One of the great things about being a New York Times reporter is you need not ask a single teacher about the chancellor, and indeed, this reporter didn't even pretend. The extreme fear and loathing that I see and hear about every day has no place in this piece, and the reporter shows not the remotest awareness of it.
Walcott, who ran around the city insisting that layoffs were necessary in the face of a 3.2 billion dollar surplus (another little tidbit that escaped this reporter), gets credit for coming to an agreement with the UFT. There's no hint whatsoever that he did so to give Mayor4Life an opportunity to save face and back away from the preposterous claims both he and Walcott spouted incessantly.
Nor is there any mention of the fact that retiring teachers will not be replaced, leading to 8,000 fewer teachers over the past three years. It must be great to be a New York Times reporter, able to spout out a piece that so blatantly glosses over reality.
Me, I have to work for a living. (But not today. I wish all my colleagues out there a happy and restful summer!)
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