Failing kids
De Blasio’s pratfalls on the national stage have been comic; his failures here in the city tragic.
We’re thinking particularly of the children who died thanks to mismanagement at the Administration for Children’s Services.
De Blasio took office vowing to fix ACS, yet his pick to run it, Gladys Carrión, abandoned key management practices, such as agency-wide video conferences where top staff reviewed casework best practices.
Other progressive politicians, including then-Public Advocate Letitia James, issued reports warning that ACS was going downhill; the mayor ignored them.
Then children who’d been on ACS’s radar — in homes the agency had been called to investigate — started dying from abuse. Zymere Perkins, 6, beaten to death. Jaden Jordan, 3, same fate.
Weeks later, after Mikey Guzman, 5, joined the list despite 13 ACS visits to the home, de Blasio finally forced Carrión out and hired a technocrat to get the agency back on track.
This wasn’t the first time he’d ignored warning signs. In 2015, he spent weeks denying that the city faced a new homeless crisis. The Post had to run photographic proof — including of large, permanent encampments — before de Blasio started to
Comments
Post a Comment