UFT Bits - Backdoor (sellout) deal on mayoral control?

Always watch what the UFT does, not what it says -- Fiddling with the PEP Will NOT do it  --- The wisdom of Norm

Albany to send $35.9B to NY schools as negotiations over mayoral control continue, Hochul says -- Chalkbeat

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Time to End it and Adams' incompetence may be a magic bullet: Mayor attacks on NYSED Mayoral control report

This recent Ed Notes headline was too optimistic. The absolute incompetence of the Adams/Banks school administration apparently will not be enough to kill mayoral control. And the UFT, a key player, will whine about how bad they are but will not do anything to make it better for its members.

 

I've always maintained that the UFT/Unity crowd will never let Mayoral control lapse no matter their rhetoric about how bad the school system has been run over the past two decades. They don't really care how bad mayors perform - they care about their own power and the ability to negotiate with one administration rather then disperse power into the hands of groups they feel they cannot control, which they perceive as a threat to their hegemony -- that includes dispersing power to rank and file teachers at the school level. UFT/Unity doesn't want to empower their own members -- they want to control the members.

 

So, in recent months we heard Mulgrew criticize mayoral control and ask for changes - which I call tweaks, rather than a distribution of power. Then Monday we hear there is a deal of sorts where Adams would keep control if he would implement the class size law he has refused to implement so far.

This reminds me of those vigilantes who hold your computers ransom until you pay.

There can only be a deal if the UFT is somehow involved and watch them declare victory.

 

From the Chalkbeat article:

For months, lawmakers have argued the future of the city’s polarizing school governance structure should be determined outside of the budget process. But during last-minute negotiations on the two-weeks-late budget, the possibility of extending mayoral control reentered discussions.

 

Leonie speaks: no backdoor deal on mayoral control!

Last week the State Education Department released an excellent report, summarizing the public testimony at the borough hearings and in writing on Mayoral control, and analyzing our NYC school governance system compared to others across the country. The report contained recommendations about how the system should be changed, by giving more voice to parents and other stakeholders, revamping the composition of the Panel for Educational Policy, and establishing a Commission to propose more fundamental changes.

Then this afternoon, there was a lot of chatter on Twitter and elsewhere that a deal was imminent to give Adams two more years of mayoral control in the budget, in exchange for some minor tweaks and concessions (?) on class size. Yet soon after, Governor Hochul held a press conference and said no deal on Mayoral control has yet been finalized.

So it's urgent: please send a message to your Legislators tonight; urge them to provide more checks and balances, transparency and parent voice in the running of our schools - because twenty years of Mayoral control has NOT worked for NYC students. If you're not convinced, check out our point by point rebuttal of DOE talking points put out over the weekend; and an explanation of how the system has failed in terms of real accountability here.

But please send an email to your legislators tonight -- before its too late.

And share this message with others who care.

thanks, Leonie

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters

 Another news report:

Mayoral control of NYC schools is back from the dead in state budget talks, key lawmaker says - Gothamist

https://gothamist.com/news/mayoral-control-of-nyc-schools-is-back-from-the-dead-in-state-budget-talks-key-lawmaker-says

 

State lawmakers are discussing a possible short-term extension of mayoral control of New York City's school system, though it would come with significant strings attached, according to a key lawmaker in Albany.

State Sen. John Liu, a Queens Democrat who chairs the New York City education committee of the State Senate, confirmed on Monday that mayoral control is back on the table in ongoing discussions on New York's next budget. Mayoral control is currently due to expire at the end of June, despite Mayor Eric Adams' opposition to it lapsing.

Gov. Kathy Hochul recently raised the issue again in budget talks, two weeks after legislative leaders all but declared it dead as part of the state's spending plan, Liu told Gothamist. But he suggested that, if lawmakers agree to extend mayoral control of the city's schools, it would come with a mechanism to ensure the Adams administration complies with looming class-size restrictions, which state lawmakers approved the last time they extended mayoral control in 2022.

