Once again, New York City’s Panel on Educational Policy (formerly known as the Board of Education) rubber-stamped the closing of 22 schools.

After nearly a dozen years of mayoral control, the authorities showed how hollow “reform” is. The closings never end. Success is nowhere in sight.

The representatives from Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens propped a moratorium on school closings and “co-locations” of charters into public school space, but their pleas were ignored. Michael Mendel of the UFT eloquently opposed the closings.

The farce continues. Chancellor Dennis Walcott, who is said to have taught nursery school for a year or so, decades ago, but has never been a principal or school leader, had the last word. As reported here:

“Chancellor Dennis Walcott even boasted of his power and the uselessness of the PEP when he said this regarding closing schools, ‘At the end of the day, the decision is mine.'”

In short, it doesn’t matter what parents or teachers or communities say.

This is not what democracy looks like.

It appears that the NYC DOE doesn’t even pretend to know how to help schools.