Bloomberg Sí, Bloomberg No

New York, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and many other places will soon be able to promote a much higher level of education for all since large numbers of students fall behind before dropping out.

The New York Post has reported that Michael Bloomberg may run for president in 2020.

Michael Bloomberg often had Hispanic help, Dominican help that was often the wrong help. When Bloomberg announced the opening of an office in Washington Heights (the Dominican capital of North America), Bloomberg could have done much more for the Dominican people. I do not even recall if Bloomberg attended the Sosúa Exhibit at the Jewish Museum. See Bachata in Israel.

Limestone, Alabama has something relevant to disclose and Bloomberg will need African-American votes everywhere to stand a chance. There African-Americans have not been getting help from local and state agencies as they claim civil right violations. Now after meeting with the Washington Bureau of the N.A.A.C.P., they may soon have a pro bono lawyer from Alabama working with them, giving them hope that things will progress. We will soon work on solutions to help the students, parents, and community make much better progress this school year. All N.A.A.C.P. organizations can find out more by contacting the N.A.A.C.P. of Limestone.

I want my friends in Alabama and other places to share the art exhibits of Mark L. Cohen which are devoted to BLACK LIVES MATTER and THE HOLOCAUST. Let’s get started today. Mark’s FACEBOOK. Mark works closely with a former federal prosecutor named Chris J. Mancini who has been featured in some of my articles. Chris represented Muhammad Ali’s ex wife and son Muhammad Ali, Jr. when they were stopped at airports for being Muslim. Chris has a Crime Scene Museum that is a traveling museum and his Crime Scenes are featured on WLRN in Florida.

My friend William Bell told me a long time ago that Michael Bloomberg did not meet with him and his wife, Valerie Bell, after the shooting of his son by NYPD police. Bloomberg has never met with the Bell family, even after almost a decade after leaving office. We know that legal advice at City Hall probably prevented an immediate meeting, but…but…but this is 2018. Combined with the contribution that Bloomberg made with his police commissioner to mass incarceration and knowing that there is organization among African-Americans including Black Lives Matter and all the supporters of Colin Kaepernick, it seems certain that Bloomberg cannot count on the Black vote. Then what card is he playing? Sean Bell lives on in the hearts and minds of people everywhere in Sean Bell Just 23.

I met Michael Bloomberg as I entered his office to hold a meeting with a staff member of his who was later given a job at the Department of Education of NYC. Bloomberg shook my hand and it was surreal. I got to know Bloomberg from the distance as most of us get to know elected officials. I sent him a book years ago to help him accelerate in his acquisition of Spanish and he sent a letter thanking me. So the sí is only for his desire to learn Spanish. Don’t get the impression that I will endorse Bloomberg 2020 for President of the United States. The no is what I really feel, because it is my opinion that he does not have that much to contribute as president.

When Bloomberg joined a large group of Republicans in Oklahoma around 2008 I wrote that Bloomberg held the key to helping America. Here was a man committed to reducing poverty dramatically in New York City and formed a coalition in New York City to fight poverty. The more than one hundred million dollars (possibly two hundred million dollars that he spent on getting elected and reelected) could have been used for fighting poverty. And the money could have been spent in much better ways.

Bloomberg was mayor of New York for three terms or twelve years. He made lots of mistakes, but he still won the votes of New York’s electorate. I keep writing in Jewish Business News that no one listens to me and Bloomberg listened very little. Bloomberg appointed Joel Klein to be the chancellor of New York City’s schools and I got to meet Klein and write about him.

From pages 56-107 in Issues of Our Times, I write about the mistakes of Bloomberg-Klein. There are important solutions in that book that can help tens of millions of students easily, maybe hundreds of millions. Klein started out training future principals and his efforts were weak. He also wanted to get rid of neighborhood schools and teachers (union teachers). After all those years in power, there were far too many schools where the students were far behind on the state tests. He wanted students to pass the state tests, but he never trained teachers to adequately prepare those students for the state tests. I repeat state tests, state tests, state tests here over and over to emphasize the point and this is still going on in schools around the country.

Here is something important for all communities related to state tests and we have to thank Jewish Business News again for the publication of this. The state does not have to have the power that it has had and continues to have over state tests. The parents in their communities could have that power and exercise it better. Who is keeping this from happening? Joel Klein is gone, but Governor Cuomo has the power and he has failed the people. We know that a huge percentage of parents in New York State have opted out from the state tests, state tests, state tests (repeated for emphasis of course) and that has been great.

