Mayor de Blasio Waits (and Waits) for a New Mandate to Run New York’s Schools

Do not--I repeat, do not give any Mayor control of the schools. I started teaching in the Fall 2012. In my first year as newly minted NYC DOE teacher, I taught a special education self-contained class in District 4 (Spanish Harlem). My then class contained 8 students and 3-4 para professional. The ages of these students were 6 thru 8 years old, but were on a functional level of K thru 2nd grade. The then principal used her "so called mandated under Mayoral control" to force teachers to purchase supplies for students, give up their prep-time, etc. If we did not acquiesce to her request--particularly those teachers who were non-tenured, teachers were given unsatisfactory ratings and discontinued--like myself. Also, because the school was loosing space to charter schools, she retained students in order to stabilize or increase enrollment. Seeing first hand what Mayoral control has failed to achieve, I hope that it runs out.

It's time to let mayoral control of the schools lapse already. This was a disaster waiting to happen. Mayoral control rapidly became a tug of war over who gets to control the educational purse strings. Everyone reverts to type--conservative mayors will happily divert public school funds to Eva Moskowitz and liberal mayors at least try to be fair by making sure traditional public schools get their fair share of the pie. Besides mayors are not expected to be experts in education. It's time to consider electing a new Board of Education and return control to educators.

Instead of continuing the status quo, Republicans are demanding concessions, more money diverted to charter schools, from the city and from the mayor. The result of not extending mayoral control would be return to 40 local school boards, which were marked by administrative overload, croneyism, financial waste and unsound educational policies. This is political extortion.

This reflects so poorly on Mayor DeBlasio. He is willing to sacrifice mayoral control over the public schools to avoid agreeing to more charter schools, as there are thousands of African-American and Latino children on waiting lists to get into charter schools. The public schools are failing, fewer children are prepared for college, fewer children are reading on grade level, and the mayor seems not to care. New York City spends more money per child on its schools, and yet performance is lower than the average school system that spends way less money per child. Control of the public schools by the Board of Education is a recipe for failure, but it may be better than allowing DeBlasio to control the public schools. All because DeBlasio does not want to allow any more charter schools for African-American and Latino children.

There is broad consensus that the mayor should be the officeholder to run the school system. Albany is disregarding broad consensus, and the subject/topic of your comment is not relevant to that situation of public concern. New York City residents should not be distracted from the core matter at hand.

Mayor DeBlasio cares more about the support of the teachers union, then the public school students.

I have never understood why NYC's public schools are so controlled by Albany and our dysfunctional legislature. Does the State control Rochester's or Buffalo's schools like this? Or Ithaca? Or Cannandaigua? It's ridiculous that we are held hostage like this.

I agree that the lack of home rule for NYC is a big and continuing problem. As for Mayoral control of schools, I think that it is an example of a giant charade which keeps on being played. I agreed with Mike Bloomberg on many things, although I think that his emphasis on Mayoral control of schools was a gigantic delusion.
Community Boards were another bit of nonsense from the 60s that fell out of favor and which accomplished little other than spreading graft increasing political patronage. Likewise, having the Mayor control the schools has led to inflated budgets for various "consultants" and "experts" and emphasized bogus statistics such as increased graduation rates as evidence of "progress." But then again, when does a politician tell you that his programs have failed miserably?
Like it or not, no amount of social engineering so far has been able to alter the basic calculus of educational success, first and foremost of which is having a family that emphasizes and insists upon educational attainment and makes this an essential part of the child's life. Without this, schools are hogtied and the expectations put upon them and teachers are simply cynical political ploys and witchhunts for scapegoats.

How long must we in NYC continue to put up with these charades. Since the beginning of Greater NYC, NY State has exercised massive control over every aspect of our governance. Another sore area now is the miserable amount spent on public transportation infrastructure, controlled by the State, through its control of the MTA.

I even remember a couple of decades ago when we wanted to change the number of police in the 12 AM to 8AM shift and were held up by Albany until we "negotiated" a settlement.

Overwhelmingly, these settlements ultimately involve Upstate getting a greater share of State funds than we in NYC. We end up paying (I believe) about 70% of the State taxes and receiving 40% of the disbursements.

Since it seems ridiculous to the average citizen that such a byzantine governance scheme can be the reality, the Mayor and City Council usually get blamed for our underfunded resources, including our schools. Meanwhile our parasitic brethren in the rest of the State live off our taxes.

I despair of ever seeing it change. All the upstate Republicans have to do is buy off a few NYC "Democrats" to keep this going indefinitely.

A wistful hope that NYC becomes it's own State is about all I have left. And there is as much chance for that as there is that our politicians start treating us with equity and justice.

In other words, Never Happen!

NYC schools have gotten so much worse; more overcrowding, inept administrators, wasteful outside contracting, since mayoral control. The whole idea that the mayor knows anything about the schools is ludicrous.