The New York Daily News had an article how principals are very satisfied with Chancellor Carmen Farina. The only negatives are the budgeting process and her failure to eliminate the money sucking and useless "children First Networks" and that's not surprising since she has always been pro Principal. However, when it comes to the classroom teacher, nothing has changed under the disappointing Chancellor..
Carmen Farina has failed to remove the 300 Bloomberg holdovers from policy making positions and even promoted Kathleen Grimm, known as the grim reaper for her major role in closing many of the large high schools, to Deputy Chancellor. Since Carmen Farina took over at Chancellor, there has been no change in the classroom environment. Class sizes have not been reduced and is the highest in the State, unnecessary paperwork has not been eliminated as promised and in many schools, Principals give out a sixth period class to save on teacher salaries. Moreover, the "fair student funding" encourages principals to hire "newbie teachers" while highly experienced teachers languish in the ATR pool. Finally, she shockingly froze school budgets while DOE central increased their own budget.
Is it any wonder that student academic achievement and the income/racial achievement gap has remained unacceptably flat? Maybe if Chancellor Carmen Farina significantly reduced class size, supplied more resources to the schools and eliminated the "fair student funding" that forces principals to hire the "cheapest and not the best teachers" and get rid of the bloated accountability and legal departments at the DOE, then just maybe we will see some real student academic progress not the "smoke and mirrors" and fuzzy math that has been the trademark of the Bloomberg DOE and continues with the disappointing Chancellor, Carmen Farina.