Taking exception with Chancellor’s decision

As the final flakes of the severest snowstorm in New York City’s history fell early last Sunday afternoon, Chancellor Klein bucked the century-old tradition of acting with common sense and care for children’s safety, and ruled that all public schools would be in session as usual without even a delayed opening. He rejected the advice of United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who suggested an accommodation similar to what worked so well during the recent transit strike.
This is a fulfillment of the Chancellor’s pledge that he was ending the “business as usual” custom of catering to the teachers’ union. All other public and private schools within a fifty square mile radius, with few exceptions, were closed. Why them and not us?
There are two types of reasoning in Chancellor Klein’s Excuse Book. One is the official cause; the other is the truthful explanation. The first is spun to hoodwink the citizenry into believing that education is a real priority at last. The actual motivation is to conceal that the exact opposite is the case.
Klein’s press office will say that there is a great deal of teaching and learning that must be done, and this Education Mayor will not waste any opportunity to meet his responsibility to students and parents.
Tell that to the little girl who slipped, badly broke her knee on my school grounds on Monday, and was rushed in agony to a local hospital.
Closing the schools, or opening them on delay, would have had no affect on State funding or the continuity of instruction. Having them be opened as they were under these conditions makes a statement not about the integrity of our educational system, but the defective and callous mindset of the Chancellor.
Ron Isaac
Fresh Meadows