Children First

Mayor Michael "Accountability" Bloomberg is very big on insisting people do what they're responsible for, whether or not they're actually responsible for it. This applies, of course, to teachers, who are responsible for absolutely everything. Factors that occur outside of school are meaningless, excuses, and in Mr. Bloomberg's New York, there are no excuses.

However, there's a different standard when it's not quite so easy to point to a teacher and assign blame. For example, in a Bronx school, a clear toxic chemical contamination was not enough to provoke action from the Tweedies. Rather, it was an opportunity to run another test, examine all the mitigating factors, sit down and think about things, and allow the students and staff of Bronx New School to enjoy continued exposure to carcinogenic toxins.

Because putting "Children First" is not actually about protecting children. (Poison? City kids are tough, so let's hope for the best.) "Children First" really means let's screw all the adults, to the adulation of editorial boards all over the city. "Yeah!" cry readers of the NY Post, without the remotest awareness that crappy working conditions for adults now means much the same for their children tomorrow.

The city's depraved indifference to the health of our children (not to mention adults working at such locations) ought to be enough to dispel the preposterous claims of putting children first. This is not, by far, an isolated incident, and Mayor Bloomberg has no problem using toxic waste sites for public schools.