“The mayor wants accountability, and so we’re looking for ways to make him accountable,” Liu said. “The governor has brought up mayoral control in the negotiations, and we're looking at the issue.”

Adams and his schools chancellor David Banks have strongly advocated for an extension, arguing they should remain in charge of the city's schools because it’s the best way for them to be held accountable and impose order on the nation’s largest school system. But many educators and parents have called for change, saying the mayor is too far removed from the day-to-day reality of schools.

Hochul included a four-year extension of mayoral control in her $233 billion state budget proposal in January. But legislative leaders signaled by early April that it hadn’t been a serious part of budget negotiations.

Adams’ administration still kept pushing the issue, with Banks traveling to the state Capitol earlier this month to urge lawmakers to consider putting it in the spending plan. “We think we’ve done a great job in rebuilding trust with our families and our communities, and we’ve been delivering real results,” Banks said in Albany on April 2.

Asked a day later whether mayoral control would be in a final budget agreement, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Democrat from Yonkers, flatly said “no.”

Now, Liu says any possible extension would include "substantial guarantees" for the city to follow through on the mandates of the state class-size law, a major goal of the United Federation of Teachers union and many New York City parents. Democratic lawmakers are expected to discuss the issue behind closed doors on Monday afternoon.

The law requires a significant reduction of class sizes in the city’s public schools over time. Adams argues the city cannot make those changes without more funding from the state.

When the law is fully implemented, kindergarten through third-grade classes will be capped at 20 students, fourth- through eighth-grade classes will be capped at 23 students, and high-school classes will be capped at 25 students. The city’s Independent Budget Office has estimated that almost 18,000 teachers would need to be hired to meet the mandate, at a cost of up to $1.9 billion per year.

New York City would also have to identify more space for the smaller classrooms. Reducing class sizes is generally popular with parents, but some say they worry about increased competition for certain schools and programs.

The latest talks on another extension of mayoral control come days after the state Education Department released a lengthy review recommending possible reforms. Legislators required the review as part of the 2022 extension of mayoral control, which was for two years.

The nearly 300-page report called for more opportunities for input from families and educators and stronger checks and balances around mayoral control. It noted that New York City currently gives the mayor more power over education than any other school district in the country.

Under that system, the mayor selects the schools chancellor and appoints a majority of members to the Panel for Educational Policy, an oversight board that votes on school-related contracts and other matters. The non-mayoral members are elected by parent councils or appointed by borough presidents, and some of them have said they feel powerless because the mayor appoints most of the panel.

The state Education Department's report did not ultimately offer clear recommendations on the fate of mayoral control. Instead, it called for a commission to further study the issue.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Albany continue to negotiate the finer points of the broader state budget, which is expected to total $235 billion once approved. It was due before the start of the state’s fiscal year on April 1, but the Gov. Hochul has struggled to reach consensus with lawmakers on a final deal. Lawmakers have approved four short-term budget extenders to keep the state’s payroll running.

As of Friday, the governor and legislative leaders were closing in on an agreement on the hotly contested issue of housing policy. If a housing deal is reached, that could clear the major remaining hurdle to a final budget. But tenant and landlord advocates aren’t pleased with the emerging deal.

The state Senate and Assembly’s Democratic majorities are expected to hold closed-door conferences on the final remaining issues on Monday afternoon and evening.

 

Time to End it and Adams' incompetence may be a magic bullet: Mayor attacks on NYSED Mayoral control report

“Research indicates that there is no conclusive relationship between school governance structures and student achievement,” the report reads. It added that there was no substantial evidence that mayoral control reduces educational inequities.

UPDATE:

Join #TalkOutofSchool, Sun 4/14 at 7 PM on

@WBAI

99.5 FM. I chat w/

@DrKYSR

Kaliris Salas-Ramirez &

@leoniehaimson

Leonie Haimson abt the newly released NYSED report on mayoral control of

@NYCSchools

. We discuss findings, recommendations & impact.  http://wbai.org

 

Tuesday, April 10

Even before Bloomberg did his hostile takeover of the NYC school system in 2002, I was taking positions opposing it and the UFT support and lack of opposition to the coming disaster. I knew about mayoral control from George Schmidt in Chicago and kept warning Randi and the UFT repeatedly in Ed Notes. When we founded ICE in late 2003, opposition to mayoral control was one of the unifying points. No other opposition caucus took a position as I remember. It was about that time when I met Leonie Haimson from Class Size Matters who also took a position against MC and has continued to do so since then. Here is her recent post on her listserve.

