Mayoral control of public schools debated

Retracted plans to close P.S. 241 and P.S. 194 in Harlem and P.S. 150 in Brooklyn has spurred debate about who should control the city’s public school system. After parents and community members sued the city’s Department of Education for not involving school boards in the decision to rezone these districts, the DOE announced early this month that it would not close down the three traditional public schools to replace them with charters as was originally planned. This may shed light on the citywide debate over mayoral control of New York City’s public schools. Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently brought education more officially under the purview of his office. While many cite improvements to public schools as results of Bloomberg made this change, others find mayoral control at the root of controversies like the abrupt announcement of these school closings. City Councilmember Robert Jackson, a democrat who represents Morningside Heights, is the council’s education committee chair. According to his executive assistant, Sarah Morgridge,the DOE violated state law by failing to obtain the approval of the Community Education Council before changing school zoning lines. She said that this case is similar to several other instances when the DOE failed to observe protocol, one of the reasons people oppose mayoral control. For instance, Morgridge said, the state mandates that students get a certain number of hours of gym class in school each day, but not all schools in the city meet this standard. “I’m not blaming that gap entirely on mayoral control,” she said, “but the tendency to say, ‘I’m right. You have to go along with me’—that’s very much part of mayoral control.” On the other hand, Morgridge emphasized that, “without mayoral control, they would’ve had to go to a community governance structure.” Morgridge suggested the need to think back to how education began in this country, mainly as a “very grassroots phenomenon." “That tradition and heritage is still a big part of public education,” she said. Parents who filed the lawsuit pointed out a weakness in mayoral control, she added. Other city representatives remain unsure of the extent to which mayoral control caused the upset, though they agree on the need for greater parental involvement in decision-making processes. Ben Rosen, communications director for New York State Assemblyman Keith Wright, a democrat who represents Harlem, said of the decision to close schools that it’s “difficult to speculate whether this would’ve gone through had it not been under mayoral control.” “It does show that the current system of parental involvement and community input is severely lacking in the New York City Department of Education,” he said. “I believe the Assemblyman has maintained ... that without more inroads into providing proper spacing for parental involvement in the way our schools are governed, mayoral control is facing some problems, and I think that is the main sticking point for a lot of legislators regarding reauthorization of mayoral control.” Meanwhile, he said that the cases of P.S. 241 and P.S. 194—in which the DOE ultimately reversed its plan to close the schools altogether—are examples of the department listening to voices from the community and learning from its mistakes. Rosen was unable to comment on Wright’s exact position for or against mayoral control. He said that while mayoral control may ultimately be re-approved, action should be taken to solidify the parent role at the helm of student advocacy. “Taking parents out of the equation leads to mistakes,” Rosen said.