Gonzalez: Bill de Blasio's choosing Carmen Fariña as schools chancellor will revolutionize city's schools

This comes from The Daily News by way of a member of Mayor Bill de Blasio's Transition Team.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/gonzalez-de-blasio-schools-chancellor-revolutionize-city-schools-article-1.1562040

“Teachers and administrators have been maligned,” she said. She vowed to reinstitute professional development and training of teachers, but to do so from within the school system itself.

She repeatedly stressed the need to treat parents as partners.

“She actually sees parents as allies in making the schools better, not as a nuisance to be kept out,” said Javier Valdes, executive director of Make the Road New York, a Brooklyn community group that hailed her appointment.

But the emotional high point of Fariña’s remarks came when she talked of entering city public schools speaking only Spanish, and of facing discrimination from a teacher who refused to learn to pronounce her name.

With Latinos now making up more than 40% of our school population, thousands of pupils from Latin America and other parts of the world continue to face the same kind of problem today, Fariña said. Too often, teachers pressure those children to 

Anglicize their names.

“Your children will be spoken to by the name you gave them,” the new chancellor promised.

Only a lifetime educator could grasp the importance of properly pronouncing every child’s name in the classroom.

Editors Note 

As a member of the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council when Ms. Farina was promoted to Deputy Chancellor, I beg to differ with the above comments and article. Citywide parent leaders found Deputy Chancellor Farina to be just like Chancellor Joel Klein when it came to parent concerns. The only reason I can find for her appointment as chancellor is her history with Community School Board 15 member and now Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Will Carmen Farina be the Next Schools Chancellor?

  It being reported that former Deputy Chancellor Carmen Farina is now the leading candidate to become the next schools chancellor for Mayor Elect Bill deBlasio. The 70 year old Farina goes far back with deBlasio to when he was a member of School Board 15 which hired Farina as their Superintendent. Farina was also said to have been an unofficial advisor to candidate deBlasio, but has said that she was not interested in taking the position of schools chancellor. Her position seems to be changing however with the ever shrinking list of other possible contenders for the position of schools chancellor, and most of those others favoring the school closure model of the Bloomberg administration deBlasio has said he is against. 

  Farina comes with some baggage however. She is thought to have retired in 2006 from the DOE amid controversy that she had allowed a New York City Principal who lived in New Jersey have his child placed in PS 29 (where Farina had once been principal of) before an investigation was completed by the office of the Special Schools Investigator in a story here. The principal was forced to pay the city $19,441,00 for four years of tuition and resigned. Many other stories have been found about Carmen Farina and her rise to power from teacher to principal to District 15 superintendent to Deputy Chancellor of the NYC DOE.

  As a former member of the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Panel When Ms. Farina was appointed to the position of Deputy Chancellor I found Ms. Farina to be harsh, and not a person that was friendly to parents. She may continue the "My Way or the Highway" attitude of her former boss Michael Bloomberg, and it would be a mistake for Mayor Elect Bill deBlasio to appoint her as Schools Chancellor.