CWA 1180 - News

Arrogance as a policy
By Arthur Cheliotes
September 2003

Arrogance is not only offensive, it’s destructive. Driven by a disrespect for the intelligence and contributions of others, it forces the arrogant into isolation, makes mistakes more likely and makes discussion, suggestions and corrections of those mistakes less likely. Many of us learn to ignore arrogance when we can. But we can’t do that when arrogance is the underpinning of a government policy.

A case in point: the Bloomberg Administration’s current “reform” of the City’s school system. Not only does it reflect complete disregard for parents, kids, and the people who work in the system but it’s been formulated in isolation, without real public discussion. That leaves some serious questions about whether it will improve things or do even greater damage.

Our union first became involved because this “reform” threatened the jobs of hundreds of our members (see related story "Reformed or Wrecked"). That we were able to save most of those jobs is a source of pride for us: yet another proof, as if needed, of unions’ importance.

Yet, while the jobs were saved, the people who do them have been scattered all over the system with no clarity as to how their skills will be used, what their responsibilities will be and how the contributions they’ve spent their working lives making will continue.

Of course, we were never consulted about any of this. So the Administration managed to not only dismiss our ideas and experiences, based on our daily work in the system, but demonstrated complete disrespect for our members’ commitment to educating kids. Saving jobs isn’t enough here; we want to be sure we can continue contributing effectively to kids’ lives. That fact seems lost to the Administration.

The wasteful nature of this approach is underscored by a truly remarkable fact: they didn’t consult the teachers! They ignored the rich contribution people who work in those classrooms can make. So were parents—do I have to explain their importance?—and community leaders, whose communities are profoundly affected in every way by the quality of neighborhood schools.

Now what remains are questions because this “reform” is largely untested and unsupported by previous real-life educational experiences. It’s a “business model” with a curriculum that reads like a sales plan.

While this absolute faith in business may be ill-advised , it’s the premise that’s wrong. A city isn’t a business: it’s a public trust. It has a mandate to provide basic services and to make it possible for us to live decent lives. We have a right to expect that it do so.

The public school system is part of that mandate: our kids have a right to a decent education and our government has the responsibility to make sure that happens.

That means involving the entire city in the discussion of sound, applicable and tested ideas and then moving forward to implement them.

To do anything else is arrogance of the worst kind.

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