The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Mayor’s Budget Seeks to Lay Off Five Percent of Teachers,” shows that a Republican is a Republican, no matter how “liberal.” Mayor Bloomberg released a proposed budget for the city yesterday with massive layoffs of teachers to balance it yet no increase in taxes. And, to make matters worse, according to current law, the layoffs are not based on any meritocracy but solely seniority.

The net effect of the layoffs would be to increase class size by an average of two students, not to mention the good teachers whose careers would be unnecessarily cut short. When did it become de rigeur to take these draconian measures, at a time when education of our children is so important to maintain competitiveness in the global marketplace, but refuse to raise taxes.

Fortunately, the proposed budget must be approved by the City Council before becoming effective, and the Council Speaker, Christine Quinn, has already pledged to find money for the cuts elsewhere. Still, it does show the priorities of Mayor Bloomberg and his rich Republican cronies when they balance the budget on the backs of our children’s future.

And kudos to The New York Times for emphasizing this story as the lead, drawing attention to a matter every bit as critical as Osama bin Laden.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “After Three Months, Mayor Replaces Schools Leader,” describes a rare retreat by Mayor Bloomberg from a questionable appointment he had championed despite deep reservations by many at the time. The appointment, Cathleen Black for Schools Chancellor, was questioned because she had no educational experience, and her main qualifications in management were as a publishing executive.

The appointment went from bad to worse. Ms. Black frequently sat quietly at high-level meetings and muffed basic statistics when she was being trained for appearances before the media. At one point, she taunted a crowd of parents when they questioned the closing of a neighborhood school.

Disillusioned, many top education officials resigned from the department, and Ms. Black was actually starting to detract from the Mayor’s popularity when he canned her. Mayor Bloomberg is still recovering from a controversy about ineffective snow removal during the winter.

The replacemlent is a much safer choice. Dennis Walcott is a deputy mayor with educational experience and is popular in government circles. The controversy over Ms. Black should die down as he moves vigorously into the job.

Mayor Bloomberg, meanwhile, is continuing to lose the teflon touch he has used so adeptly in the past. After the snow and Ms. Black, he may just have one more strike to go before the public declares him “out.”

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Under Scrutiny, Mayor Gears Up for Snow Today,” shows how a simple thing like the weather can change the course of world events.

Mayor Bloomberg, once touted as a possible independent Presidential candidate, has seen his approval ratings plummet to under 40 percent, largely due to the disastrous response to the blizzard of December 26th and 27th. In addition to failing to clear some streets for days, the Mayor has also been attacked for a lack of preparedness by the Emergency Medical Services department (EMS), because it did not institute any special procedures and ended up with 170 ambulances stuck in the snow.

As a result of all the criticism, the Mayor is preparing for today’s minor snowfall (five-to-seven inches) like it was the battle of Armageddon. His snow plows are being monitored by GPS, and employees are going out into the streets with cameras to stream live feeds of the street conditions to City Hall.

Whether all these efforts will restore the Mayor’s fortunes remains to be seen, but, right now, only 1 in 5 approve of his response to the city’s last experience with inclement weather. So far, the Mayor’s only tangible response has been to fire the head of EMS, John Peruggia, but that looks too much like scapegoating, because it is. We’ll see what happens today.

The lead story in today’s New York Times, “City Struggles as Storm Impact Chastens Mayor,” shows how mundane matters such as a heavy snowfall can bring the most sophisticated, urbane locale to a screeching halt. Mr. Bloomberg somehow failed to anticipate that many cars, buses and trucks would become stranded during  the blizzard and failed to deploy an adequate number of tow trucks to supplement the usual complement of snow plows typical for such inclement weather.

And when the streets are blocked by stranded cars, the snow plows can’t get through, and an entire neighborhood can become stranded. Even worse in  the city’s response was a failure to anticipate that 9-1-1 calls would continue to come through, and  when the roads are impassable, ambulances are affected as well. For the first time, police cars started responding to these calls for help in case the ambulance got stuck.

The overall result was basically one big mess, and the City Council is crying bloody murder about the lack of planning. Many say that a snow emergency should have  been declared  in advance, a step Mr. Bloomberg failed to take.  Meanwhile, the normally unflappable Mayor got testy in his most recent press conference and tried to downplay the difficulties.

One  wonders  whether his nascent independent campaign for President could become derailed by bad weather. An ironic development if it occurred.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Mayor and State Reach Deal on a Schools Chief,” describes a political solution to the problem of who will be running New York City’s school system, though the substantive arrangements remain very much in doubt.

Mayor Bloomberg initially threw things into turmoil when he selected a new chancellor with no experience in public schools or even an advanced educational degree. His choice to replace the retiring chancellor, Joel Klein, was Cathleen Black, a media executive and successful CEO. But when the state educational commissioner, David Steiner, balked at confirming her by waiving the credentials normally required by state law, heated negotiations ensued.

The resolution involved creating a secondary post of chief academic officer and selecting Shael Polakow-Suransky, a former principal and official at the New York City Department of Education. Her duties are said to include oversight of the curriculum and testing, yet she still reports to Ms. Black and has no independent authority.

All this takes place against the backdrop of the devolution of authority over the schools to the Mayor in 2002, and Mr. Bloomberg was described as hating interference with his responsibilities. The Mayor also has emphasized transformation of the New York City school system as the one capstone to determine his success in office. And this also foreshadows a potential independent run for President by Mayor Bloomberg. So the stakes here are high, and with lawsuits still pending against the selection of Ms. Black, despite the recent compromise, they remain unresolved.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “New York Gains Economic Health Faster than U.S.,” provides an encouraging picture of the New York Metro region climbing out of recession even while the rest of the nation struggles.

The rebound of Wall Street and the financial sector seems to be driving a lot of the growth as well as a continuing infusion of new residents and a growth in tourism. The managerial sector is doing well, too, posting an 11 percent gain in median weekly pay compared to a 10.4 percent drop for other workers.

This statistic represents the heart of the dilemma facing the United States, today. Even though he was a flawed messenger, John Edwards was right in his campaign theme about two Americas. As the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow, we will eventually face an unstable, even violent, situation in the United States.

All major analysts agree — it is not the overall poverty of a nation that leads to instability. The poor in the United States would be widely considered rich in the rest of the world. It is relative deprivation in a country — the size of the gap between the rich and the poor — that is the most dangerous.

Hopefully, some of President Obama’s programs — the provision of health insurance to all, the new regulatory system to protect the public from credit card companies and financial predators, etc. — will start to ameliorate this issue.