New York State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has appointed former New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott as monitor for the scandal-plagued haredi-controlled East Ramapo school district. But there are problems with this appointment, including that Walcott is not trained as a schools administrator.
Above: Dennis Walcott
Analysis: State Appoints Monitor For Scandal-Plagued Haredi-Controlled East Ramapo Schools
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
New York State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has appointed former New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott as monitor for the scandal-plagued haredi-controlled East Ramapo school district, the Albany Times-Union reported.
Walcott will oversee an “expert team” that will monitor district operations and provide recommendations to ensure that public school students have access to the appropriate programs and services, and recommendations to direct the district toward fiscal stability.
“Dennis Walcott’s appointment and the district’s stated commitment to working in partnership with the State Education Department are crucial steps toward reversing the district’s disastrous decline and repairing the deep rifts in the community. We must act now to make sure that the civil and educational rights of a community of overwhelmingly low-income minority children are not denied,” the Chancellor of the New york State Board of Regents Merryl H. Tisch reportedly said in touting Walcott’s appointment.
Elia explained the appointment this way.
“The Board of Regents and I recognize the seriousness of this situation, and I have made it one of my top priorities to ensure that the State Education Department acts swiftly to ensure that the educational rights of the district’s students are protected. There is clear evidence that for many years the district has not adequately served the needs of its public school students. I want to thank Assemblymember Ellen Jaffee, Assemblymember Ken Zebrowski and Senator David Carlucci for their efforts and commitment to this district. I look forward to our continued work together for the students of East Ramapo, particularly in the next legislative session, to better ensure that this district can become one where all parents are proud to send their children.”
Besides Tisch, other members of the Board of Regents also spoke publicly about Walcott’s appointment, including Judith Johnson.
“The hardship these students have endured is reprehensible. Students in East Ramapo public schools cannot afford to wait any longer for appropriate educational programs. Appointing Mr. Walcott and his team is a first step to repairing a damaged relationship with the community,” Johnson reportedly said.
Walcott made a public statement about his appointment and said that his team “will not shy away from keeping the district accountable to the community.”
“This effort will be both cooperative and collaborative; we will work directly with the East Ramapo school board but we will not shy away from keeping the district accountable to the community when we identify areas of improvement. Our goal is to help the district develop sustainable practices to ensure that East Ramapo is able to provide, and actually does provide, appropriate educational programs for all its students. My team will get started right away, and one of our first orders of business will be to engage the district, its students, staff, parents and stakeholders,” Walcott said.
But there are two very large problems the media hasn’t picked up on, a problem that goes far past Walcott’s lack of veto power, meaning he can’t override decisions the school board makes.
First off, even though he has a masters degree in education, Walcott lacks training as a schools administrator.
Secondly, Walcott was New York City Schools Chancellor from 2011 until April 2014. Before that, Walcott was a member of the New York City Board of Education. For the nine years immediately preceding his appointment as schools chancellor, Walcott was New York City’s Deputy Mayor for Education. (He was appointed by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2002.)
During this entire time, many haredi schools in the city, especially hasidic boys schools, failed to teach secular subjects like math, science, English and American history. In some of these hasidic schools, students got 90 minutes or less of inadequate and substandard secular education each day. But in many others, the hasidic students got no secular education at all.
That horrific situation still exists today for one primary reason: Despite years of complaints by current and former students of those hasidic schools (and, sometimes, by their parents), the city – i.e., Walcott – did nothing during that entire time to enforce New York State’s education law and force the yeshivas to comply.
If Walcott could turn a blind eye to that outrage, why wouldn’t he turn a blind eye to much of what is wrong in East Ramapo?
That’s a question Tisch, the entire Board of Regents and Elia need to quickly answer.
Of course, Tisch and many of the regents also failed to act against these hasidic yeshivas, which might make any answer they might try to give a bit suspect.