Education Top Priority for Badillo
This is the last in an occasional series that looks at how the candidates for mayor have done their current jobs. At the height of a battle over bilingual education in the late 1970s, some Hispanic leaders wanted to name a school after Herman Badillo, who then was the first Puerto Rican congressman in the United States and a champion of bilingual instruction. When the activists found out that New York City schools can only be named after someone who is dead, they went to other parts of the state. They learned that in Buffalo, schools can be named after the living, so the small Puerto Rican community there won approval for the christening of the Herman Badillo Bilingual School. It was a gesture of gratitude and respect for a man many saw as a trailblazer opening the door of politics to Puerto Ricans and Latinos across the country. Badillo was the city's first Hispanic commissioner, borough president, congressman and deputy mayor. In Congress, he found a national stage as a champion of minority rights and a spokesman for the problems of America's cities. Today, many of the Hispanic leaders who once pushed to honor Badillo have become his staunchest critics. They feel betrayed by his conversion from Democrat to Republican, from a liberal to a social conservative. "This guy broke a lot of barriers. He opened doors,” said Angelo Falcon, senior policy executive at the Puerto Rican Legal and Education Defense Fund. "But his reversal on education policy and social issues was profound. I don't think there could be a movement now by Latinos to name a school after him in the city.” As Badillo, 72, makes a fourth run for mayor -- this time as a Republican -- the one institution where his conversion has been most evident is the City University of New York. In four years as vice chairman and then chairman, Badillo led a crusade to transform CUNY, which, with about 200,000 students, is America's largest urban university. Badillo pushed for tighter admission and graduation requirements and for elimination of remedial courses from CUNY's 11 senior colleges. Badillo's critics say he limited access to a university with a historic legacy of allowing poor and working-class students to attend college. They also accuse him of politicizing the university and helping former members of the Giuliani administration land jobs at CUNY, including the high-profile presidency of Hunter College. Badillo has been one of Republican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's most influential advisers and ran unsuccessfully for city comptroller on a fusion ticket with Giuliani in 1993. The criticisms reflect wider concerns about Badillo's law firm seeing a boom in its lobbying business after Giuliani took office. The firm also includes Liberal Party boss Raymond Harding, whose backing was crucial when Giuliani was running for his first term. To his supporters, Badillo is a champion of higher educational standards who withstood strong protests from CUNY faculty and students opposed to ending remedial classes. "He was a tower of strength, unwavering in his commitment to higher standards. He was unbowing to protesters and critics,” said Randy Mastro, a CUNY trustee and a former deputy mayor under Giuliani. "Herman's legacy will be enormous. Because of him, CUNY is now well on the road to having its once vaunted reputation restored.” Badillo -- who most polls show is lagging far behind billionaire Michael Bloomberg in the Republican primary -- resigned as chairman of the 17-member CUNY board of trustees in June, just days before officially announcing his run for mayor. He vows that if elected, he will do for the Board of Education what he did for CUNY. "I fought to restore standards at CUNY and I won the battle,” Badillo said in an interview last week. "I'm running for mayor because I want to change the education system in the same way I changed CUNY. I want to bring back standards and eliminate social promotion at the Board of Education.” But exactly how much did Badillo change CUNY? There has been some tightening of standards: CUNY now requires students to pass a proficiency exam to graduate from community colleges or begin a third year of study at senior colleges. And more students in CUNY's teacher education programs passed state certification exams in the 1999-2000 academic year than in previous years. During Badillo's tenure, CUNY expanded its College Now program, which helps high school students prepare for college-level work. The university also developed a core curriculum, including an American history course for all students. It is still unclear exactly what effect Badillo's most ambitious change -- ending remediation at the senior colleges -- will have. The plan was approved in January 1999, after more than a year of protests and legal challenges. Students who fail entrance exams in math and English are denied admission to a senior college and required to take remedial classes over the summer or at night, or enroll at one of CUNY's seven community colleges. But because the change was phased in over three years, its full impact has not yet been felt. Starting in January of last year, remedial classes were eliminated at Baruch, Brooklyn, Queens and Hunter colleges. Since those colleges had few students in remediation, they did not see any change in enrollment. The next phase went into effect in September of last year at John Jay, Medgar Evers, New York City Technical and Staten Island colleges. Because those colleges also offer two-year associate degrees, CUNY officials say they saw little change in enrollment. The last phase is set to take effect this fall at City, Lehman and York colleges, which don't offer associate degrees. CUNY officials say they will closely watch enrollment figures at those colleges. Overall, enrollment at the senior colleges dropped slightly, by less than 400 students or 0.3 percent, between the fall of last year and the previous year. The number of freshman students admitted to the senior colleges increased by about 5 percent over the same period. And the racial makeup of incoming freshmen did not change significantly, as those opposed