Anxiously Awaiting First 2 Girls 1 Cup Reaction Video Filmed From Bedford Avenue L Platform

Soon the MTA will have to shame us into providing quiet cars:

Straphangers will soon be able to use cell phones in six underground subway stations in Manhattan — the first of many subterranean stops that will be rigged for service, the Daily News has learned.

Bloomberg’s Mental Rolodex Bigger Than Once Believed And Perhaps Even Includes Superman

I don’t know where this is coming from or if it’s supposed to make everyone feel better or what:

In defending his selection for schools chancellor, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has called Cathleen P. Black, a publishing executive with no education experience, “exactly the right person for the job” and suggested that her skills as a manager were unrivaled.

Ms. Black, however, was not the first person the mayor asked to take the position. Mr. Bloomberg tried to persuade Geoffrey Canada, the prominent Harlem education leader and a friend of the mayor, to be chancellor, but Mr. Canada turned it down, according to two people with direct knowledge of the discussions.

The two people did not want to be identified because Mr. Bloomberg has sought to keep the process private.

If Bloomberg didn’t tell anyone about the search and “the two people did not want to be identified because Mr. Bloomberg has sought to keep the process private” then wouldn’t “two people with direct knowledge of the discussions” be Canada and Bloomberg?

Earlier: Maybe She Really Will Shake Up The Schools? After All, She Does Come From An Industry Where They Seem To Excel At Laying Off People, And If You Choose Not To Receive An Education, 75 Cents Will Be Credited To Your Hotel Bill, If By “Story Line” They Mean Unilaterally Appointing Someone Without Any Discernable Qualifications To Run The Largest School System In The Country And Not Bothering To Talk It Over With Anyone At All, Much Less The Key Stakeholders And Much Much Less The Constituents He Serves, Then I Think That Story Line Is Clear, I Don’t Understand, Gossip Girl Makes Manhattan And Dumbo Look So Appealing, When In Doubt, You Can Always Beat Up On High Fructose Corn Syrup, Wow, Is That Toby Keith Or Tom Jones?, It’s Actually Worse Than The Worst Cover Letter You Ever Wrote For A Job That You Were In No Way Qualified For, Except That You Were 22 And Just Out Of School And This Guy Wants This Person To Lead The Largest School System In The Country, As That Great Educational Mind Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi Once Said, “This Is The Democracy, We Will Have No Pretext”, What Has Bloomberg Learned From This Rebuke?, Now That That’s Over, You Can “Get To Know” Cathie Black.

“He Has Chosen Some Of The Best People In The Country To Work For Him, And He Has Mostly Let Them Do Their Jobs”

Progress, not politics:

When New York State made its standardized English and math tests tougher to pass this year, causing proficiency rates to plummet, it said it was relying on a new analysis showing that the tests had become too easy and that score inflation was rampant.

But evidence had been mounting for some time that the state’s tests, which have formed the basis of almost every school reform effort of the past decade, had serious flaws.

The fast rise and even faster fall of New York’s passing rates resulted from the effect of policies, decisions and missed red flags that stretched back more than 10 years and were laid out in correspondence and in interviews with city and state education officials, administrators and testing experts.

The process involved direct warnings from experts that went unheeded by the state, and a city administration that trumpeted gains in student performance despite its own reservations about how reliably the test gauged future student success.

. . .

“This mayor uses data and metrics to determine whether policies are failing or succeeding,” said Howard Wolfson, the deputy mayor for government affairs and communications. He also helped run Mr. Bloomberg’s re-election campaign in 2009, using the city’s historic rise in test scores to make the case for a third term. “We believe that testing is a key factor for determining the success of schools and teachers.”

“Under any standard you look at,” he added, “we have improved the schools.”

. . .

The 2009 numbers came out as the mayor was trying to accomplish two goals: to persuade the Legislature to give the mayor control of the schools for another seven years; and to convince city voters that he deserved a third term.

Mr. Bloomberg’s opponent, Comptroller William C. Thompson, had once been president of the Education Board.

“Mike Bloomberg changed that system,” said one of the mayor’s campaign advertisements. “Now, record graduation rates. Test scores up, violence down. So when you compare apples to apples, Thompson offers politics as usual. Mike Bloomberg offers progress.”

In his debates, Mr. Bloomberg hammered home the theme. “If anybody thinks that the schools were better when Bill ran them, they should vote for him,” he said in one face-off. “And if anybody thinks they’re better now, I’d be honored to have their vote.”

Indeed, according to exit polls, 57 percent of those who said education was their primary concern voted for Mr. Bloomberg, who won the election by a five-point margin.

Mr. Wolfson, the deputy mayor and 2009 campaign strategist, said the mayor had no regrets about focusing on the exams as a matter of policy, and during the election.

“What’s the converse?” he said. “The converse is that we don’t test and we have no way of judging success or failure. Either you believe in standards or tests, or you don’t — and life is not like that. There are tests all the time.”

Earlier: We Are All Philly Now.

See also: Bloomberg For Mayor 2009.

I’ve Been Talking To The People That You Call Your Friends And It Seems To Me There’s A Means To An End

But pondering how Bloomberg got a third term now seems more outdated than Phil Collins:

It was one of the flash points of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s bid to overturn term limits and clear the way for a third term: officials and workers with the Doe Fund, a nonprofit group that works with the city’s homeless, testifying at Mr. Bloomberg’s behest before the City Council in support of his effort.

. . .

To critics of Mr. Bloomberg’s efforts to extend term limits, including some candidates who had prepared to run for mayor, the Doe Fund officials’ appearance amounted to a clear conflict of interest. For one thing, the organization, which has provided help to the homeless, drug addicts and ex-inmates for a quarter-century, has been awarded tens of millions of dollars in city contracts.

What was unknown in the fall of 2008, though, was just how much the Doe Fund had benefited from Mr. Bloomberg’s personal philanthropy. A review of Doe Fund documents and tax returns, as well as e-mail messages from the group and interviews with people knowledgeable about its finances, shows that Mr. Bloomberg, through his charitable arms, has regularly given millions of dollars to the group since he became mayor — at least $10 million of which came after the City Council hearings on term limits.

I’m glad the job is giving him so much personal joy. May that always be the case.

See also: Bloomberg For Mayor 2009.

Stories We Could Have Used In June 2009, Not June 2010

“Even with donations to Independence Party under scrutiny, there’s no stopping Mayor Bloomberg.”