Hydra on the "Partnership for Achievement"
Check out BOE Commissioner Hydra Mendoza's post on Gavin Newsom's Act Locally SF blog: Education Policy in America; Education Policy in San Francisco
n recent years, many models for improving our education system have emerged from around the country. Chicago, Boston and New York City went to full mayoral control of their school systems while Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has fought for increased influence over the schools in his city.
Every city has to choose what works best for them. Gavin Newsom and reformers like myself have chosen a different path. By blurring the lines between city government and our school district, we hope to form a collaboration to improve San Francisco’s school district.
Labels: SFUSD Politics
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PLEASE FORWARD:
Carmen Colon, 718-715-5518, ccolon.bklyn-at-gmail-dot-com
co-founder of ANYCEC the Association of New York City Education Councils
http://justlikedat.com/ANYCEC/index.html to download more testimonies, from Borough Presidents, City Council members, educators, advocates, parent leaders, et al.
(Dr.Sam Anderson of icope.org's listserve: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ICOPE)the Independent Commission on Public Education: --------------
March 4, 2008
After 5 Years, City Council Holds First Hearing on Mayor’s Control of Public Schools
By JENNIFER MEDINA
Since taking control of New York City’s 1,400 public schools, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has steadfastly maintained that centralized, mayoral oversight is critical to turning around the vast system. But that view came under sharp attack on Monday as the City Council held the first public hearing on the state law authorizing mayoral control.
During three hours of testimony that was at times tense, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein and Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott adamantly defended the system, saying that since Mr. Bloomberg took charge more than five years ago, city schools have dramatically improved in matters like test scores, graduation rates, communication with parents and spending.
Mr. Klein said that improved management within the city’s Department of Education had led to greater accountability and had turned the city into a model for other urban systems seeking to eliminate turmoil from supervision by local school boards.
“In the absence of mayoral control, we’ve never been able to sustain continuity in the Department of Education,” said Mr. Klein, who is the longest serving chancellor in recent memory. “The fundamental governance structure of mayoral accountability and control, I think, is right and needs to be maintained.”
But several council members were skeptical.
“Parents have more information than ever before, but parents don’t have input into policy making, and that is something that many parents have come in very concerned about,” said James Vacca, a co-chairman of the Council’s task force on school governance. “We’re concerned about whether there is any place for meaningful oversight.”
Like other groups throughout the city, including the teachers’ union, the Public Advocate’s office and several universities, the Council is holding a series of hearings this year to draw up recommendations for the State Legislature as it considers whether to renew the law granting mayoral control, which expires in 2009.
Mr. Vacca and other council members suggested that they supported changing the law to grant “municipal control” over the schools, apparently a way to give the Council more power over the education department. He also said he would urge a more formal role for neighborhood superintendents, who have little power over the schools now, and for the Community Education Councils, which are organizations of parents and local leaders that also have little sway over policy.
Several council members called the Panel for Educational Policy, which replaced the Board of Education, nothing more than a “rubber stamp” that had no ability to influence the chancellor’s decisions.
But throughout their testimony, Mr. Walcott and Mr. Klein resisted suggestions that would potentially weaken the mayor’s power over the system, with Mr. Walcott going so far as saying that the current structure is “the best system that has existed in the last 35 years.”
“What we have today should not be undone,” Mr. Walcott said in his opening remarks. “It would be an injustice to our children. Accountability needs to rest with someone, and it should be the mayor, whoever that individual is.”
Still, Mr. Walcott and Mr. Klein acknowledged shortcomings, particularly in terms of community outreach. While the department had spent millions to hire parent coordinators in each of the city’s schools, Mr. Klein said he had waited too long to create the post of a “chief family engagement officer” to oversee the coordinators and work with parent councils around the city.
In testimony, several members of the parent councils criticized some of the administration policies — on class size, testing and promotion, for example — saying that the chancellor had not done enough to consider their opinions.
The Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, who voted in favor of mayoral control as an assemblyman in 2002, said the Bloomberg administration had exerted more control than the Legislature intended to give it.
“We thought they would be part of the life and breath of the city, but they think they don’t have to respond to questions,” Mr. Stringer said. Referring to the name of the education department’s building, he added, “They’ve gotten caught up in the Boss Tweed mentality.”
The harshest criticism came from Councilman John C. Liu, who suggested that several of the mayor’s education-policy changes had been politically motivated.
“Mayoral control was not meant to be martial law,” Mr. Liu said.
The words provoked a terse response from Mr. Walcott, who said that policy changes were not politically motivated and added, “I totally disagree with you.”
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Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
"a model for other urban systems seeking to eliminate turmoil from supervision by local school boards."
