The Legislature is preparing to renew and extend mayoral control of the New York City public schools. Before it does so, it should consider some important and necessary changes.
I have studied the governance of the New York City Public Schools for many years. My first book, published in 1974, was a history of the city’s schools. (The Great School Wars.)
I support mayoral appointment of board members with checks and balances. At present, there are no checks or balances, and no meaningful role whatever for parents and communities.
For most of the 20th century, the mayor appointed the board members. The board selected the Superintendent of Schools, who reported to the board. To prevent the Mayor from filling the board with cronies, the candidates for the central board were vetted by a screening committee comprised of leaders from recognized civic groups. The Mayor made sure to have a balance of appointees from different boroughs who reflected the people of the city.
Every district had a functioning local board to respond to parent concerns. The local boards were representative of their districts and were usually appointed by the Central Board after consultation with local leaders.
Today, the New York City Board of Education lacks any checks or balances. It has been reduced to a city agency, completely subservient to the will of the Mayor. The Mayor, not the central board, selects the “chancellor.” The chancellor serves at the pleasure of the Mayor, not the central board. The central board does whatever the Mayor tells them to do. He can fire them if they don’t follow his orders. Local school councils are powerless and ignored.
As the Legislature reviews the renewal of mayoral control, I hope it will restore checks and balances.
The so-called “panel on educational policy,” which doesn’t even exist as such in the law, should be restored as the Board of Education of the City of New York. Its members should be selected by the Mayor from a list of people reviewed by an independent panel of civic leaders.
The Board, not the Mayor, should appoint the Superintendent of Schools, who should be an educator, not a business person. The Superintendent should serve at the pleasure of the Board, not the Mayor.
Public policy over the schools should be reviewed and vetted in public, not behind closed doors in City Hall.
The Mayor should retain his control of the overall budget, which is vast power, but the details should be left to the Board and the Superintendent.
Local boards in every district should be appointed by local leaders, with the approval of the Central Board. Elections of local boards have been tried but failed to garner a decent turnout and are easily captured by politicians and special interests
There is no perfect way to organize a system that enrolls over one million children. Every organization has faults. But the least perfect way is to turn the school system over to the Mayor, with zero checks or balances, and no input whatever from parents or communities. The Mayor should not be a dictator of education policy, free to do whatever pleases him.
Autocracy is wrong. The Mayor is not an educational expert. It is his or her responsibility to make sure that the members of the board are people of great integrity and that the budget is adequate to the needs of the children.
But the Board should not be his solely owned property, to do with as he wishes. The Board should choose its executive and that executive should answer to the Board, not the Mayor.
Yes, renew Mayoral Control, but renew Democracy too.
Diane Ravitch
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Checks and balances in government are essential to avoid cronyism. After I received tenure in New York, I also got furloughed in my district. I looked for another job. I interviewed for another job in the Bronx, and I remember interviewing with the community school board there in addition to administrators. They offered me a position, which I was ready to take, but then another position opened up in my original district so I decided to return there. “Excessing” was a common issue in New York in those days unlike the shortages many districts experience today.
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I do not believe there is anything better than direct election of school boards by the citizens being served. Anything else is essentially a form of disenfranchisement.Perhaps the most fundamental right–the right to vote for what directly affects their families.
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“There is no perfect way to organize a system that enrolls over one million children.”
There is no perfect way to organize systems of 10,000 or 1,000 children, either, but somehow 99.9% of the school districts in America have settled on the same one: a directly democratically elected school board with full appointment powers. New York City and the tiny number of other districts using a retrograde, corruption-prone, and anti-democratic form of school governance deserve nothing less than the same.
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I am in favor of a democratically elected board, Tim.
If the billionaires dont buy the election, such a board would close down every charter.
I fear, however, that Eva’s board will buy every seat on an elected board.
No one can Match their money.
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Los Angeles has an elected school, millions of dollars pumped into the school board election electing a pro-charter school board, plus, in LA the mayor has no role in schools whatsoever.. Diane’s Plan is reasonable with a caveat, the mayor and the city council provide the funding: how do you find a meaningful role for the electeds without “politicizing” the system?
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in our city SO much Big Money gets pumped into school board races so that the most “caring” glossy flyers, ads and billboards show carefully selected pro-reform candidates as amazingly school-protective options for voters; this tactic has worked especially well in the inner city school district
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I blogged about the same issue: the debate will grow and grow
https://wordpress.com/post/mets2006.wordpress.com/10303
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I agree with Joe Prichard. I suggest New York’s school system be broken into 20 districts governed by elected boards made up of citizens living in the district. That would allow people to be directly involved with the governance of their schools. When districts have 100,000’s of thousands of students, the average parent has little input or opportunity to effect policy. The city could assume the roll of support services and budget reviewing – similar to the roll of county education departments in California. The more sunlight the more honest, the more democratic the more American.
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From 1970 until 2002 NYC had elected school boards with authority over budget allocations, personnel and curriculum; in the poorest districts with lower turnout the local electeds controlled the elections: patronage and corruption ruled, see my blog referenced above
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In the past, there have been 32 districts in NYC.
Under the Bloomberg choice policy, most kidsdontgo to school in their own district. Most people don’t know what district they live in. Most people don’t have school children (1 million students, more than 8 million residents). Very low turnout for local school board elections in the past. No media coverage. Either political clubs or union states win. No money for grassroots candidates.
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This is such a difficult issue. It’s terrible to see how direct elections of school board members in Los Angeles led to the most expensive school board election in history, over 11 million dollars, with the majority coming from outside billionaires. It is near impossible to compete when a few billionaires will bankroll the campaign of candidates who will do their bidding, and their pockets aren’t just deep, but basically without limit.
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