I met Zephyr Teachout at one of the important meetings on Long Island about opting out and we chatted for a while. Zephyr Teachout is a name that has the word teach in it. This is the moment to tell parents everywhere that they could give their children a practice test that simulates the real state test and find out what the state education department learns and that is what the weaknesses of the individual students are. Parents should arrange to obtain a practice test to administer to the child at home and find out his or her weaknesses and get those errors corrected.

I wrote and asked Bloomberg to donate $1 million for the high school equivalency test (GED) so that more people could take the GED test in New York City and New York State. In a recent article about John Mc Cain, I wrote that our elected officials are not that good and not only have the men and women in the New York State Legislature made bad decisions related to GED testing, but also they have underfunded the testing since 1993. That is one of the key components of the pipeline to prison in New York. The million dollars that Bloomberg did not donate could have been used to test 20,000 people in a year. The passing rate on that test was only around fifty percent and with 10,000 more adults with a diploma and more self-confidence, the employment of those people could have been more assured since having a high school diploma or GED is often a requirement to continue the job interview. There are now about 3 million adults in the state of New York who lack diplomas and things are getting worse for adults as I write.

There was a four-fold increase in overdose deaths in Staten Island during the Bloomberg years and I urged a parent leader who was close to Chancellor Klein to make drug addiction an integral part of parent involvement. Nobody listens to me. And I have been urging that parent involvement change its way of operating meetings. Parents should be able to access the ongoing meetings through technology like FACEBOOK live or SKYPE. A revolution is awaiting schools and families that get involved and the days of fewer than 25 parents attending Title 1 meetings will be over.

Since I know what has been happening in GED than almost anyone in the world, I finally said enough. I am now asking people involved in criminal reform movements to get their cities and states to pass laws that prevent employers from rejecting outright anyone who lacks a high school diploma. Employers would have to give each candidate a complete interview and that would lead to the hiring of more men and women who were previously incarcerated. About 100,000 students in NYC schools are the children of the incarcerated and the employment of their parents would help cut down on the pipeline to prison.

Michael Bloomberg is not at all like Donald Trump, but they do share things in common. Bloomberg suggested that teachers should be fired using subjective data of management and he did this on the Gambling in the Morning Show. Trump is the same way. Perhaps Trump does not have money offshore to protect (Bloomberg admitted to John Gambling that he had money offshore and that is why he was able to donate more money to charities), but maybe we will find out soon that Trump has money offshore as well. I would imagine that Trump has partnered with people that have their money offshore.

Trump, in my opinion, is the cement that held the Republican Party together in 2016 and really had little or nothing to offer. Bloomberg as a Democrat, might be the cement that holds the Democrats together in 2020 and nothing more, leading them to victory. Bloomberg’s money can do a lot to help him win, but according to Trump we have learned that Twitter can help the cause, contrary to what campaign experts will tell you about spending lots of money.

I have written various articles about Trump’s Wall and my views are known to important people in Mexico. I have been reading the book written by Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador about the poverty of the Mexican people caused by great corruption, but I generally refer to another kind of corruption which is the corruption of the mind. Mexico could learn new things to help its people right here. Puerto Rico has failed its people and made things worse. There were over one million people in need of a GED in Puerto Rico throughout the 2000s. I could easily blast people in the Independence Party (which has not been in power) for failing its people. Lopéz Obrador can take a look at one of my earliest intervention attempts in behalf of the Mexican people when I met with Salvador Beltrán del Rio Madrid in the Consulate of Mexico in New York City. At that time two-thirds of Mexican immigrants were dropping out of school in the United States and I opened the door of the Consulate of El Salvador to Mexicans and others. That class was not reinstated when a new government came into power.

There are over 40 million adults who do not have a high school diploma or high school equivalency in the United States. Mexico simply has to use its own figure for people lacking a diploma in Mexico and then reduce that number by the people who earn Mexico’s equivalency (equivalencia) each year and Mexico will see the great problem it has in reducing poverty. Corruption of the mind! I hope to give a language project to everyone in Mexico as soon as the Secretary of Education contacts me.

Bloomberg and Trump No! Let’s K.O. them both and this just came in. My friend James “Bonecrusher” Smith was just interviewed in a podcast. Bonecrusher is involved in literacy so look him up. Listen to Beyond the Ropes right here. And read From Magnolia to Madison Square Garden in Jewish Business News. Good interview champ!

From Magnolia to Madison Square Garden: A Heavyweight Champion