Like when teachers were allowed to teach?
any others? We should make a list to present to the council
--
Joseph Mugivan
Teacher/Advocate for School
Indoor Air Quality
231 Manorhaven Blvd
Port Washington, N.Y. 11050
516 883 2981
516 423 6600
j.mugivan@att.net
JOSH KARAN STATEMENT ON NYC SCHOOL GOVERNANCE
joshkaran2@mac.com
917-923-2584
My name is Josh Karan. I have been an activist on issues of public education for 30 years. I am presently a Manhattan Borough President appointee to CEC 6. My testimony is informed by my experience as a CEC member, though I speak today neither for the Borough President, nor for CEC 6. I can echo many of the criticisms that others have & will voice but I will not repeat a recitation of them. Instead I offer some thoughts about how to move forward & then wish to place this investigation in a larger context. 1) Role of localties - The sphere of schooling involves a different kind of engagement than with other city agengies. It concerns hundreds of thousands of minors who, with their families, are in daily interaction with the school. Moreover, there is substantive research which shows that parent involvement in schooling improves outcomes for students. So there should be a role for localities, because authoritarian central control has been demobilizing -- most CEC's, SLT's, and PA's don't function, since people believe either that you can't fight City Hall, or that it takes too much effort That role should include A. A real locally based Superintendent whom, as an administrator is to inform & involve their locality B. A Superintendent, who as educational leader, has power to choose principals, so that communities have someone directly accountable. C. A Local Governing Body, call it CEC or school board, with power to choose the Superintendent, subject to veto by Chancellor, and override by Board of Education, What might be new in my suggestions is that if there is disagreement between the Chancellor & a local governing body on that selection, this matter must go to the Board of Education which must set up an investigation, thereby making the Board of Education more than just a rubber stamp D. Real elections for local governing boards, with matching public funds for campaigns to those who have demonstrated a threshold of support E. Elections in which Candidates should not be limited to parents --- such limitation eliminates the accumulated knowledge over decades of locally based activists. Unless one has multiple children in the system, ones' service ends just as one begins to master the issues of education & the way this system works
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2) Citywide governance -- the local governing boards should interact with a central administration which initiates and implements policy. Whether the Chancellor is chosen by the Mayor or a Board of Education: A) The Board of Education need its own staff which can conduct investigations, not solely dependent on information from the Mayor's Department of Education Some additional, perhaps new, thoughts B) Locally generated initiatives -- analoguous to the mechanism known in some states as initiatives there must be provision for a community driven consensus: For example, if a majority, or perhaps 2/3, of local school governing bodies, whether CEC's or school boards, formally concur on a policy resolution, either of their own origination, or in opposition to a policy of the central administration, such resolution should automatically become an agenda item of the Board of Education/Panel For Education Policy, rather than face the possibility of it being squelched by the central administration C) Independent Parent/Community Involvement Agency Similarly there must be an independent body devoted to training & mobilizing parents & communities for such involvement. Here too an analogy can be helpful -- that of a union dues check off. There should be an independent organization, akin to what United Parents Associations, once was, with a funding stream guaranteed by perhaps $ 4 per child, so that organizers can be made available to every community to work with PA's, SLT's, and communities in leadership development. The executive leadership of this board might be elected by the CEC's/SLT/'s and PA/s. This independent organization should be charged with generating turnout in elections for local governing bodies, to make those bodies representative. More Important than my specific proposals above, however I want to expand this discussion 3) Expanding the discussion: Structure in the context of goals I have indicated that structures can matter. But the purpose of structures is to accomplish stated goals, and it is these goals which need revisiting & restating. Concentration on structure alone will have the same outcome as I have witnessed for most of the last 40 years, in which there has been central control, community control, decentralization with empowered school boards, limited power school boards, and recentralization. Chancellors have been educators, and not: yet through it all there has been little change in outcomes for the majority of students in New York City. Graduation rates, language and scientific literacy skills, preparation for democratic citizenry ---
by each measure this system has failed most students for generations.
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This period of revisiting issues of school governance provides an opportunity which will not come again soon to expand this discussion. If this discussion on school governance is to have meaning for the 50% or more who are ill-served by this system, any modification of structures must create a system which articulates and is held to a commitment to provide educational excellence for all. Some of these goals are provided in the principals articulated by the Campaign For Fiscal Equity, A colleague has called it a "sound basic education index" for all schools. whereby any legislation regarding school governance be placed in the context of requiring that system to provide A) Trained teachers, administrators, and support staff -- including the salaries necessary to attract and retain them B) Appropriate class size -- established by the consensus of educators as to what produces the best results C) Adequate facilities and equipment for a comprehensive curricula -- including science labs, art/music/dance/drama rooms, physical activity spaces D) Adequate counseling staff And
To address an educational issue which has almost disappeared from the agenda E) Racially, ethnically, & income integrated schools --- If part of any proposal on governance pertains to returning some powers to districts or localities, then a critical component is how to define this locality. We have the blessing of living in perhaps the most diverse city on earth, with the wonderful possibility of educating our children to participate in and value this diversity. If the goal of promoting diverse, integrated schools, is important, then the existing districts should not be considered sacrosanct, as they too often reinforce segregated housing patterns. These goals must be explicitly stated, along with a requirement that they be fulfilled. Only then there will be a basis for measuring progress toward these goals, no matter what the specific details of the structure. I hope that the committee will thus expand upon this discussion, presently narrowly focused on revisiting Mayoral control, to proposals in which structure may play a role, but only in the larger context. That will require a systematic linking of any proposals regarding governance with an articulation of, and mechanisms of accountability to ensure, the goal of educational excellence for all, Lastly, I suggest that today's hearing represent the start of a process rather than the end. You will have heard many opinions from people who are just starting to grapple with the complex issues involved here. I believe these need to be assimilated & then re-discussed. I propose that a report be issued by this committee within the next few months, and that this then be widely disseminated so that people have something concrete upon which to ponder, with hearings resumed in the fall to address specifics.
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