Pumping billions of dollars into city schools without demanding rock-bottom reform is like topping off a car's gas tank without knowing if the engine will turn over. But that's exactly what a court-appointed panel did Tuesday, when it said that New Yorkers should dump an extra $5.6 billion a year into their dysfunctional school system.
The panel's main message: Show us the money. ... As for reform, "That's not our department," the panel seemed to say. ...
How stunningly ironic, then, that the day before the panel issued its obscenely generous recommendations, a legal-reform group called Common Good released a study detailing how it takes 83 separate steps to fire a subpar teacher. Just to place a note in a teacher's personnel file, a principal must clear 32 administrative hurdles. Replacing a school's heating system is a 99-step process.