GET STUFF DONE - POORLY

Adams and other mayors love MC because it gives them a massive field for patronage. You know in the good old days of so-called community control there was also plenty of patronage but at the local level. Often people in the community. I'd still take that over handing control of an entire school system to any one person. As for the UFT, they want some tweaking, though the Adams admin level of control has even pushed Mulgrew to take a stronger stance. Here are Leonie's comments.

Mayor attacks on NYSED Mayoral control report

News links:

https://gothamist.com/news/state-report-points-to-reforming-mayoral-control-of-nyc-schools

He attacked CUNY School of Law’s involvement in the report and hinted that he believed the school was biased against him. He referenced an episode last year when CUNY Law graduates turned their backs on him while he delivered a commencement speech. He also said the education department made a mistake by not delving more deeply into school governance models and student achievement data.

But the report did in fact compare models of school governance.

“Research indicates that there is no conclusive relationship between school governance structures and student achievement,” the report reads. It added that there was no substantial evidence that mayoral control reduces educational inequities.

https://x.com/bern_hogan/status/1777736090612289921Today,

@NYCMayor

continued on CUNY: "You know, 'let's turn our backs on Eric Adams. Let's talk about how great or how bad America is.' And the keynote speaker was from Yemen, when she would not even be on the stage and speak in the country. I'm not comfortable with that.”

He had already criticized the report last week before it had been released on the same grounds: https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/politics/2024/04/03/mayoral-control-extension-in-final-state-budget-unlikely--lawmakers-say

See also:

https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/04/09/key-report-on-mayoral-control-of-nyc-public-schools-finds-parents-teachers-feel-shut-out-adams-albany/

 

 

Will Mulgrew Flip Flop on Mayoral Control Like Randi did in 2009?

Randi and Bloomberg do the flip in mayoral control renewal 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deja vu all over again?

Mulgrew at the Feb. 2024 DA on Mayoral control – 

-----when it sunsets, know what our position is. Want to be a little bit more. Position mayoral control, went through Cleveland’s, Boston’s, New Haven’s – they have mayoral control, the mayor chooses the final decision making panel (i.e. PEP), but the Mayor may only choose from people selected by nominating committee, of which they often have little control. Once put on these boards, they’re on a fixed term, mayor can’t do anything about it. Not saying what want, but have to dispel myth that changing mayoral control from way it is here—with mayor picking majority of PEP—is only version of mayoral control. People here fired for not doing what they’re told – that’s crap. Goal of last week was to tie different things together. Has the mayor supplanted school funding (yes), was there a financial reason (no)... How do you give the mayor any sort of control, who supplants funding, who removes money from funding despite being bound to lower class sizes by NYS law. One thing in that law that allows process to be stopped. Happens in a year in a half. Had all the money we needed and since then 2.5 billion dollars have been taken out of the capital plan, because trying to use financial review period to stop the law. ... Nick Bacon Notes at NAC

 Let me take you back to the 2009 battle over renewal of mayoral control:

Chalkbeat/Gotham Schools: The frustration began with a May 21, 2009 New York Post column, in which Weingarten indicated that she is open to allowing the mayor to continue appointing a majority of members to the citywide school board. A union task force recommended in February that the state legislature reverse that majority as a way to strengthen the board, known as the Panel for Education Policy or PEP.

Weingarten’s Post op/ed dismayed some members of her own union. “I was quite disappointed and angry, actually,” said Lisa North, a teacher who sat on the union’s task force to consider revisions to mayoral control.

