Things just are not going well for Schools Chancellor Cathie Black. Not well at all. On top of her disastrous Wednesday night appearance (in which she mocked jeering parents at a vote over 10 school closures) last night things got so tense that more than a thousand angry parents, union members and teachers stormed out of a meeting regarding another 12 school closures. ""Ms. Black, what in the world is wrong with you? You show utter contempt and scorn for the parents you should be serving. If you don't want to be here, then leave—because many of us don't want you here anyway," City Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn) told the Chancellor.
Black spoke little over the course of the hearing (as she was there to mostly hear) but that didn't stop the scorn heaped upon her. After the first round of people spoke at the hearing—350 people signed up to speak, The Awl has a few highlights from them including “you have created the Lost Generation,” and “since I know you’ve already made up your minds, I’m not going to address you, I’m going to address the audience” and “as far as the UFT is concerned, this panel, this process, is illegitimate.”—things got crazy when a large portion of the auditorium stood up and, according to NY1, "began marching out to the sound of drums and whistles, forcing the panel to suspend the hearing for the next half hour."
When the hearing restarted there were only a few hundred people left. Just before 1 a.m. the panel voted to close all of the schools on the chopping block.
And in other bad news for Black, a new poll found that only 21 percent of New York voters think she has done a good or excellent job in her first month as Chancellor. Not that the Mayor, who chose Black for the job, cares. On WOR this morning hizzoner instead focused on how unpatriotic it is to boo: “The decorum—this is embarrassing for New York City, New York State, for America. This is not democracy, letting people yell and scream. That’s not freedom of expression. That’s just taking away someone else’s rights,” he said.
