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Dewey winner Thompson: DOE transparency, accountability ‘sorely needed’
May 22, 2008 9:23 AM
Weingarten joins students from Food and Finance HS as they make crepes with help from teacher Lydia Sessoms (right).
This year’s John Dewey Award was presented by the UFT to New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. for his steadfast commitment over his long public career to improving the city’s public schools.
He served five consecutive terms as president of the Board of Education and, through many battles, remained a consistent ally in trying to get more funding for public education.
When Thompson was board president, he went on record saying the schools could only be improved through a partnership between the board and the UFT. He told attendees at the union’s 1998 spring conference, “no people care more about children than the UFT.”
In 1999, for example, he worked with the UFT and then Chancellor Rudy Crew to fight Gov. Pataki’s attempt to block the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit. Thompson accused the governor of acting as if “the children of New York City public schools are worth far less than children from other parts of the state.”
He took numerous actions to reform the system in ways that continue to have an impact, including raising standards in schools, thwarting Mayor Guiliani’s attempts to divert taxpayer money to school vouchers and, at a time when there were many financial scandals in the schools, Thompson was instrumental in getting the 1996 school governance law passed, bringing top-to-bottom accountability to the schools.
His track record as city comptroller has been just as diligent for education. He has been an important watchdog — sometimes the only watchdog — over the DOE.
In accepting the union’s most prestigious award at this year’s Spring Conference, Thompson affirmed that after three reorganizations of the school system in just five years, “a tough stance on transparency and accountability is sorely needed.”
That, he said, is critical from a policy perspective but also for teachers whose sense of duty to their students has often placed them at odds with constantly shifting guidelines.
Thompson has repeatedly sounded the alarm on what he described as the DOE’s “vastly expanded use of no-bid contracts,” which he said reflects poor management with repercussions that ripple through the system.
“At a time when Tweed is demanding more accountability from our principals and teachers, we must demand more accountability from them,” he said.
UFT President Randi Weingarten noted that Thompson’s fierce advocacy of the public schools may have been inspired by his mother, a teacher for 30 years who recently died.
Thompson agreed that his mother’s work in the classroom made a difference in his life. Many of his mother’s former students, he said, have told him how much they appreciated her as their teacher.
“She’d come home so tired,” Thompson recalled. “I thought it was because she had iron-poor blood. I never knew how much she gave each and every day in front of her students.”
Thompson’s mother retired before he was first appointed to the Board of Education in 1994.
Also the son of a judge, Thompson is a product of the public schools —Brooklyn’s PS 161, IS 240 (the Andries Hudde School) and Midwood HS. And he has a daughter who is a public school teacher.
Michael Mulgrew, UFT vice president for career and technical education high schools, learns the finer points of child care from teacher Debra Ann Bradley (center) and student Blanca Cortez of the early childhood care and education program at the School of Cooperative Technical Education.
Jason Goldman of the UFT Political Action Department helps Josette Barry of PS 161, Queens, fax her elected officials. above: Cheryl Hoist (left) and Nilsa Salgado of PS 21, the Bronx, use cell phones provided by the Political Action Department to remind Mayor Michael Bloomberg to keep his promises to kids.
Those who attended the Spring Education Conference made time to remind the mayor and City Council members to keep their promise to adequately fund New York City public schools.
New York City Comptroller William Thompson accepts the John Dewey Award from UFT President Randi Weingarten.
Students from Alfred E. Smith HS and teacher Ricardo Salmon (right) work on a house frame at the exhibit fair.
Jane Addams HS teacher Debra Secor looks on as student Lalbachan Harricharran gives a haircut to Syad Khan.
