Diaz To Bloomberg: Fire Your Education Team
Bronx State Senator Rev. Ruben Diaz, who also serves as the president of the influential New York City Hispanic Clergy Organization, is demanding that Mayor Mike Bloomberg call for the resignation of both his handpicked Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and his Deputy Mayor for Education Dennis Walcott.
Rev. Diaz was an initial supporter of Bloomberg's push for mayoral control of the schools while he served in the City Council in 2001. Now, Rev. Diaz is calling Bloomberg's team an abject failure when it comes to school management, and is demanding that both Klein and Walcott's heads roll for it.
"Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott and Chancellor Joel Klein were chosen by you to help you achieve your goal to be The Education Mayor. They are supposed to advise you and clean the mess; instead, it is sad to see that the Department of Education you created in place of the School Board is a mess. You created School Districts to fix the problem and that was a mess that now you are dismantling to create something new. You created the idea of smaller children sharing the same school with teenage students. Big mistake. You are building schools in contaminated soil filled with chemicals only in Black and Hispanic areas. Another big mistake. You are killing our children!!
" writes Rev. Diaz.
Towards the end of the letter, Rev. Diaz states that Bloomberg will tarnish his legacy on education if he continues to listen to to Walcott and Klein. "In order to protect our childrens education, stop parents anguish, fix the chaos in the system, and for you to avoid further embarrassment, Dennis Walcott and Chancellor Klein should resign or your should fire them," he writes.