The DOE’s Slow Hook

Institute school-wide academic fraud, and the city Department of Education will rush you out the door . . . two years after the scheme gets exposed. Is it any wonder so many city-run public schools are mired in mediocrity?

That’s right: The DOE finally pulled the “Maspeth Minimum” principal, Khurshid Abdul-Mutakabbir, over the summer — and is trying to fire him, though it still must pay him while that process drags out.

It was September 2019 when The Post broke the story of the rampant top-down fakery at the high school. Fed-up Maspeth teachers came to the paper, complaining of how administrators pressured them into passing failing students and giving out answers during Regent exams. Even no-show students graduated via phantom classes and credits. Students called the guaranteed graduation setup the “Maspeth Minimum .”

Slowly, so slowly, grind the wheels of . . . justice? . . . at the DOE. As of this February, the system’s investigators had still failed to interview key figures in the scandal.

A new acting principal started last week, but Assistant Principals Stefan Singh and Jesse Pachter — who teachers say were key to the fraud — remain on the job.

It’s déjà vu all over again. It also took years for the DOE to move on massive grade-fixing at Brooklyn’s John Dewey HS. Elaborate union protections, plus bureaucratic foot-dragging, drag out efforts to remove even outrageously bad administrators and teachers.

Too bad nothing protects the kids.