North said the task force never seriously considered recommending that the mayor keep his majority of appointments, and so when union delegates ratified the committee’s final recommendations, she expected Weingarten to promote them. “The delegate assembly is supposed to be the highest authority of the union, and it voted for it,” she said.

I wrote this in June, 2009 - Weingarten Didn't Flip on Mayoral Control-- UFT positioning is akin to planes spreading tin foil to try to fool radar.

We opposed the very idea of a phony UFT task force dominated by Unity Caucus that would give cover to Randi's doing what she intended to do anyway over the past 7 years. (I have been a lone voice in ICE urging boycotting these farce task forces.) I spoke to Philissa (Kramer of Gotham) and made the point that Randi's flipping on the constitution of the PEP panel is just flack covering Randi's consistent support for mayoral control. More egregious, I told her, is her modifying the report of the UFT task force that spent a year addressing the issue that was voted upon at a delegate assembly. One of the few good things the report recommended was taking away the mayor's ability to appoint a majority of the PEP. That is where Randi has flipped. The task force was c0-headed by UFT VP Carmen Alvarez, who has been racing around the city representing the UFT on panel discussions and trying to give the impression the UFT supports checks and balances. Tsk, tsk, Carmen.

“I do feel betrayed,” said Michael Fiorillo, another chapter leader who sat on the union’s task force. “I just wish I could say I felt surprised.” He said Weingarten has veered away from members’ consensus on other topics in the past, and so he had early doubts that she would hold firm on the task force’s recommendations. (Fiorillo ultimately voted against the recommendations, saying they weren’t aggressive enough curbs on mayoral control.) “My guess would be the sense of betrayal would be stronger among people outside the union,” Fiorillo said, noting that union members were accustomed to watching Weingarten change her mind.

Weingarten doesn't exactly change her mind. What she does is throw up lots of tin foil like those planes trying to foil radar detection do in manipulating public perception of where the UFT stands. It is necessary to see through the flack and keep one's eye on where the real plane with the bomb is.

Why does the UFT leadership love mayoral control? Because it allows them to negotiate in back rooms with one person instead of opening up the process to democratic scrutiny. Totalitarians behave that way. When Obama was talking in Cairo today about bringing the light of democracy to places of darkness he might has well been talking about mayoral control and the UFT.

As I said then I do support the UFT current position of opposing the mayor choosing a majority of members on the PEP but will they stick to that position? Mulgrew still claims to be for mayoral control. If the mayor can't appoint a majority is it really mayoral control? Yes in the world of UFT machinations.

 

In 2002 I Warned the UFT About Evils of Mayoral Control and they still only want Tweaks as Hochul calls for 4-year extension

Ed Notes, Sept. 2002: When UFT leader Randi Weingarten floated a proposal to give the mayor control of the school system in May 2001, Education Notes took strong exception, arguing that giving politicians control would only result in a system of education by the numbers in a corporate style system. Did Weingarten sell out our educational interests for a pot of gold? The next few years will allow people to judge for themselves.

I did some satire on UFT capitulation:

Late breaking news: Bloomberg says he needs to take over UFT (some say he already has) to make school system work and will ask the state assembly (a UFT subsidiary) for control.

Well, in essence it was not satire as for most of his tenure the UFT put up a faux resistance, while fundamentally agreeing with most of the Bloomberg ed deforms: high stakes testing, closing "failing" schools, charters, etc. Their support for the horrendous 2005 contract enabled the Bloomberg assault.

You judge given the past 22 years of mayoral control. I love to say I told them so. And I will continue to do so. Ed Notes was warning them about the consequences in the first tabloid edition which had a print run of 10 thousand after I retired in 2002.

 

But they never learn. Or rather they don't really care about the impact on members and students. What they care about is power and their allegiance to center/right Democratic Party allegiances. And big cities with mayoral control are often run by Democratic mayors who want the power of control over the schools - and the patronage it brings. What does the UFT get out of mayoral control? They only have to lobby and deal with one person instead of messy alternatives, like elected school boards. Plus who knows what else? Well actually we do know but I leave you to guess.

