Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Did Charters Blink When Faced with Demise of Mayoral Control?

Acting to avert a leadership crisis in New York City’s schools amid a legislative stall in the Capitol, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo intends to call a special session of the State Legislature as early as Wednesday and introduce a bill that would extend mayoral control of the city’s educational system for one year.The session would be focused on granting Mayor Bill de Blasio another year of control over the city’s schools and their 1.1 million students, according to an administration official.

Andrew Cuomo to Call Special Session to Extend Mayoral Control of Schools - The New York Times

Mr. Flanagan and his Republican colleagues did pass several bills this month to extend mayoral control, but each bill included an increase in charter schools around the state, something that doomed them in the Democrat-dominated Assembly. Charter schools would not be addressed in the bill sent by the governor, according to the administration official.
Cuomo will introduce one year extension with No charter strings attached. And we know the hold charters have over Cuomo --- that he is brokering this to avoid an end to mayoral control which is a key to ed deformers, means the charters have blinked -- which by the way I predicted when I called in to the Brian Lehrer show and he asked me about the impact on charters if mayoral control ended.
If local communities had school boards and some control over the schools, that would let some air out of the charter balloon.


Here's the link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/nyregion/cuomo-special-session-city-schools.html

Also worth checking out:

Leonie Haimson comment on the article below:
Good piece though I disagree that charter schools have arisen to replace the lack of community input- instead their rise has happened in large part as a result of shutting out parent & community voice.

Some key points before a full read:
A May 2017 Quinnipiac Poll, consistent with other polls on the subject, found that “Only 21 percent of New York City voters say Mayor Bill de Blasio ‘should retain complete control of the public schools,’ while 68 percent say he should ‘share control of the public schools with other elected leaders.’” However, this has not been acknowledged by the mayor or taken seriously by the media. This probably goes to show the power of the corporate-educational alliance so brilliantly forged by former Mayor Bloomberg in his takeover of the schools back in 2002.
When I listen to Mayor de Blasio decry the corruption and chaos of the old local elected school boards, I see it as an attack on the ability of communities of color to run their own affairs.
The idea that decentralization of a bloated school bureaucracy and local community control of neighborhood schools is presented as a given unfairly cuts off any serious discussion of what really happened with the community control movement and how it was made dysfunctional. It cuts off any serious discussion of the role of parents and communities of color in determining education.

Opinion

Mayoral Control Debate Ignores Need for Community Control



http://www.gothamgazette.com/opinion/7024-mayoral-control-debate-ignores-need-for-community-control

2 comments:

Patrick J. Sullivan said...

It's great you got on Lehrer to talk some sense. That guy has no time for public school teachers, parents and students. You're right, the charter and their paid polls were always going to cave. The threat of more community voice in governance is too much to risk.

Unknown said...

I still can't get over Lehrer's exclamation when you got off the line: "That was fascinating!" LMAO.