Tony Avella, the "dark horse" Democratic candidate for Mayor, who is facing William Thompson in the September 15 primary, made an appearance on last Friday's "The Road to City Hall", on NY 1. Interviewed by Dominic Carter, Avella made his points sharply, came off a little street wise, and except for one or two generalizations, was very specific. He was very forthright in attacking the Mayor's claims to school successs, making it very clear that teachers were told to "teach to the test", that is, spend atleast two months prior to the state tests, only reviewing former tests with their classes.
Like Thompson, he also questioned the validity of the graduation rates the Bloomberg administration trumpets. He painted a picture of himself as a unifier of all people in the city; that may have seemed a little too good to be true, but he did promise to create a school system where teachers, parents and communities were given a real say in what and how the children are taught---it would be tough work after Bloomberg, but he spoke as if he could do it.
A day earlier, Carter had disgraced himself and his producers by interviewing another "Mayoral Candidate", the Times Square Naked Cowboy, who had proclaimed himself as a candidate for Mayor a few days earlier. Was this really to be taken seriously? According to Carter, "Yes", since the latter indulged the Cowboy, gave him almost the same amount of time that Thompson was given a few days before, and just smirked while the cowboy spewed out his self serving success story. All this was taken as serious conversation; for me, it seemed like an obvious attempt to trivialize the other two legitimate Democratic Candidates. I had just come from a meeting where at least 30 New Yorkers gave vivid statements on how the Bloomberg administration had adversely affected their lives.To return to my apartment and turn on the television to see Carter enjoying the Cowboy's conceits, was very, very sad.
Meanwhile, the stalemate over the school system continues, as today Assembly leader Sheldon Silver weighed in with his own version of "checks and balances" to Mayoral Control. On Friday, the State Senators reached a kind of tentative agreement on the few checks on Bloomberg's control that they wanted (One was money for a Parent Training Center, though what the content of this training would be, what the Parents would be trained for, was never stated) but Bloomberg's basic demands to let the system remain as it is, were accepted. Saturday morning an article about this appeared on the Times City Room blog. In the "Comments" section, the replies, many by current teachers, were vehement in denouncing the Bloomberg and Klein system. Will these teachers have their champion in Tony Avella? Maybe, now, if they could only get to know him.