The headline in the Daily News was a shocker: ?New York State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl? Tisch blasts Mayor Bloomberg's school reforms: Calls some schools `warehouses' for poor-performing students.?
It's too early to know whether Tisch's visit to Automotive High School in Brooklyn, where, says the News report, ?just 1 % of students graduated ready for college last year,? will lead to anything.
But the Times gave the story a slightly different twist: ?Regents Chief Says No to a Run for Mayor.?? Interesting.
Times reporter Fernanda Santos says that ?the buzz? about the outspoken (and rich) chancellor running for NYC mayor had been around for weeks.? The last time Tisch was asked about rumors of? an education shakeup in the Empire State, last summer, on an Albany radio show, she dropped the bomb that David Steiner was resigning as commissioner of education. (See my Ed Next story from this summer.) ?Not this time.? Tisch ?categorically denied? the rumors, says the Times.
More interesting, perhaps, is the story of Tisch's visit to Automotive High, during which she was accompanied by the state's new commissioner of education, John King. The visit actually took place a couple of weeks ago. ?And Tisch remarked:
Where do you think these kids are going? They have no education and they aren't getting one?? I'm not saying they're going to be college- and career-ready; I'm not a fool. So put a G.E.D. program in there; teach them skills.
The new ? and diplomatic -- commissioner, Mr. King, added, ?We're on the same page about the urgent need for change but we're always going to try to offer constructive feedback when we have concerns.?
Though Bloomberg shot back that Tisch was ?totally wrong on the facts,? the billionaire mayor, once discussed as a potential ?education President? ?(me among those talkers, in my 2008 story in Ed Next)? has not been having an easy time of it since his partner in reform, Joel Klein turned in his NYC chancellor hat last fall.? I'm sure that Regent chief Tisch has not heard the last of the questions about the mayoralty.
--Peter Meyer, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow
