasio’s government

by Anonymous, NY POST, July 28, 2018

She was a crusading lawyer and a passionate liberal who wanted to make a difference. So she took a pay cut to work for the city in the Bloomberg era and loved her work until 2014, when a new mayor took office. Four years later, she was out of a job. Now, she tells the Post’s Isabel Vincent what it’s really like working under de Blasio . . .

I graduated law school in 1999 and immediately went to work for a big law firm, representing big corporations. But I am a lifelong liberal and really wanted to put my law degree to work for social justice. I wanted to help the poor, and I was very interested in how a major city dealt with large-scale poverty reform, so I applied to work in New York City’s government.

I got a job working as a lawyer for the city in 2003, a year after Michael Bloomberg became mayor. I happily took a 20 percent pay cut because I wanted to make a difference.

His business background meant Bloomberg ran the city like a big corporation. Initially, I had negative assumptions given that he was a billionaire.

I was concerned that he was out of touch, but even so, I voted for him before I took the job. And my worries were quickly dismissed when I saw the results-oriented approach with which he ran New York City.

Under his commissioners, employees were encouraged to contribute to discussions on some of the biggest social issues that we faced as a city: homelessness, aging and education being among the most important. Everyone’s opinions were valued.

We had regular meetings and performance reviews, and as lawyers we were encouraged to partner with other city workers to visit facilities such as homeless shelters to make sure they were in compliance with the law. Back then, we lawyers were considered very vital partners and worked in tandem with social workers and others in the field.

I loved coming to work every day under Bloomberg. I loved the constructive discussions about how to fix the most urgent social problems — meetings that involved workers at the highest levels of government with the civil servants and case workers at the lowest. All opinions were valued. And I loved being out in the city and seeing how programs worked or didn’t work.

I felt I was making a difference.

When Bill de Blasio became mayor of New York in 2014, things changed drastically.

When Bill de Blasio became mayor of New York in 2014, things changed drastically. I started to hear rumblings early on. My former colleagues who were dedicated public servants were concerned by a large-scale rollback of Bloomberg’s strategic initiatives. These seemed to be based on partisan politics and black-and-white thinking as opposed to critical analysis. It was very disappointing for me since I had also voted for de Blasio.

Although I was still working in the same social-services agency where I had remained at the end of Bloomberg’s term, my job changed radically. I had no contact with the new commissioner who appeared to be disengaged from substantive discussions about social-services programs for an extremely vulnerable population. In fact, she was much more preoccupied with renovating her office — I heard her new desk alone cost thousands of dollars. She even requested that a private bathroom be built for her. She had the attitude of an oligarch and was disturbed that she had to vet invitations to galas through legal and City Hall. She wanted carte blanche to attend expensive events.

She also refused to meet with the lawyers in her department and she kept the door to her office closed and didn’t know the names of the people who worked in her agency.

Under my commissioner, there were no benchmarks, no goals and she did not hold regular meetings with her general counsel. Under her tenure, the legal unit was gutted. And there were no consequences for failing to meet performance goals because there were no performance goals.

Under the Bloomberg administration, there was a concerted effort to deal with the homeless problem. The administration answered reports of homeless people — many of them with severe psychological problems — on the subways and on the streets by immediately dispatching city workers to take them to a network of shelters where they could be cared for. There were also a lot of long-term incentives to help get people off the streets. Bloomberg spent a great deal of time during his first term in office aggressively seeking federal funds to increase the number of shelters in all five boroughs.

Bloomberg didn’t solve the homeless issue by any means, but his track record was much better than de Blasio’s. By the time Bloomberg left office in December 2013, there were about 51,000 homeless people in New York. Under de Blasio, the homeless population has ballooned to 59,638.

Today, I can’t go into the subway without seeing mentally unstable homeless people. I also feel that the demographic of the New York subway is changing rapidly as more and more of my friends take Ubers because they cannot guarantee they will get to work on time.

Nevertheless, the budget for the Department of Homeless Services under de Blasio is set to double from $1.17 billion spent in 2015 to $2.15 billion for fiscal 2018.

In addition to the increase in the homeless population, waste is on the rise in the de Blasio administration, especially when it comes to the legal department.

Well-meaning City Council politicians often bog down agencies by creating a morass of rules that are burdensome and ineffective. Bloomberg was not afraid to use his veto power and engage in negotiations with the council to apprise them of the negative effects of any proposed legislation.

In more than four years in power, de Blasio has yet to veto a single City Council resolution. As a result, the city’s lawyers are drowning under masses of paperwork, compelled to write rules for legislation that comes with an influx of new City Council laws.

Take the 2014 legislation to bring social adult day-care centers — programs that provide elderly residents who are suffering from Alzheimer’s or dementia with meals and care in a supervised facility — under the auspices of the city.

The facilities, which are state-funded, had been riddled with Medicaid fraud and other abuses. Following an article that outlined some of the worst abuses, the City Council took up the cause and de Blasio backed it.

While well-intentioned, it was a political move that didn’t actually address the underlying issues, and the City Council literally had no understanding of the differences between federal, state and city jurisdictions.

The drafting of the rules to implement this piece of legislation took over two years.

And city oversight over state programs is a jurisdictional nightmare. How can a city agency go into a state-funded facility and pretend to have oversight?

This is what happens when there are no clear or transparent conversations between political leaders. Well-intentioned politicians create work — and don’t actually create proactive change. The underlying concerns that drove the legislation in the first place — massive fraud and lack of oversight — remained unaddressed.

In addition to massive amounts of paperwork, I was restricted in how I could carry out my duties under de Blasio.

When two city workers, who were each under a protected class, approached me with workplace discrimination complaints, I escalated their concerns. Both employees alleged discrimination and retaliation by their immediate supervisor.

I thought it was my job to mitigate risk within my city agency, and it was met with contempt.

The commissioner began to retaliate against me, and I was told in no uncertain terms that I was not allowed to talk to the employees who were alleging discrimination. As far as I know, their complaints were never investigated by the city.

Then suddenly this year, after 14 years in city government, I found myself out of a job — fired while I was on family leave, three years after de Blasio came to power. I believe I was terminated for investigating employee complaints of discrimination, harassment and retaliation and then raising my own issues.

I made every attempt to have peaceful communication, including requesting mediation provided by the city, with the commissioner.

After they refused to address my legal concerns, I had no choice but to file a claim with both the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the New York City Commission on Human Rights.

Almost a year has passed, and there has been no attempt on the city’s part to mediate or even to set up a meeting with my attorney. They have stalled at every turn, and I find this outrageously immature.

Bill de Blasio rose to power on his promise to end “a tale of two cities,” but as mayor he rides around in an expensive car — a limousine liberal. He sues oil companies for climate change while the country’s largest public-transportation system is being run into the ground. Bloomberg rode the subway all the time.

My career spanned a handful of social-service agencies under the administrations of two very different leaders. I was shocked to discover that I actually preferred Michael Bloomberg’s very corporate City Hall to Bill de Blasio’s failed socialist utopia. Who wouldn’t?