Disappeared News

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“Would we want ivanka trump?” –the Oprah Network
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by Larry Geller

As a transplant from New York City to Hawaii, one thing I miss is the political activism, the concern, the opinions that motivate New Yorkers to action on most any important subject. The media encouraged activism by supporting a variety of views from Right to Left, from Conservative to Liberal, or any other way one chose to slice public opinion.

Now School Superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi is on her way out. It took a while, didn’t it, and still, media are not really examining what qualifications a school superintendent should have. Nor was there any great uprising on the streets when a person with no pedagogical experience was chosen to lead our statewide school district.

When faced with a similar situation, New Yorkers rebelled.

Here’s a re-run of my May 2013 article:

Sunday, May 05, 2013

A tale of two Cathies—New York parents rejected a school chancellor with no educational background, Hawaii parents did not

by Larry Geller

New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg appointed Cathy Black as school chancellor in 2010 even though she had no suitable credentials. She was a publishing executive with no experience in education.

New York parents revolted, and she was booted out of there.

Kathryn Matayoshi was also appointed in 2010, by Hawaii’s appointed Board of Education. The BOE has a decided business background itself, and it appointed a person in its own image. Matayoshi is an attorney, who served, for example, as executive director of the Hawaii Business Roundtable. Like NYC’s school CEO, she also lacks credentials in the field of education.

Cathy Black was booted out, but Kathryn Matayoshi is still in office.

The tale of the NYC Cathy is alive again as a court ordered some of Mayor Bloomberg’s emails to be released publicly after a long struggle.

Now here's a NY Post editorial from this weekend after the Cathie Black emails were released and revealed her to be as clueless about education and unqualified for the job as her critics said she was.

[Perdido Street School, A Tale Of Two NY Post Cathie Black Editorials, 5/5/2013] [scroll down—the link to the original NY Post editorial no longer works, but there is this]

That article will take you into the heart of the New York issue, including a description of the psyops strategy intended to slide Black into office:

They courted celebrities such as fashion designers Donna Karan and Diane von Furstenberg. They tried Caroline Kennedy, who wisely didn’t respond. “Would we want ivanka trump?” wondered Black in one e-mail. The jewel in the crown was Oprah, who sang Black’s praises in a newspaper interview and sealed the deal.

[New York Post, The Oprah network, 5/4/2013] [use link above]

I was aware of the two Cathies similarity when they both were appointed. But did anyone but me care that our new schools superintendent was just as unqualified as New York’s Cathy Black? It didn’t seem so at the time, and it doesn’t appear so now.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike license.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 5/05/2013 05:31:00 PM 

Comments:

Political appointees who are qualified to do the job? Don't go there. Down that road lies madness. Soon you will babble of measuring job performance, the end of nepotism and a transparent government. Madness, sir, madness.

# posted by Anonymous : May 6, 2013 at 7:55:00 AM HST

Permalink posted by Larry @ 11/07/2016 07:35:00 AM