Mayoral control of our schools, part 2Who should control our schools?
by Josh Karan My column last week outlined why the issue of “Who Controls Our Schools” is important and surveyed objections to continuation of dictatorial Mayoral Control of our schools after the law authorizing such control expires this June. Challenging the Department of Education (DOE) view that Mayoral Control has produced dramatic improvement in outcomes for students, many agree that substantial restrictions need to be put on the unchecked power of the Mayor to make all decisions regarding the schools, and to suggest what other voices should share this decision making power. The Public Advocate, Mayoral Candidate and City Comptroller Bill Thompson, the City Council, United Federation of Teachers (UFT), and parent groupings have put forth varying proposals which they want the state legislature to adopt instead of the current system. Four categories of powers are addressed by these proposals, which share much agreement on the first two categories, and significantly disagree on the last two. 1) Transparency and Independent Accountability – agreement that DOE assertions regarding improving test scores and graduation rates have not been independently verified and may have been inflated; call for independent agencies to have access to the data and to have official standing to audit claims 2) Restoration of Local Power to direct educational policy agreement on: A. Role of District Superintendent – District superintendents, who now spend most of their time outside of their district, be returned as the real supervisor and educational leader of district principals; neither the appointment of principals nor their supervision are presently accountable to local communities. B. Provision of Services – restoration of district offices with the staff to provide parents with local support services that they presently have to travel to a distant borough wide office to receive. C. Right of communities to determine where and whether schools open or close – the DOE has been especially authoritarian with its policies to open new programs or schools in buildings without consent of the affected communities (which in District 6 has led to demonstrations outside PS 128, PS 153, and PS 173), or to close schools which communities may believe could succeed if given better support 3) Appointment of the Chancellor and central Board of Education – on this issue, all agree that the Mayor should not have complete power. Beyond that there is significant disagreement on who should have such power; – Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum supports continuing giving the mayor a majority of appointees to the Board but having the chancellor picked by the board, not directly by the mayor; – City Comptroller Bill Thompson (a former chair of the Board of Education in the 1990’s, prior to mayoral control) supports maintaining the power of the mayor to choose all board members, but only from a group of nominees selected by a pre-screening panel to which the mayor only appoints 5 of 19 members. Five others of the screening panel would be appointed by borough presidents, four by parent representatives, and the others by education unions, business groups, and the state education commissioner. – The United Federation of Teachers seeks to remove the mayor’s power to appoint a majority of the board of education; the mayor gets five appointees, other city officials eight. – The City Council is split between competing proposals which leave the mayor with a majority, and those which do not, each would expand the role of the council. – Parent Groups A) Campaign for Better Schools (CBS) – a “diverse coalition of more than two dozen parent, youth, community based and education advocacy organizations”, amongst which are Alliance for Quality Education (AQE), Acorn, NY Immigration Coalition, Advocates for Children, and Make The Road By Walking; supports giving a narrow majority of appointees to other, unspecified, city officials, with the mayor having a narrow minority. The most different and most empowering of parents and communities is: B) Parent Commission on School Governance – comprised of parent leaders from Community Education Councils and parent associations; These groups propose an independent parent-dominated Board of Education with 6 parent selected representatives comprising the majority, only three mayoral appointees, and the Public Advocate and City Council each having one appointee; the only group to address concern about the areas of expertise held by these board members, setting aside four seats for members who will have specific knowledge of policy regarding english language learners, special education, and high schools. 4) Increasing “Parental Input” – Most groups agree that parent role in School Leadership Teams (SLT’s) should be strengthened in regard to the selection of principals, while Community Education Councils should be strengthened to give them control over the opening, placement, and/or closing of schools or programs, and in regard to the selection of the District Superintendent. Here especially, in an integrated series of steps the Parent Commission has more specific proposals which are designed to give parents a share of power, not just “input.” CECs together with president’s councils are to be the screening panel for selection of Superintendents; Parent reps serve on the Board of Education; an independent Parent Organization, funded with specifically designated public funds, and under the control of parents, will be responsible for training and development of parent leaders at every level from local to the central Board, instead of relying on the DOE to do so. The Parent Commission believes that only with such independence can the local governing councils and the central Board emerge from the political dealings which a powerful mayor, with control over the patronage budget, uses to control even the appointees of other city officials, who often thereby become dependent on mayoral funding of their neighborhood projects. It believes, that adequately trained parents must provide the linchpin to providing policies which reflect their concerns. More than governance: A Constitution for New York City Schools As the analyses presented in the preceding segments indicates, structure does matter, both in its correspondence with democratic procedures, and with regard to potential outcomes. But while necessary, it is not sufficient. Over many years there have been centralized and decentralized systems, but outcomes for the majority of students, who are low income children of color, have remained the same, with barely 50- percent at best graduating, and many of those who do graduate having diplomas which do not correlate with the skills needed for employment or citizenship. The re-examination at this time of school governance, provides the opportunity to create a more democratic system, emphasizing some of the important goals and mechanisms of the historic community control movements of the 1960’s in Harlem and Ocean Hill – Brownsville, Brooklyn, where communities of color took the lead in demanding change. But this re-examination should also allow for enshrinement of a mission statement or principles for this system which will mandate goals and core policies regardless of what structure exists, or who the mayor or Board of Education may be. These principles are to coalesce into a Constitution for the New York City public school system to guarantee that all students receive: the facilities (art, music, science, library, physical education rooms), staffing (to create small class size), and guidance supports for obtaining a truly integrated education from pre-school on, that brings together students from all backgrounds, and associates schools with community based agencies to provide comprehensive health and recreation. I am a member of the Parent Commission, and this is our final recommendation – that in addition to adopting our governance proposals instead of renewing mayoral control, there be the establishment of a citywide commission/ task force, comprised of parents, educators, and advocacy organizations, to draft such a framework of values and policies for our schools. A sample constitution, along with the other recommendations, is available at www.parentcommission.org (the recommendations of the other groups are also available on line, and can be goggled under their respective organization title). Having such a constitution could provide the permanent underpinning for ensuring that all our students finally receive “educational excellence,” which is both their due, and essential for our society to progress. Without addressing this larger mission of our education system, we are likely in another few years to be having the same discussion about only governance structure without substantial improvement in the education provided to our students. The debate during the next two months will determine the future of our schools, which is vital to the quality of our city. We, and other communities, must tell our local legislators how we want them to help craft a New York City school system that provides true educational excellence for all. Josh Karan is a member District 6 Community Education Council
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