Board of Ed Revives But, Packed with Shills, Will Do Nothing

We gotta admit, we thought it was a bluff. We assumed that when the Albany Coup senators let mayoral control of schools lapse at midnight, no one would step forward and say, "it is the time of the Judges!" But the Board of Education rose from the dead today and is meeting at the Tweed Courthouse to decide the fate of Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. But it doesn't look too dangerous for Klein or anyone else: earlier, Mayor Bloomberg appointed deputy mayors Patricia E. Harris and Edward Skyler to the Board, and sympathetic (not to say sycophantic) Queens borough president Helen Marshall appointed deputy mayor Dennis Walcott, Manhattan beep Scoot Stringer hired his lawyer, the Staten Island beep hires his deputy, and Brooklyn beep/clown Marty Markowitz hired his chief of staff. Kudos to Bronx borough president Ruben Diaz Jr. for sending an actual educator -- former Hostos Community College president Dolores M. Fernandez -- to the Board, and for helping to maintain the fiction of independent government.