to ending remediation had feared it would. Badillo and his supporters felt vindicated by those numbers, arguing that students and faculty had exaggerated the impact of eliminating remedial classes. "I was called all kinds of names, but all the charges they made against me turned out to be false,” Badillo said. "I was able to restore the value of a CUNY degree.” Critics, however, say Badillo is partly responsible for CUNY's image problem because of his relentless attacks on the university before he became chairman. They also say Badillo did not do enough to secure more funding for the university. "He spent a lot of time thrashing CUNY in the press, instead of pushing for more funding for a system that has been underfunded for 20 years,” said Barbara Bowen, an English professor at Queens College and president of the CUNY faculty union. "He left a very damaging legacy.” Assemb. Edward Sullivan (D-Manhattan), chairman of the Assembly's Higher Education Committee, said Badillo exaggerated his impact on CUNY to help his mayoral ambitions. "How can a university that Badillo claims was so awful two years ago suddenly become hunky-dory with the same faculty and same students? Just because he was chairman?” Sullivan said. "It's unbelievable, and the voters aren't going to buy it.” Other critics say Badillo opened the door for patronage appointments at CUNY. They point to the selection in February of Jennifer Raab, chairwoman of the city Landmarks Preservation Commission who had no background in higher education, as president of Hunter College, CUNY's largest campus. Badillo supported Raab, who was issues director for Giuliani's failed 1989 mayoral campaign, for the $200,000-a-year job. CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein and several trustees favored another candidate who had more academic experience. Some trustees said they were pressured into voting for Raab, and the one Giuliani appointee who voted against her was dropped from the board. The CUNY board includes 10 members appointed by the governor, five by the mayor, one student and one faculty representative. The unpaid trustees have seven-year terms, but the chairman and vice chairman serve at the governor's discretion. Gov. George Pataki named Badillo as vice chairman in early 1997 and elevated him to chairman in June 1999. Critics say CUNY trustees have been subjected to strong political pressure since Giuliani and Pataki began making appointments to the board five years ago. Four of Giuliani's five appointees work in his administration. "People told me privately that they would not have voted the way they did on some issues if they weren't pressured by the mayor,” said Edith Everett, a trustee who was appointed by former Gov. Mario Cuomo and whose term ended in June 1999. CUNY hired two other Giuliani administration officials while Badillo was chairman. Ninfa Segarra, a former deputy mayor, was given a newly created $146,000-a-year job as vice president of the CUNY Research Foundation, and Rosa Gil, former chairwoman of the Health and Hospitals Corp., was appointed to a new $150,000-a-year post as university dean for health sciences. Badillo denied that any of the hires were patronage appointments. "None of these people were hacks,” he said. "Jennifer Raab did an outstanding job as chair of the landmarks commission and she's going to be a very strong college president.” Even Badillo's critics concede that as chairman, he pushed his agenda through the board. "Herman was a very efficient chairman. He took care of the politicking before the board meetings and made sure that the votes would go his way,” said Bernard Sohmer, chairman of the Faculty Senate and a CUNY trustee. "He didn't try to reach consensus at meetings. He called and gave instructions ahead of time.” But supporters like John Calandra, a CUNY trustee since 1996, say Badillo always allowed his critics to have their say. "He had a good feel for making sure that people were included, but he knew when to cut off debate and make a decision,” Calandra said. "We didn't sit there for hours debating things.” In September 1999, Badillo caused a furor in the Hispanic community by making what many said were disparaging comments about Dominican and Mexican students. "The biggest problem we have is that we are getting hundreds of students 12, 13, 14 years old from the hills of Mexico and the Dominican Republic who have never been to school,” Badillo said at a lunch sponsored by the Center for Educational Innovation. He described the new immigrants as "pure Indians -- Incas and Mayans who are about, you know, 5 feet tall with straight hair.” As criticism and calls for his dismissal grew, Badillo issued a statement apologizing and saying, "My intent was to suggest assistance to the groups involved.” The CUNY chairman survived the uproar. Badillo often emphasizes that his interest in CUNY is rooted in being a graduate of City College, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1951. Born in rural Caguas, Puerto Rico, Badillo lost both parents to tuberculosis. At 12, without being able to speak English, he moved to New York to live with an aunt. By then, Badillo said, he knew education would get him out of poverty. "I came here from Puerto Rico with no parents and no money,” Badillo said. "I went to City College because it was free, and it was the Harvard of the poor. That degree had a lot of luster back then, and it opened a lot of doors for me.” Badillo, who championed urban renewal, public housing and bilingual education in Congress, went on to explain his new political philosophy. "The answer to poverty is not for government to provide jobs or housing,” he said. "The answer is to get a good education, so a person can go out and get a job, find housing and make a contribution to society.” To his critics, such statements reinforce how much Badillo has changed over the past three decades. "In the '60s and '70s, Badillo became a spokesman for America's cities and the complexities of their problems,” Falcon said. "Now he talks about his own life story and asks why everyone else can't make it like he did. The reality is much more complicated than that.” |