Knowing the membership is not happy with the job done by any of the mayors who controlled the NYC schools so far - Bloomberg, de Blasio and Adams -- UFT leadership maintains a fiction they want change, when all they want is minor tweaks.

Eviscerating Public Education - The Farce and the object of Eric Adams' School Cuts - Diminish Public Schools to enhance privatization

NYC Public School Parents

Mayor Adams called protestors "clowns" and blamed Albany for his budget cuts to schools last night - This protest at a Harlem town hall against the Mayor's huge budget cuts to schools was reported briefly in the NY Post, but not what the Mayor actually ...

Video - Ronnie Almonte - Recently elected Ex Bd me...

There are people who  question the logic of the decision making in pushing school cuts in the face of rising numbers of students abandoning the NYC DOE - let's make it worse and drive more people out. But where are they going?

Some have left the city, some are home schooling and others going to private or charter schools. We know the game of pro-charter Adams and Banks -- drive people to charters. But there is a problem -- the NYC charter cap has been reached. So what to do? Drum up public outcries - funded by anti-union, pro-charter billionaires for releasing the cap.

Despite its weakness, the UFT still remains an obstacle to cost-cutting with even a weak contract and with every loss of a teaching position, the UFT loses dues and political influence. The only way to coutner that would be a massive organizational effort internally and we know the Unity machine doesn't have the DNA to do that. There are things that people are doing to fight this battle - nothing much publicly from the UFT.

 

Gary Rubinstein's Blog

Nearly Half Of Success Academy 9th Graders Do Not Graduate From Success Academy - With 40 schools and 20,000 students,

Adams has made it clear that mayoral control has got to go and I heard Brian Lehrer actually discuss this with a city council member https://www.wnyc.org/story/51-council-members-52-weeks-district-25-shekar-krishnan.

Danial Alicea on Talking Out of School WBAI show is addressing many of these issues - so worth a listen. 

Leonie sent this out on budget cuts:

Yesterday, we again analyzed the total Galaxy school budgets via an automated mechanism, using the data posted on the DOE webpage here .  The new spreadsheet is here.  More, including a summary chart, on the website here.

According to our analysis, the overall school cuts now total $1.42B compared to FY 22; with 97% of schools experiencing cuts averaging $940,268 each.

The spreadsheet can be sorted by school district and council district.  Take a look!

Galaxy budgets as of 2022-07-14

   ul 15

Updated analysis: total Galaxy school cuts as of July 14 now at $1.42 billion

• Jul 3

  Anger and distress at Gov. Hochul refusing to sign class size bill with mayoral control bill

• Jun 25

  Testimony on the Mayor’s egregious budget cuts to schools

Jun 23

$1.1 billion in unspent funds by DOE for FY 2020 and FY 2021 – making cuts to schools even more outrageous

And this:

“NY City Council members demand mayor ‘immediately restore’ school funding ,” by WNYC’s Jessica Gould: “New York City council members are demanding the Adams administration ‘immediately restore’ funding that was cut from public school budgets for the coming school year, and fill the gap using hundreds of millions of dollars in unspent federal stimulus funds. ‘Principals, schools, and teachers must make important decisions within the next month, and your continued inaction is hampering their ability to make the right choices for students,’ council members wrote in a letter Tuesday sent to the mayor and schools chancellor. The letter was signed by Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and 40 of her colleagues on the 51-member council — the latest in a series of tense exchanges over school funding.” 

Today 8 PM Zoom - Get Our Damn School System Out of the Hands of Incompetent and clueless Mayors Once and for all

Almost 20 years under the mayoral dictatorships of Bloomberg and de Blasio. It's time to put an end to it. School governance starts at the top but ends with someone in your school looking over your shoulder. Get a piece of the action.

Daniel has assembled a great cast for this event and there's only room for a few more - but it will be streamed live on FB too - but the Zoom is so much more fun. Register here: http://tinyurl.com/reimagine2

So many old friends from years of struggle against Bloomberg: Sam, Vern, Leonie, Bonita and some newer friends from more recent battles: Kaliris, Queen, Kim and maybe some surprises.

