WEEKEND QUOTABLES

 “Given the ongoing inspector general investigation, I am unable to comment.” -- Sun-Times

John Kass

The Tribune reported on Rahm's golden circle of campaign contributors — with about 100 of them ponying up almost half of the $30 million political war chest he's built since 2010. These aren't neighborhood guys. These are the oligarchs that run things. -- Tribune

Ta-Nehisi Coates

If you are truly appalled by the brutality of ISIS, then a wise and essential step is understanding the lure of brutality, and recalling how easily your own society can be, and how often it has been, pulled over the brink. -- Atlantic

Carmen Fariña 

Norm Fruchter 

“I think that her appointment had a very reassuring effect on the line educators who actually are at the core of the system. I think they feel like she knows who they are, she understands what their job is, she understands what the challenges are and she’s got their back.” -- NYT

Alice Hu

The current resistance to college-in-prison is founded upon political rhetoric rather than any factual evidence. -- Harvard Political Review

'Right to Work'

First a clarification. The phrase “right to work” is a misnomer that has little to do with the right of a person to seek and accept gainful employment.  -- Robert Bruno, Sun-Times

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

"Hobnobbing with masters of the universe has its limits..." --  Crain's

Greg Hinz

The prototype for the Emanuel mayoralty was Michael Bloomberg's New York: rich guys, bicycle lanes, central control, the whole schmear. Mr. Bloomberg's popularity waned dramatically after his first two terms and his successor, Bill de Blasio, is a liberal who has good relations with unions and minorities. The message to Mr. Emanuel is clear: Hobnobbing with masters of the universe has its limits, however good their advice seems. Running a city takes a wider reach. -- Crain's Chicago Business

Times Editorial

Studies have shown that suspensions and expulsions do nothing to improve the school climate, while increasing the risk that children will experience long-term social and academic problems. Federal data also indicates that minority students are disproportionately singled out for harsh disciplinary measures. -- Zero Tolerance, Reconsidered

Bill de Blasio

 “We start with our values. We start with the positions we took and made public throughout the last year. We will drop the appeal on the stop-and-frisk case, because we think the judge was right about the reforms that we need to make. We will settle the Central Park Five case because a huge injustice was done.” -- N.Y. Times

Carmen Fariña 

“Once I was about to visit a principal 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.’ ” -- N.Y. Times

More on Fariña pick: You can't go wrong expecting the worst from Duncan.

In yesterday's post on de Blasio's appointment of Carmen Fariña as schools chancellor, I implied that pressure from Arne Duncan and his assistant, Jim Shelton (a Gates Foundation insert at the DOE), was being exerted on the new mayor to appoint a corporate reformer type. As it turns out, I was right on the money. I've learned long ago, that you're almost always on safe ground when anticipating unethical behavior from the Duncan gang.

Yesterday's Washington Post reports:

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and at least one other Education Department official urged New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio and his team not to choose Montgomery County Schools Superintendent Joshua P. Starr as the city’s next schools chancellor, according to several people knowledgable about the selection process. It was an unusual move by the nation’s top education official and came in the wake of Starr’s vocal criticism of some of the Obama administration’s school reform policies.

Starr was reportedly on BdB's short list that included Rhee disciple, Maya Henderson and Chicago's school-closing CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett. Credit both Starr and de Blasio for not giving in to Duncan's bullying. BdB reportedly offered Starr the number 2 job on the assumption that he would soon take over for the 70-year-old Fariña. Starr declined, opting instead to continue his work in Montgomery County, where he earned the wrath of Shelton by criticizing Duncan's Race To The Top.

Duncan used his position to stump for Rhee and Fenty in D.C.. 

Duncan and Shelton were both big fans of Michelle Rhee in D.C. and Duncan even tried to provide cover for her in the D.C. test-cheating scandal.

According to the Post,

In January 2011, while D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) deliberated on who would succeed Michelle A. Rhee as D.C. schools chancellor, Duncan said publicly that he hoped Kaya Henderson, Rhee’s deputy, would get the job. She did.

