Dear Commons Community,

It was just a matter of time before educators (teachers, principals) would start calling on Mayor-elect de Blasio to dismiss many of the policies of Michael Bloomberg.  As reported in The Daily News:

“More than 100 New York City principals are in full-fledged revolt against key Bloomberg administration reforms of the last 12 years.

In an open letter to Mayor-elect de Blasio, the principals call for “completely” overhauling the new teacher and principal evaluations, among other changes.

They want to see the school system transformed “after years of detrimental educational policies and practices,” the letter signed by 140 principals said.

“We are hoping for considerable change,” said Julie Zuckerman, a co-author of the letter and principal of Castle Bridge School in Manhattan, where city tests that form a key part of the evaluations were canceled after more than 80% of parents opted out.

The principals also want to reduce the use of test scores to the minimum required by federal law, including the elimination of the high-stakes letter grades for schools — a move de Blasio has supported during the campaign.”

The number of principals signing this letter is impressive but to be fair, not all of Michael Bloomberg’s education policies were detrimental to the New York City public schools or to its children.  Bloomberg’s biggest failure was hiring Joel Klein as the schools chancellor who never established a working relationship with any of the main public school constituents (teachers, principals, or parents).  Klein’s arrogance and dismissiveness of the opinions of experienced educators created a horrific environment that lasted well after he left the school system.  Rumor has it that de Blasio will name a new schools chancellor this week.

Tony