It may just be we currently have in place a governance system that satisfies the education stakeholders better than what we have had for the last seven years — and better than the state Assembly bill.
The fact is Mayor Michael Bloomberg is demonstrating convincingly he does not need the mayoral control law to have total control of the new city Board of Education, city Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and the central administration. The mayor and chancellor are presiding over the “board” just as they did over what they called the Panel for Educational Policy. They would continue to make overall policy.
But the law in force at this time would require the return of community school boards. They would be in the best position to advocate, politically and legally, for the return of the statutory responsibilities of the community superintendents. This would restore to parents and the public their voices, which have been silenced over the past seven years. The restoration of community superintendents will never happen under the Assembly bill.
Former Assembly Education Chairman Steven Sanders was the principal author of the mayoral control law. At a forum on the issue, he said, in part: “There are things, in hindsight now that I would have done differently than I did in 2002, and eliminating elections for local school boards is one of the things I would do differently now, in retrospect. That, in my judgment, was the wrong decision, because once … you get rid of the notion that school board members are publicly elected and accountable to the public, you’ve lost a very basic part of the accountability system ….”
It may be best for the state Senate to do nothing now. Legislators might be convinced that everyone can live with the system now in place.
Melvyn Meer
Member
Community Board 11
Bayside