Leonie on her blog

The deep flaws and persistent problems with Mayoral control are even more evident to many people, given the de Blasio’s push to have the Pearson contract for the gifted test approved, and when it failed last night at the PEP, even among many of his own appointees, his insistence to continue this controversial program anyway.  Teachers of NYC are sponsoring a discussion of what alternative governance system would be best on Sunday at 8 PM.

We continue our collective journey to build a coalition of community right-holders to Reimagine Our City Schools.

 

You won't want to miss this ... #ourcityschools #endmayoralcontrol #cancelthemayor

Should Two Decades of Mayoral Control End? TEACHERS OF NYC TO HOLD VIRTUAL EVENT SUNDAY EVENING 8PM

The de Blasio mis-leadership of the school system has put the control of the schools in the hands of one person on the table for discussion. 

 

Thank you for registering for "REIMAGINE: OUR CITY SCHOOLS (1) - December TONYC Meet-up". Please submit any questions to: theteachersofnyc@gmail.com 

Date Time: Dec 13, 2020 08:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

RSVP: tinyurl.com/reimaginersvp

Sunday night this will be a fascinating event organized by Teachers of NYC. 

 

 

James Eterno is supporting the event Sunday night:

TEACHERS OF NYC TO HOLD VIRTUAL EVENT ON MAYORAL CONTROL SUNDAY EVENING 

Teachers of NYC are a group to watch. They are holding a Zoom event on Sunday evening on ending mayoral control of NYC schools. Note that Mike Schirtzer, the one UFT Executive Board member not afraid to ask tough questions to UFT President Mulgrew, will be on the panel as will Class Size Matters' Director Leonie Haimson. I will be attending and so should you if you are able.

Yes, Teachers of NYC [not a caucus] is worth keeping an eye on as they bring a rank and file perspective to the table.  The panel includes current and former parent activists Leonie Haimson and Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, Kim Watkins chair of Community Education Council 3 (upper west side), UFT Ex Bd member Mike Schirtzer and two people I am not familiar with, Shamel Lawrence and Dr. Shawn Ruks. 

  

Our opposition to mayoral control from 20 years ago while the UFT leadership supported it

From the earliest days of rumors of mayoral control taking over our schools in the year 2000 we as Ed Notes have been opposed. 

Education Notes Summer 2001- {when Giuliani was mayor and demanding mayoral control}

Education Notes Editorial:
Do Not Give This Mayor (or any Mayor) Control Over The School System

The plan put forth by our union leaders to give the Mayor effective control of the school system by allowing him to appoint 6 out of 11 members from an expanded Board of Education (to be chosen from a blue ribbon panel headed by the state education commissioner) puts us on a very dangerous path. Naturally, Mayor Giuliani, proving once again he is an ignoranus (see next page for a formal definition), immediately trashed the plan. The arguments put forth at the June 4 [2001] Exec. Bd. meeting focused on the issue of making the Mayor accountable and creating common ground for providing resources to the schools. Results in other cities with Mayoral control were cited. It was also surmised that this plan would be a way to take some of the testing pressure off classroom teachers.

Ed. Notes contends that more pressure will be placed on classroom teachers as Mayors use test scores in their elec- tion campaigns. Given the choice, will these politicians put enough resources into classrooms to help children really learn? Or will they take the politically expedient way out by calling for more tests and more blame on teachers when children don’t produce? Allowing politi- cal forces to control what we teach and how we teach is already taking place. Mayoral control will only make the situation worse. We should be calling for the professionalization of teaching, which should give teach- ers more control over the schools, not less.

The UFT was prepared to give freack'n Rudolph Giuliani control of the schools and they rushed to hand it over to Bloomberg. I warned the UFT leadership. Now you should note that the recent Mulgrew calls for modification of mayoral control is not far off the June, 2001 plan.

