(From The New York Times, June 15, 2009)
By ELISSA GOOTMAN
The New York State Assembly is expected to approve a bill extending mayoral control of the New York City public school system as soon as Wednesday, lawmakers said Sunday night.
The bill, which the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, introduced late Sunday, would add some checks on the mayor’s power, by increasing oversight of certain contracts and requiring hearings before individual schools are closed. But it is widely seen as a victory for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who had vigorously fought other curbs on the powers he enjoys under the current mayoral control law, which was passed in 2002 and expires June 30.
The extension must still be approved by the governor and the State Senate, which is currently mired in chaos, with uncertainty over which party has control. Nonetheless, critics and supporters of mayoral control are looking at Mr. Silver’s bill as a significant step toward cementing the policy.
“It’s going to carry a lot of momentum,” said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, a group that supports Mr. Silver’s bill. “The Senate could go in a direction that does call for more parental input, but ultimately I don’t think they could pull the Assembly very far from where the speaker is.”
The debate in Albany over whether to renew the landmark law giving New York City’s mayor control of its public school system, which serves 1.1 million children and is the nation’s largest, is being watched closely by politicians, educators, policymakers and parents throughout the country. The notion that urban school systems will improve only if their mayors are fully in charge, and fully accountable, has gained momentum in recent years, garnering support from the Obama administration.
The federal education secretary, Arne Duncan, even weighed in on the debate in New York, sending a government watchdog group a letter last week urging it not to advocate for a tweak to the law that would dilute the mayor’s power by setting fixed terms for his appointees to an oversight panel.
“I have real concerns that what seem like minor tweaks to the decision-making structure could turn back the clock and halt progress, with profoundly negative consequences for New York City’s students,” Mr. Duncan wrote to Dick Dadey, executive director of the Citizens Union, in a letter whose existence was reported by the Web site GothamSchools.org.
Mr. Silver’s plan would not set fixed terms for members of the oversight body, the Panel for Educational Policy, as Mr. Bloomberg’s critics had sought. The mayor would continue to appoint 8 out of 13 members and be able to remove them at his pleasure — as Mr. Bloomberg did in 2004, when some appointees planned to vote against a promotion policy.
In a few slight changes, Mr. Silver’s bill requires that at least two mayoral appointees be public school parents and holds that the schools chancellor no longer serves as chairman or sets the panel’s agenda.
The bill also seeks to strengthen the role of the city’s community district superintendents, who are all but powerless in the current structure, by mandating that they spend a predominant amount of time in their geographical districts. And it includes a number of measures aimed at increasing transparency: The panel would have to approve no-bid contracts and those that exceed $1 million, and the city comptroller and Independent Budget Office would be able to conduct audits of Education Department finances and data, including test scores.
The bill would also require the department to hold public hearings before closing individual schools.
Mr. Silver’s bill is likely to upset the parents who had lobbied for greater limits on the mayor’s power and more say for parents in policymaking decisions.
As the debate unfolded in recent months, it became clear that some lawmakers were dissatisfied with the way Mr. Bloomberg and his hand-picked schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, wielded their power. In particular, lawmakers complained that the mayor and chancellor shut parents out of policy decisions.
Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, a parent advocacy group, had pushed for additional changes, like giving the city’s locally elected Community Education Councils authority over school closings and openings within their boundaries. “It’s not right for any level of government, and it’s certainly not right when it comes to our schools, to have one man making decisions on everything,” she said.
But Micah Z. Kellner, a Democratic assemblyman from the Upper East Side who is among the bill’s sponsors, said the legislation incorporated a number of “terrific compromises,” and “significant changes” to the way the Education Department, based at the Tweed Courthouse, functions.
“What it’s allowed for is for there to be checks and balances and openness and accountability,” he said.
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