Photo: Mayor de Blasio last weekend took his case for renewing mayoral control of city schools to the United Federation of Teachers. Courtesy of Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
Mayor Bill de Blasio and elected officials on the city, state and federal levels have been urging Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Senate to renew mayoral control of city schools, which expires at the end of the month.
Last week in Albany, de Blasio called mayoral control “a far superior system” than the old Board of Education.
“Mayoral control [was] established with a real consensus and then renewed for substantial periods of time twice now,” he said. “I don’t think it’s experimental. I think it’s a fixed asset now. I think it’s the only system that works, and the alternative is the school board system that obviously was tremendously problematic for New York City and for a lot of other places in the state. So, I think it’s time to, in fact, increase the amount of time it’s renewed for or to make it permanent. But I think any option of either not renewing it, which would lead again to chaos and corruption—and I mean those words literally—or to renew it even for just one year…takes something that [has] a bipartisan consensus view in New York City and turns it into a political football each year. I don’t think that’s something the public will accept.”
This week, the Observer obtained a bipartisan letter signed by 10 members of the city congressional delegation imploring Cuomo, Temporary Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-Suffolk) and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) to extend the current structure.
“Mayoral control of New York City’s public education system is essential to the continued growth and success of its students,” the officials wrote. “As Members of Congress with constituents vested in the future outcomes of our public schools citywide, we urge the State to extend mayoral control.”
Cuomo has publicly supported a three-year extension of mayoral control.
In March, de Blasio and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani sent a joint letter to Cuomo and the state Legislature urging them to renew and protect mayoral control of the system.
“This is a proven reform with broad support among parents, educators and officials from all ends of the spectrum,” said de Blasio, a progressive Democrat, and Giuliani, a staunch Republican and one-time candidate for president.
Should mayoral control not be renewed, the city public school system would return to the arrangement prior to 2003, when mayoral control was first ratified. That system featured local elected school boards under the direction of the Board of Education.
“If it’s not renewed, we’re going to go back to chaos and corruption. It’s as simple as that,” de Blasio related. “I’ve experienced it firsthand. I saw what that system was like; I was involved. It was a horribly dysfunctional system. It was rife with corruption. People worked long and hard to change it. I give Mayor Bloomberg credit for his strong advocacy for change. I give the Legislature credit for making that decision. They should have the courage in their convictions to continue mayoral [control] at a reasonable timeframe.”
michael@theforumnewsgroup.com
