December 11, 2014
By Marc Bussanich
New York, NY—After Mayor Bill de Blasio and the head of the principals’ union, Ernest Logan, announced a nine-year contract, Mr. Logan told his members in the accompanying video at the union’s 47th annual conference that school leaders are in a pivotal movement as the whole country watches to see whether public education can endure.
“We’re in probably the most pivotal moment in our lives. You now have a commissioner who has walked your walk, talked you talk. So folks we have to produce,” said Logan, president of the Council of School Supervisors & Administrators, to his members.
Mr. Logan was referring to the collaboration that the union believes they now enjoy with the new Department of Education Chancellor, Carmen Farina. Earlier in his speech, Mr. Logan said that under Farina’s leadership the DOE is willing to drop excessive investigations into some of school leaders’ unscrupulous actions or behavior in return for the union’s principled principals working extra hard to improve public schools’ academic performance.
He warned his members that if they don’t or can’t meet the challenge, public education would suffer a severe setback.
“We’re willing to be a partnership in this, but let me tell you something. If you think you’re not ready for this journey, let’s have a conversation about where we go next. This is serious times. The whole world is watching New York City. If we mess this up, public education goes down the drain. The vultures are waiting, because they believe that we truly can’t educate the children in the public system. They believe only charters and corporate people can do it,” Logan beseeched.
After his speech, he rountabled with reporters and LaborPress’s Steven Wishnia asked him about how much harder would principals have to work to stave off the “vultures.”
Logan said school leaders’ familiarity with hard work, combined with the union’s extensive educational leadership centers, should equip them well.
“When you choose to do the work, you have to step up to do it. But the key that we have as a union is very different than most unions in that we offer a lot of support through our supervisory support program and through our Executive Leadership Institute. We believe we can make people even stronger, and now we have a true partner in the Chancellor who says superintendents will now be the true supports for schools,” Logan said.
@marcbuss marc@laborpress.org
