Walt Gardner

Walt Gardner is back.

In the Sun.

March 19, 2007

‘The End of Mayoral Control'

It was always a comforting delusion that the mayor possessed the wherewithal somehow lacking in the members of the Board of Education [Oped, "The End of Mayoral Control," March 2, 2007].

But New Yorkers had to learn their lesson the hard way that the ills afflicting the nation's largest school district can only begin to be addressed through a democratic — not autocratic — process.

Even then, however, the huge disparity in income between residents that was documented in a news article in the same issue as Andrew Wolf's column serves as a stark reminder of the task ahead.

Socioeconomic factors play too important of a role in student performance to be overcome by the best teachers working under the most enlightened board.

WALT GARDNER
Los Angeles, Calif.

For some reason this is reminding me of the poem my mom used to recite when we were kids:

I met a man upon the stair,
A little man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish that man would go away!

I don't know why.