Forum asks: What should replace mayoral control? by Kristen Bonardi Rapp In the face of a sparse but seemingly hostile crowd at P.S. 128 on W. 169th Street and Broadway, Department of Education spokesperson Eric Nadelstern said he believes New York City schools are getting better with the mayor at the helm. The April 3 forum was called by the District 6 Community Education Council to weigh the results of the seven years that have passed since the state legislature put control of the schools into the mayor’s hands. That law will expire in June and what will replace it is up for debate. The DOE’s lack of communication with parents who feel like they have no say in the decision-making process are recurring issues that opponents say are a direct result of mayoral control. Two weeks prior, on March 20, a day blanketed in sun but frigid, students, parents and teachers rallied at this school against a unilateral decision by the DOE. That decision was to place an Alternative Learning Center for suspended students across the street from the elementary school. Parents have also recently protested DOE decisions at P.S. 173, P.S. 153 and Mott Hall School (see sidebar). But at the forum, with rain pouring down outside, public attendance was low – only about a dozen parents turned out. In his 20-minute presentation, Nadelstern, a 40-year veteran of city schools as a teacher and principal before taking a job as the chief schools officer, cited graduation rates as a sign of success. Test scores and graduation rates were up in District 6, with a graduation rate of 74.4 percent in 2007, above the city average of 62 percent. But opponents, such as Arlen Benjamin-Gomez, a spokesperson for Advocates for Children of New York, said that few of those graduates are native speakers of English and called the graduation rate for Spanish speaking students “dismal.” The graduation rate for this group is only 52 percent, a rate that has dropped since the beginning of mayoral control. Benjamin-Gomez blamed schools’ “hostile environment” toward immigrant parents, citing a lack of available interpreters to aid parents in communicating with teachers and administrators, and the need for identification to enter DOE buildings. “Immigrant parents are shut out of schools,” she said. Sarah Morgridge, a spokesperson for City Council Member Robert Jackson who chairs the Council’s education committee, read the Council’s stance on mayoral control – redistribute the number of seats the mayor gets to appoint to the city school board. In all, six different organizations presented what the night’s agenda listed as “alternative perspectives on the outcomes of mayoral control.” The topics covered included testing, special education students, class size, and civil liberties in schools. The organizations all voiced their unhappiness with the results of mayoral control and some offered suggestions about how to change it. Nadelstern spent the night defending faults in the current system. “The failures of the New York City public schools took decades to create,” he said. “No matter what system of government we have in place, we’re obviously not going to be able to solve them all in a few short years.” SIDEBAR: Recent protests against DOE decisions: Feb. 6: P.S. 173 – Parents rally against a decision to put 300 failing eighth graders in their elementary school. March 20: P.S. 128 – Protesters reject an Alternative Learning Center planned across the street. March 25: P.S. 153 – DOE meets protesters at a meeting to discuss moving two 4th and two 5th grade classes from Hamilton Academy. April 1: Mott Hall School – Parents protest the removal of a gifted and talented class.
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