Thoughts on de Blasio's choice of Carmen Farina as his schools chancellor

The educators and activists I know and whose opinions I trust in N.Y. all think Mayor BdB made a great choice, and that Carmen Fariña will be a breath of fresh air in a school system stinking from Michael Bloomberg's corporate pollution.

So do I, especially considering the other names that were being floated around. I'm sure the DFER hedge-funders, corporate reformers and charter profiteers like Eva Moskowitz, were all exerting pressure on the mayor to pick a Michelle Rhee-type like D.C.'s Kaya Henderson or even (yikes!) Barbara Byrd-Bennett, whose credibility string in Chicago ran out long ago. I don't doubt more of the same was coming down the pike from Arne Duncan and the Obama team at the DOE.

I'm also thinking back to the pitiful string of  corrupt, corporate-style union busters (Joel Klein), know-nothings (Cathleen Prunty "Cathie" Black, remember her?), and neer-do-wells (Dennis Wolcott) that Mayor Bloomberg sicked on N.Y. teachers and parents over the past decade. Seen in that light, the choice of a democratic-minded, highly competent, career educator like Fariña should bring a smile to faces of the school community and rightfully so.

I also like that she's a small-schooler and helped create several new, small middle schools within District 15, a tactic de Blasio has praised.

Having said that, and listening to the great exhale all the way from Chicago, I'm also reminding myself that education, like politics, like democracy, isn't a spectator sport. The changes we need don't begin and end in either the mayor's or the chancellor's office.

The de Blasio victory and the independent movement that led to it in New York, are all worth celebrating -- like the Occupy Wall St. movement that preceded it. I hope we can learn the appropriate lessons here in Chicago. As the new year approaches, the future looks a lot brighter for New York educators than it looked before.

Side Note:  I'm taken by the fact that Fariña (like me) is 70 and that she's the daughter of immigrants from Spain who fled the Franco regime. I feel a certain kinship there and wish her well.

On de Blasio's Choice

Pedro Noguera

“Mayor-Elect de Blasio has made an excellent choice in picking Carmen Fariña to lead New York’s public schools. For the first time in many years the nation’s largest school system will be led by an educator with a keen understanding of curriculum and instruction, who is committed to actively supporting our public schools.” -- Gotham Schools

Diane Ravitch

 It is a new day in New York City. The era of punishing, blaming, and shaming professional educators is over. De Blasio announced that he will immediately scrap the A-F grading system that Mayor Bloomberg picked up from Governor Jeb Bush. He will initiate a moratorium on school closings and charter co-locations. Watch for more changes in store. This is a great turn of events, not only for New York City, but for the nation. -- Ravitch blog

Working Families Party

 WorkingFamiliesParty @WorkingFamiliesCarmen Fariña - exactly the Schools Chancellor we need to put an end to a corporate, high-stakes testing approach to education -- Tweet

 Northwestern Prof Nadav Shoked

The Chicago experience under Mayor Rahm Emanuel reveals that there is no reason for business interests to lose sleep. Business need not worry, and those opposed to business should rein in their hopes. The structures of American local government law assure that "transformative" mayors will not transform much. -- Chicago Tribune Business Opinion

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

E.L. Doctorow (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

E.L. Doctorow at National Book Awards

We in this room especially have to appreciate metaphor. We're the descendants of writers who saw the sun as Helios' chariot riding across the sky. And yet... when was the last time, hearing the word mouse, that you thought of a small gray rodent? Or heard the word web and thought of a spider? -- "The Promise—and Threat—of the Internet" 

N.Y Times on de Blasio's pick

The choice [of Carmen Farina] reflected Mr. de Blasio’s desire to depart radically from the educational policies of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, including his emphasis on data and his policy of shuttering low-performing schools. -- "Veteran of City School System Is Said to Be Next Chancellor"

Carmen Farina

CUNY Prof. David Bloomfield

“Clearly the teacher evaluation system will be on the table immediately. That would be my day one activity if it hasn’t started already.” -- Carmen Farina to head D.O.E

TFA & KIPP Teacher

 "Five weeks was not enough to create the type of magic that Teach For America describes in its vision. Training was like leading us to the top of a cliff before we had to jump off into the reality of our own classrooms. All I can say is the mountain was high and the fall was hard." -- Julian Vasquez Heilig's blog