Clueless Chancellor Dennis Walcott has shown what a wonderful role model he is to the students by defying a judge's decision to allocate $240 million dollars to the New York City schools and has instituted a "hiring freeze" until the Bloomberg Administration exhausts their appeal process. The result is a high teacher attrition rate with many classrooms without a full time teacher and an increase in class size. As of the beginning of the second semester (January 29th), 400 teachers have left the system and have not been replaced and the DOE expect another 300 to leave before the end of the school year,. for a total of 700 teachers not replaced. The fact that Chancellor Walcott has defied a judge's order to distribute the needed funds to the New York City classrooms is outrageous and hurts the children. The Chancellor's willful disregard of the judge's order should earn him some jail time. In addition, the City Council's education head said the following about the Chancellor and his Tweed buddies:
"The judge should hold them in contempt of court and, if necessary, fine them and put them in jail," said Manhattan Councilman Robert Jackson.
The DOE had instituted the cuts back in late January which surprised the City Council and lead to many angry questioning of the Chancellor and his staff. The Chancellor's response to the questioning on why the DOE included the cuts when a judge ordered them not to so was to claim that the City was appealing the ruling and they decided not to include the $240 million dollars in the school budget process while the appeal is ongoing. It is just incredible that the DOE refuses to follow a lawful order to provide the necessary funds to the City's school children because of political considerations. But then the inept Chancellor is the Mayor's poodle and does not have a mind of his own. He does what the Mayor tells him and not what is best for the children.
