Joel Klein Creates Climate In Which School Officials Are Afraid to Call For Help

Posted by A Voice in the Wilderness

September 9, 2008

In Joel Klein’s world, image is everything.

Unfortunately, this shallow approach to education is costing children their health.

Schools who serve large populations of at-risk students are given little or no help in managing disciplinary problems. At one large, New York City School, the principal was given 14 safety agents for a school that is the size of a small city and which houses almost 3,000 students. At any given time, several of these agents might be out sick, leaving the huge building with about ten agents to cover 8 floors. After several, futile appeals to Chancellor Klein fell on deaf ears, the principal decided to begin reporting every single incident which occurred, in an attempt to get more help for the building.

As a result, the school was placed on the Impact list.

Welcome to the world of Chancellor Joel Klein, where the message to administrators is “Make me look good or else.”

As a result, administrators will go to bizarre and even dangerous lengths to avoid reporting statistics; often putting children at risk.

The latest causality is Mariya Fatima, a student at Jamaica High School who suffered a stroke and was forced to wait 90 minutes for help. According to the Daily News, school officials were acting on a memo that had been sent by former Assistant Principal Guy Venezia to school deans on April 12 banning 911 calls “for any reason.”
Venezia, was AP of Security and was attempting to thwart the negative ratings that Jamaica received. Calls to 911 count against a school’s statistics as do reports of crimes both minor and major.
Klein, naturally, condemned the administrator and took absolutely no responsibility for the climate that he created which places the real needs of children behind his political image.