I so wish I had been in Albany, NY yesterday to join The Campaign for Better Schools, a coalition of 25 community groups, in their rallying cry. They stood outside the Capitol while state legislators reviewed the 2002 law granting Mayor Bloomberg complete control over New York City Schools.

I’ve been following this story with increasing interest lately (incidentally, so has the New York Times – see here,  here, and today’s story here), because the law expires on June 30th and legislators have a lot of work ahead of them to figure out what changes to make to what can only be described as an affront to democracy, and a big mistake.

The first problem with the law is the unilateral decision making power it gives the mayor. When control over city schools was first handed over in 2002, it was agreed that a Panel For Educational Policy would be created to check and balance the mayor’s power. But while this panel was supposed to play a significant role in deciding education policy and approving major contracts, it ended up rubber stamping all of the mayor’s decisions. Not surprising, since Mayor Bloomberg appointed 8 of the panel’s 13 seats and could dismiss any one at any time. (Case in point: In what has since been dubbed the Monday Night Massacre, when the mayor’s plan to hold back third graders who failed standardized tests was on the Panel’s voting agenda during a meeting in 2004, three dissenting members were forced to resign prior to the meeting.)

In addition to calling for a reigning in of the mayor’s power, The Campaign for Better Schools also advocates for greater transparency in the Department of Education’s budget, as well as for increased public participation by parents, youth and community in school governance. During yesterday’s rally they focused on the current administration’s failures, such as the astounding percentage of ninth graders in NYC who graduate without a Regents diploma (38% of white students, 68% of African American students, 70% of Hispanic students, and 95% of students with disabilities).

The Legislature has several options: It can renew mayoral control exactly as it is; keep some parts of the law but change others; let the law expire and revert to the old system (putting power in the hands of community school boards overseen by a central school board); or extend the law for one year until a new mayor is elected and revisit the issue then. Given the reaction by the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday when School Chancellor Joel I. Klein appeared before them (the committee members really put him in the hot-seat listing complaints about the present system, voicing skepticism of Klein’s list of the administration’s supposed accomplishments, and urging Klein to present a viable alternative to the current law), it seems unlikely that the law will continue as is, or that it will just be allowed to die and the old system (which was by all accounts chaotic and suffered from paralysis) reborn. My guess is that the Legislature will seek to amend the law either in the immediate future or one year from now. Hopefully, they choose to do so sooner rather than later. It’s time to wrench the power over our public schools way from the hands of a single man.

“Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho — One-Man Rule Has Got To Go!”

(Photo: jimbowen0306’s flickr photostream/ Creative Commons)