Kamar Samuels should go — too bad Mamdani won’t – Latest News
We’re glad to listen to that Mayor Zohran Mamdani has his minions trying to exchange his tainted faculties chancellor, Kamar Samuels, however we’ve little hope the mayor will truly select anybody good for the job.
The quick trigger for Samuels’ ouster can be The Post’s reporting on how he accredited a $180,000 no-bid contract (to offer short-term foreign-language academics) with a non-DOE-approved vendor when he was a Manhattan district superintendent.
Some efforts are in prepare to color these violations as no massive deal, with media stories suggesting the town Department of Education’s “cumbersome” and “dysfunctional” procurement course of excuses Samuels’ breach of the foundations.
Hmm: We don’t see how that might additionally excuse the next coverup, as his No. 2 took the blame when the particular commissioner of investigation got here calling, and Samuels then rewarded that fall gal as soon as he turned chancellor.
The guidelines sure had some perform: The vendor Samuels wrongly used wound up supplying a trainer who’d been been pushed out of metropolis faculties over prices of sexual misconduct with a 15-year-old, which is why the SCI obtained known as in.
City Councilman Phil Wong (D-Brooklyn) has urged Samuels to resign (with some colleagues agreeing), however the mayor is standing by him publicly . . . whilst Mamdani’s people vet potential replacements.
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Problem is, the hacks they’re don’t look a lot cleaner: Meisha Ross Porter, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s final chancellor, is pushing to return, however City Hall selected Samuels over her as a result of she’s tainted by financial scandals at a Bronx charity she ran.
Meanwhile, the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (the principals union) has suggested its members to stonewall SCI investigators probing school-procurement practices, which suggests Samuels wasn’t remotely the one one ignoring the contracting guidelines.
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How many of the adults working the town’s public-school system are soiled?
Perhaps the oldsters in charge don’t a lot care, as long as you’re not rocking the boat: A system that spends $45 billion a yr, over $42,000 per scholar, has a lot of room for siphoning off money to 1 crony or one other.
It’s typically utterly legal grift: The United Federation of Teachers isn’t breaking any legal guidelines, nor are the directors who bloat their workplace payrolls and rent different friends as consultants.
Just by selecting Samuels within the first place, Mamdani signaled he doesn’t need to rock the DOE boat; he simply needs to keep away from any complications.
If the town’s dad and mom need the mayor to start out caring about their future, we guess they need to start out making some TikTok videos to get his consideration.
