Diane Ravitch
The Independence School (P.S. 234) in Manhattan’s Financial District held a panel discussion last Thursday with education historian Diane Ravitch and democratic speaker of the Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. They gathered to consider concerns about the current mayoral control of schools, which has been described as the “marquee attraction” in Albany this session.
Organizations such as Class Size Matters and the Independent Parent Commission on School Governance have crafted alternative recommendations to the current school governance system, which will expire in June.
“We want to have an open and transparent system. There are a lot of loopholes in the law that this administration has been clever to exploit in its own means,” Tamara Rowe, president of District 2 President’s Council, said. Rowe is also a member of the Independent Parent Commission on School Governance.
The recommendations continue the mantra for a checks and balances system governing the city’s education laws so that parents and community members can play an active role in creating and maintaining school policies.
The commission’s recommendation will hopefully be reviewed by the mayor and the chancellor prior to legislation in June, she added.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg took control of the city’s public schools in 2002, when the Department of Education (DOE) replaced the bureaucratic Board of Education. According to the community, officials that do not incorporate parental concerns into the decision-making process have since governed the school and the administration seeks to redress these grievances.
Prior to 2002, the mayor chose members of the board, who then selected the superintendent of schools, typically a professional educator, who monitored school progress and made substantive decisions about school law.
Many officials that now hold the city’s educational reins lack background or expertise in education. Only 2 out of roughly 20 senior advisors appointed by chancellor Klein’s are authorities in education, Leonie Hamlin, executive director of Class Size Matters (a nonprofit organization) said. Klein himself was an attorney in his former life.
Ravitch maintains that the city’s school system should be run by an independent board (whose elected members would serve for a fixed term) to review and improve the schools’ policies and annual budget.
Under this structure, parents, students, teachers and education officials would all chip in to make decisions that are “more grounded on actual knowledge and experience rather than political sound bites,” Hamlin said.
According to Hamlin, this system would create a more democratic system. “It’s the way we do things in this country. Having to vote for the mayor every four years is not a check or balance, nor does it provide adequate accountability,” she said.
Class sizes have risen in all levels except fourth and sixth grades, the largest overall increase in the last 10 years, during the 2008/2009 academic school year. And while the education department faults the troublesome economy and school principals for not spending their annual fiscal sums wisely, Hamlin blamed the department.
On behalf of the community, Hamlin proposed a new governance model for the department of education by which the board would consist of 15 members, each with fixed terms, six of whom would be parents directed by the members of the Community Education Council (CEC), a parental advisory board that the mayor would collaborate with in forging new education laws.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has proposed a revision to education law that would enjoin the DOE to keep the CEC in the know about its decisions and strengthening the board’s role in education policy.
“We must provide a mechanism that allows parents to learn of the policies that are being developed, from testing policy to school construction, and give them an opportunity to comment upon them, even in an advisory capacity,” Stringer said.
But Michael Markowitz, vice president of CEC for District 2, said that, even if the modified law is passed, CEC members would still not be given the chance to participate greatly in the decision-making process.
“They can stick their heads in the sand and not listen to anyone’s decisions or ideas,” he said. “The chancellor and mayor will keep thinking, ‘We were appointed dictators of the system, and dictators we will be.’”
