Read thru lines of Daily News: Prince Bloomberg's puppet PEP ignored over 100 speeches by kids, teachers & the community

Daily News' January 27, 2010 report on the 6:00 PM to 3:30 AM Jan. 26 public meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy:
Note that eight of the panel's thirteen members are appointed by King --I mean, Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The votes on whether to postpone the vote on the closings or the vote on the closings fell on "party-line" votes: the first vote, at 11 PM, was eight to five; the 3:30 AM vote on the closings was nine to four. The mayor-appointed panel members know that if they part from the mayor's wishes they might lose their posts, as happened on the only instance in which mayor-appointed panel members voted against the mayor's prerogatives. This makes it plainly obvious that the mayor does not respect democratic plurality of opinion.

Rachel Monahan, "Education Department panel votes to close 19 failing New York City
schools," "New York Daily News" January 27, 2010

Over the objections of thousands of protesters, the city Education Department's panel voted early Wednesday morning to close 19 failing city schools.

After more than eight hours of testimony, the Panel for Educational Policy gave the go-ahead shortly after 3:00 a.m.

The four panel members representing the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan voted against most of the closings.

Mayor Bloomberg’s eight appointees along with the representative from Staten Island supported the decision.

At the beginning of the hearing, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein defended the proposals.

"The sad reality is that the schools we must close tonight are not meeting the standards," he said, barely audible over boos from the crowd.

At one point he left the stage for several minutes, and the crowd interrupted testimony, repeatedly chanting, "Where is Klein?"

Only after he returned did the crowd allow testimony to continue.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, among those who called for a delay, accused the Education Department of procedural violations, including failing to provide information to his panel appointee in time.

The public hearing and the vote were required for the first time this year because of changes made to the mayoral control law last summer.

Teachers union President Michael Mulgrew said the union is weighing a lawsuit but had not yet determined whether the city adhered to the law in moving to close schools.

“If that has not been followed, we will take them to court,” said Mulgrew.