That's the mayor's job, of course, as he traipses through the media spotlight demanding mayoral control. It's not primarily the concept of mayoral control that's so objectionable, even though it doesn't help kids, it doesn't help working teachers, and even though this mayor would not dream of sending his own kid to the public schools he sheds those crocodile tears over.
It's the fact that the New York City version allows for no checks or balances on the mayor's power that's so disturbing. Still, it doesn't stop tabloid op-ed boards, tinhorn politicians like Shelly Silver, or even part-time UFT President Randi Weingarten from getting up there in front of God and everybody demanding that it continue.
Now Shelly Silver appears to have been bought off by the mayor, the richest man in New York City, in what, effectively, is one billionaire caving in to help out another:
The former adversaries came together last week to rebuke the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for its refusal to guarantee billions of dollars in financing for two office towers that the developer Larry A. Silverstein is to build at the trade center site.
After all, unlike you and me, unlike the schools over which Mayor Bloomberg presides, which are subject to massive budget cuts even as they continue with unconscionable overcrowding and the highest class sizes in the state, billionaires can always use a few bucks. We wouldn't know what to do with money if we had it, and neither would schoolchildren. Silver and Bloomberg can always manage to get together and help out a billionaire in need, who will truly appreciate it.
After all, they're doing a bang-up job over at the WTC site. Look at all they've created there in a mere eight years.
And everyone's favorite part-time leader of the biggest teacher local in the country, Ms. Weingarten, is willing to do her part as well. As Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg got up in front of the cameras yesterday to demand a continuation of the effective dictatorship that is mayoral control, she stood to show solidarity. After all, a union boss needs to show solidarity.
Now usually union bosses show solidarity with working people. However, Ms. Weingarten is a new kind of union boss. That's why she rises to show solidarity with billionaires who stand for unlimited power. That's why she's so adored by union-bashers like Rod Paige and the New York Post editorial page.
You gotta admit, there's never been anything like her before. Ironically, in today's New York Post, Ms. Weingarten begs for mayoral control while pointing to the work she did for the CFE lawsuit, the very lawsuit that gave her hero, Mayor Bloomberg, hundreds of millions of dollars to lower class size.
Mayor Bloomberg managed to take that money and raise class size anyway--a neat trick for someone who considers himself so indispensible. Perhaps Ms. Weingarten, blinded by her affection for the mayor, didn't notice.
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