Former principal of Maspeth High School, Khursid Abdul-Mutakabbir, exemplifies the who-gives-a-crap approach to education.
After a foot-dragging investigation, the New York City Department of Education finally fired the man for urging staff to concoct fake grades, fake classes, fake graduation rates.
His attitude: “I don’t care if a kid shows up at 7:44 and you dismiss at 7:45, it’s your job to give that kid credit.”
An official report outlines the many derelictions at this public school. Yet when the local DOE removed the principal, it also gave him a seven-year sinecure paying $260,000 a year.
Wha—? Why?
Well, they’re all members of the same club.
Such nihilism and grift are rampant, if not universal.
Calling the settlement a “deeply symbolic insult” to taxpayers and students, columnist Bob McManus wants Mayor Eric Adams to “claw back” the payoff to prove that he really does mean to “fight for public education.”
Frankly, the conduct of everyone involved is life-destroying — not just a matter of insults and symbolism.
The minds and futures of young people are at stake.
In many schools, things only get worse. Maybe your kids are stuck in a public school that cannot be reformed, with perverse ideological agendas displacing reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic, never mind how to learn and think. Maybe homeschooling isn’t an option.
Glenn Reynolds advises shutting down the imploding public schools and replacing them with “universal vouchers, in the name of public health.”
Regardless of what specific reform we take to this mess, remember the goal: a learning lifeline to every kid who wants better. A choice. A chance.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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