For two decades, New York City has been something of an anomaly: Unlike the school boards that reign over thousands of towns and cities, the nation’s largest public school system is ruled by the mayor.
But this year, the city’s method of running its schools is facing a unique and significant challenge that threatens to weaken the mayor’s power.
In June, Mayor Eric Adams’s control of city schools is up for renewal — and debate — by state lawmakers. And while the same cycle happens every few years, the Legislature now seems open to revisiting a school governing model that has become entrenched in New York and embraced by a handful of other big city districts.
Mayoral control brought major changes to New York City’s schools. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his schools chancellors, for instance, made unilateral decisions on issues that faced difficult political headwinds, including shutting down dozens of schools and opening hundreds of new ones, and cultivating the growth of charter schools, which now educate 15 percent of students.
Whether those changes improved the system overall has been vigorously debated. Graduation rates have jumped, for example, but they have also risen across the nation, pushed up by state-level changes. And many New York City students have struggled with college readiness.
In New York last year, hundreds of parents and teachers were galvanized by education cuts and lingering anger over past school closures. They have railed against the system this winter, calling for more checks on the mayor, or for an entirely new model. Democratic lawmakers seem open to listening to them, and the city’s influential teachers’ union has also become vocal in lobbying for changes.
The fight over who runs a sprawling school system of more than 900,000 children comes against the backdrop of a national rethinking of how urban American school districts should be operated. Some other large cities like Chicago have recently begun abandoning mayoral control.
It seems unlikely that New York will jettison the model completely. Last month, Gov. Kathy Hochul said she would support a four-year extension of the mayor’s authority. The families opposed to the mayoral control system have not coalesced around a single alternative plan.
Still, the coming months will offer a powerful test of the mayor’s influence in Albany. And as lawmakers consider who should run the schools in the longer term, the decisions made now could shape education policy in New York City at a critical period for the school system’s health.
“Our children’s future is at risk,” said Lorrianne Williams, a Brooklyn parent upset over budget cuts, in a comment at a recent public hearing that reflected the tenor of arguments against mayoral control.
The model gained favor in some major American cities during a peak era for education reform.
But after brief experiments in mayoral control that yielded unclear results, cities like Detroit and Oakland, Calif., left the system behind. This year, for the first time ever, Chicago residents will elect school board members, phasing out mayoral control after nearly three decades. In Boston, almost 80 percent of voters said on a recent ballot question that they supported moving to an elected school board.
Today, only a handful of midsize and large school districts remain under mayoral control.
“We’re in a moment where communities are gaining momentum on this effort to regain local control,” said Domingo Morel, who teaches public policy at New York University.
“People have seen enough,” he said. “And they’re demanding to have a greater say.”
Before mayoral control, New York’s system was run by a Board of Education and 32 elected local school boards. The model’s supporters hoped it could give communities more direct control, and make schools more responsive to parents and educators. The setup was created after a high-profile push from Black and Puerto Rican parents to have a greater voice in local education.
But the city’s school board system struggled with cases of corruption and patronage. A movement for mayoral control took off in the early 2000s among educators and politicians around the country who believed student achievement would improve with more teacher accountability and competition among schools.
They also argued that the approach could give voters more say over schools, and allow them to hold city leaders accountable for improving academic outcomes.
The State Education Department is preparing a study for lawmakers on the effectiveness of different models in New York and other cities, aiming to look beyond individual chancellors or city leaders.
Still, Mayor Adams and his record — including unpopular school mergers and relocations, and cuts to prekindergarten programs — have become central to the public debate.
Mayors Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio both faced pushback over their control of the school system. Still, as a new mayor, Mr. Adams was given a shorter extension of control two years ago than he had asked for — and it came with significant strings attached. He has also received the lowest approval rating of any New York mayor in a quarter century.
“It’s hard to separate mayoral control as a governance question from Eric Adams — or whoever the current mayor is,” said Jeffrey Henig, a professor at Teachers College who has written about the city’s model.
This time, Mayor Adams is trying to make a more forceful argument that he should retain control. He has touted the schools chancellor’s efforts to improve reading in elementary schools, for example, and argued that his administration, which is entering its third year, needs more time to make changes.
Amaris Cockfield, a mayoral spokeswoman, said that “we cannot allow our school system to go backwards to the days of low test scores, inequity and corruption.”
Mr. Adams has also tried to cajole some supporters to help him make his case. At a recent gala of real estate leaders, several news outlets reported that the mayor confronted the crowd: “Why am I still fighting for school governance?” he said. “I have not seen one comment from you.”
In New York City, the mayor exerts control over the school system largely by selecting the chancellor. The mayor also chooses a majority of the members of the city’s Panel for Education Policy, which votes on major policies and contracts.
State Senator John Liu, who chairs the New York City Education Committee, said he did not “envision reverting back to the previous system.”
But teachers’ union leaders have argued that the mayor should no longer be able to appoint a majority of the panel, a potentially major shake-up. Several experts suggested that the City Council, which has been more willing to confront the mayor than past administrations, should be given more power to oversee decisions like the hiring of the schools chancellor.
The current chancellor, David C. Banks, has argued that the current model is particularly helpful during crises like the coronavirus pandemic, and allows for quick decision making. Still, he has acknowledged it might have shortcomings.
“The mayoral accountability system is not perfect,” Mr. Banks said. “There is no perfect system.”
Source link
