April 27, 2003


Cutting The Gordian Knot
I was amused and somewhat saddened when Michael Bloomberg became the mayor of New York City. Talk about buying an election, right?
Well, I'm recanting every negative thing I have to say about Mayor Bloomberg, because he's demonstrated that he's all about handling the business of the city.

Case in point: Bloomberg has publicly stated that the people of New York should judge his entire career on his ability to overhaul the city's failing public school system by applying business techniques and cutting out the red tape. For starters, Bloomberg has eliminated ALL of the regional school boards, making all the school principals directly accountable to him and his new School Chancellor. He's replaced the 40 different math curricula and 30 different reading curricula across the city's 1200 schools with one of each, which allows them to standardize the programs and buy textbooks for the entire city at bulk rates. And he's fired over a thousand people.

What stones.

I'm impressed. I just hope it works.

As a side note, I can't help but notice some similarities in tactics between Bloomberg and President Bush. I suppose I'd be willing to cut Bush some more slack if he applied said tactics for policies I agreed with. But I digress.