How Would You Rate the Chancellor?

At the end of a school year the pedagogical staff is assessed, for teachers the Matrix, for supervisors the Principal Performance Review and for the Chancellor, well ChatCPT says the mayor with input from the Panel for Educational Priorities, a majority of whom are appointed by the mayor.

In elementary, 6-8, 6-12 and 9–12 schools parents, teachers and students have the opportunity to fill out surveys, the results are posted online. None of the survey questions relate to the performance of the chancellor.

The Community Education Councils, elected by officers of school parent associations, two members appointed by City Council members,  have a vaguely defined role, in fact their only specified role is zoning, and that role is limited. To say they’re rubber stamps is to demean actual rubber stamps.

In a moment of self flagellation I decided to watch the June 17th PEP meeting, twenty-five members, a majority appointed by the mayor, Norm Fruchter reminds us,

… the citywide Board of Education and the PEP are not decision-making forums. They are public stages to ratify decisions that the city school administration has already made. The open public nature of those meetings fulfills state legal requirements but does not enable or support stakeholder participatory policymaking. The intensity of protests against whatever education policy or fiscal expenditure the mayor and the Chancellor were submitting to the school board or PEP often disguised the essentially formal nature of the public spectacle. 

There were twenty-five contracts on the agenda, and a number of parents and teachers objected to the use of  outside vendors instead of hiring licensed guidance counselors, who would develop relations with students and parents. Apparently it has become commonplace to slice contracts into smaller requests to avoid the vetting process, and hire vendors who have not been vetted. The  chancellor approved this process in the district in which he served as superintendent. 

Investigators are looking into shady contracts signed by New York City Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels when he was a district superintendent,  

The Post revealed last week that Samuels inked a contract with non-DOE-approved vendor Sean Kreyling while serving as head of District 3 on the Upper West Side — then split the payments into $25,000 checks in an apparent attempt to evade city financial oversight.

Kreyling’s companies provided temporary foreign-language teachers to city schools. He signed two $180,000 contracts with District 3, one signed by Samuels in 2023 and another with Samuels’ former Deputy Superintendent Mariela Graham in 2024. 

Why didn’t Samuels contact the School of Education at CCNY, a neighbor, who prides itself on the preparation of foreign language teachers? Wouldn’t a school district/college collaboration make sense? Is there a noxious aroma in the air?

 According to the N.Y. Post to the mayor is casting about within the school system for a replacement for the current chancellor with former chancellor Mischa Porter high on the list.

A major item at the PEP meeting was to approve changes to the School Leadership Team (SLT) regulations, the State required the creation of SLTs in 1994, thirty years later the Department of Education hasn’t figured it out, a lack of commitment, and diminishing the role of voices from schools. See regulation here,

When faced with complex issues one “solution” is to kick the ball down the road, form a committee, and Chalkbeat reports, 

Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels is asking some communities across the city for help solving some of the thorniest challenges in their schools. Samuels introduced plans Wednesday to convene working groups in five districts across the city to come up with ideas for how to tackle chronic under-enrollment, racial segregation and the state’s class size law, among other issues. The working groups will expand citywide over the next three years.

Shouldn’t the chancellor work on a citywide plan to “tackle” (to use the chancellors term) under enrollment?, ChatCPT reports 119 schools with 150 pupils or less and the number up sharply from the previous year as overall enrollment continues to decline due to lower birth rates and return migration.  The answer is not closing schools, it’s combining schools, clearly the chancellor is conflict averse.

I’d give the chancellor a Developing on the HEDI scale, I’m an easy grader, If the NY Post is correct there may be a new chancellor in the wings. 

Zohran, we deserve better.

Listen to Johnny Paycheck, You Can Take This Job and Shove It