Education Officials Debate Mayoral Control of Schools

City education advocates and officials weighed the pros and cons of mayoral control of New York City public education and decried funding and organizational school reforms proposed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and schools Chancellor Joel Klein at last night's State of Education discussion.

The discussion, which was part of a Broadway Democrats meeting held in the synogogue Congregation Ramath Orah, on 110th Street, attracted about 50 parents and advocates. Speakers included Comptroller and former Board of Education president William Thompson, Noreen Connelll, executive director of the Educational Priorities Panel, and Tim Johnson, president of Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council.

Mayoral control of public education, which has been in place for about four years, has centralized accountability for problems within the system. Thompson explained that leaving district superintendents in control over the system, as they were before mayoral control was instituted, was problematic because it was confusing to him and to parents. "It was dysfunctional in concept and in execution," he said.

He said that, though he is an advocate of mayoral control of public education, there must be a better system of checks and balances.

Panelists noted that this year's proposals will make the third time in five years that Bloomberg and Klein will have reorganized education, and said that the results haven't been positive. "Parents are alienated more than I have ever seen before," Thompson said.

The DOE's current proposal change the way school funds are allocated, instituting a flat per pupil rate, with additional allocations for groups like English Language Learners and special education students. It would also dismantle the current regional system and transfer more authority back to districts and individual school principals, in exchange for increased oversight.

Thompson called the DOE's planned reorganization convoluted and opaque. "As we talk about another reorganization in September ... what is going to be done, they can't tell you that right now," he said.

He criticized Klein and Bloomberg for pushing a "change of funding formula that no one thinks is a good idea."

Connelll agreed. "They [Bloomberg and Klein] will be long gone 10 years from now, when this funding system is doing this damage," she said, accusing the mayor and chancellor of "leaving this time bomb ticking away."

Connell attributed the current state of education partly to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which emphasized standardized testing. She said that evaluating students by their test scores removes cultural aspects from the curriculum, and coerces teachers to teach to the test. "It's like someone once told me, weighing a cow does not feed a cow-you can test it to death ... it doesn't mean they have any deep understanding of learning," Connell said.

When Governor Eliot Spitzer recently added $1.76 billion to the state education budget, he laid out guidelines ensuring that the money would be spent on a few focused initiatives, including reducing classroom size.

The speakers discussed the mayor's and chancellor's objections to the imposed class size reductions, claiming that they want to encourage middle class parents to send their children to private school rather than public school. "Part of the fight against small classes is the desire to not have the school system be too popular among middle class parents," Connell said.

Connell and Thompson argued that principals have no background in management and that policymakers in City Hall have no pedagogical experience. "There are no educators left at Tweed court house," Thompson said, adding that if he were mayor, "I'd be looking for a new chancellor on the first day."