State Senate inaction prompts big changes in NYC school governance, while schools stay the same

July 2, 11:30 PMNY Government ExaminerMichael A. Harris

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PHOTO: HARRIS/EXAMINER

New York City woke up yesterday morning with a new school governance system, but when students, teachers and principals showed up for the first day of summer school, it was business as usual.

At 12:01 a.m. mayoral control of the New York City school system expired after seven years, because the State Senate failed to act to renew it.  Advocates say the system streamlined the operations of New York City Schools, while critics called it a power grab.

Early Wednesday morning the city's five borough presidents and the mayor promptly reconstituted the New York City Board of Education.  "With the sunset provision in the state law providing for mayoral control, we had no other choice," said Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz.

The new Board met in the Tweed Courthouse and promptly re-appointed Joel Klein as Schools Chancellor.  Among other actions was the passage of a resolution calling on the State Senate to act swiftly to pass legislation to extend mayoral control of the city school system, thereby abolishing their jobs.  The board elected a president and then adjourned; their next meeting is sceduled for September 10, 2009, but board members hope that meeting will never take place.

"We hope that the State Senate will get their act together and put our children before partisan politics and that they will do so long before September," one board member told examinerny.com.

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg stressed that this was only temporary. 

"This is not a solution," said Bloomberg.  "It is merely a bandaid."

Ever since the Senate Republican's June 8 coup that has left the senate in a state of gridlock Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer, a Democrat has said that if mayoral control of the schools expired, he'd make his appointment to the Board of Education and implore that his fellow elected officials with the authority to do the same.

"We need to ensure that their is continuity," said Stringer, who served 13 years in the New York State Assembly before being elected Manhattan Borough President in 2005.  "Continuity for our schools and most importantly continuity for our students."

For years the New York City schools were run by a "Board of Education," which was comprised of seven voting members, two appointed by the mayor aand one by each of the five borough presidents.  There was also a non-voting member representing students and another representing parents.  The New York City Schools Chancellor also served as a non-voting meember.  There were also more than a hundred local school boards, school superintendents and other governing bodies that significantly impeded the ability of the city to run the school system.  Going back as far as the early 1980's every single New York City Mayor fought for the abolition of the dysfunction that was the New York City School system and unsuccessfuly fought instead for a centralized system that the mayor and schools chancellor would be in charge of.

In 2002, when Bloomberg was elected he made mayoral control his first priority and successfully lobbied Albany to grant him a seven year "pilot program."  Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman said at the time that mayoral control allowed the schools to be run more like a business where one person was in charge, the Schools Chancellor, who would serve at the pleasure of the mayor.  "The buck stops here," Bloomberg said of himself.  The centralization that came aong with mayoral control has resulted in an end to "social promotion," shown significant increases in standardized reading and math scores and saved the city tens of millions of dollars a year by merely creating a city agency known as the "New York City Department of Education."  The seven year sunset expired at 12:01 a.m. yesterday morning mandating that the city revert back to the old system.  But it isn't that simple.

We are truly in uncharted waters here and the legislature must act swiftly to put partisan politics aside and put our school children first ," American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten told examinerny.com.  "While I commend the Mayor and the Borough Presidents for their swift action to re-establish the Board of Education and to ensure that there is continuity in our schools, there is much more that would need to be done, which would represent regression not progression."

The community school boards would have to re-established, except that under the city charter such elections may only be held in May.  Then there is the question of re-drawing district lines, appointing superintendents, finding and procuring office space and hiring support staff, among other barriers.  And to go through the effort and expense of doing so when the State Assembly overwhelmingly passed an extension of mayoral control and it is only a matter of time before the Senate, where the votes are there to easily pass the legislation doesn't make sense city officials said.

"It is not a question of whether they will vote to extend mayoral control, it's a question of when they'll vote to extend it," said Klein. "To go through all that when it's only a matter of time is absurd and they'd most likely pass it before we ever finished the process."

While a majority of people this reporter spoke with liked the idea of mayoral control, there were a few dissenters.

"This whole thing is a sham," said Jane Kellermann, a parent advocate.  "The mayor got the borough presidents to do his bidding.  There was no consideration of stakeholders, there was no transparency.  This whole thing is a fraud."

The legislature convened in another extraordinary session yesterday, but accomplished nothing.  The session lasted less than five minutes.  The same thing happened during today's session.

An angry New York Governor David A. Paterson stepped to the red room podium at the capital last night and announced that he will "continue to call extraordinary sessions every day [at least]  until July 6.  That's right, the Senators will spend the holiday weekend here in Albany." 

The governor has consistently said that he will keep all Senators in Albany until they have finished the people's business and a judge has affirmed his executive order, which means that any Senator who leaves Albany can be escorted back to Albany in handcuffs by the New York State Police.  In theory, a judge may deem any Senator who leaves Albany to be in contempt of court and jailed for up to one year and/or face a fine of $100,000 with no trial, but that's unlikely to happen, because it would be counterproductive; the goal here is to get them to do the people's business and it is hard to vote from the inside of a jail cell.

Bloomberg this afternoon urged New Yorkers to call their State Senators and tell them to put partisan politics aside and do their jobs and urged New Yorkers to educate themselves about their senator's opponents when their up for re-election next year.  "New York City voters must make their voices heard both now and in the voting booth in 2010."  Bloomberg said that he had already called his state senator and added that he would seriously consider voting for someone else next year."