The late George Schmidt when he read the piece above issued a warning to the teachers in the UFT about mayoral control which I printed in the April 2002 after Bloomberg had become mayor and the UFT leadership seemed relieved at his replacing Giuliani - which goes to show you anti_Trumpers - lunacy is often followed by competent lunacy as Bloomberg laid waste to the school system. The Chicago Unity like union leadership also didn't oppose mayoral control and paid the price in the 2001 union elections where the PACT caucus won but then lost barely in 2004. However, that experience for young activists led them to form CORE in 2008 and they won in 2010 and have held power since then. George was heavily involved in both wins, using his widely read Substance newspaper (the model for Ed Notes) to great effect.

I reprinted George's article in that same Ed Notes, Fall, 2002. George was in NYC the summer of 2002 and visited me and a few people I called together to give details on his experiences. This item is from the Fall, 2002 edition.

George Schmidt Visits Rockaway

George Schmidt, founder and editor of the independent education newsletter Substance for the past 27 years and a major source of information on events in the Chicago school system, met with a group of NYC teachers at the Ed. Notes palatial estate this summer in Rockaway Beach. It was George’s first return to Rockaway since he went out on a date to Rockaway Playland in the 60’s.

Schmidt, accompanied by his 14 year old son, Danny, regaled his audience with tales of the Chicago “corporate” model of mayoral control, how school workers took back the union and shared his experiences at the AFT convention (attended by 800 Unity Caucus members at your expense) held in July in Las Vegas. George also gave us advice on how to make Ed. Notes a more viable and effective source of information for school workers in NYC. See George’s article on Mayoral control on page 5 and the stories on CTU President Debbie Lynch on pages 5 and 6.

My intro to the George piece [remember Arne Duncan was the CEO of Chicago schools for about 7 years].

Coming Soon to a School Near You: Mayoral Control

When UFT leader Randi Weingarten floated a proposal to give the mayor control of the school system in May 2001, Education Notes took strong exception, arguing that giving politicians control would only result in a system of education by the numbers in a corporate style system. Our opposition caused a breach in our relationship to the UFT leadership that has not been healed to this day. Weingarten took exception to what she perceived was an accusation that she was selling us out. We did not go that far, but we did feel that she was in favor of recentralizing the school system, thus opting for short term gains (a quick contract) while sacrificing the long term interests of school workers, whose ability to control the conditions under which they work decrease significantly under centralized control. Mayor Giulianiʼs scornful rejection of that deal delayed our contract for more than a year. It was the unionʼs behind the scenes support for giving Mayor Bloomberg control that finally got the contract done. Did Weingarten sell out our educational interests for a pot of gold? The next few years will allow people to judge for themselves. This month, we give our readers a break from our diatribes against centralized corporate style mayoral control and turn instead to surrogates.

We reprise the article George Schmidt, editor of Substance, Chicagoʼs independent educational newspaper, did for us in May which points to the lessons of Chicago over the last 7 years as a guidepost to the future of education in New York. Schmidt, accompanied by his 14 year old son, Danny, regaled his audience with tales of the Chicago “corporate” model of mayoral control, how school workers took back the union and shared his experiences at the AFT convention (attended by 800 Unity Caucus members at your expense) held in July in Las Vegas. George also gave us advice on how to make Ed. Notes a more viable and effective source of information for school workers in NYC. -- Ed Notes, Fall, 2002

Education Notes Apr./May ‘02/ 

CHICAGO STORY: MAYORAL CONTROL IS A DISASTER

by George Schmidt, Editor of Substance, 5132 W Berteau Chicago, IL 60641 www.substance.com

Dear Brothers and Sisters in New York,

No teacher union should support mayoral control of the school system -- especially if the "Chicago Model" is invoked to justify that control. Chicago's version of urban school governance based on a supposed "busi- ness model" of how things should be run is actually the major form of "deregulation" aimed at the heart of public education (and the unions representing teachers and other school workers) in the urban north. More than vouchers, charters schools, or the antics of Edison Schools Inc., the "CEO model" for urban school governance is an attack on democracy, on public school teachers, and on the unions that represent the men and women who work in public schools. Despite the massive propaganda (including regular reports in The New York Times) praising Chicago's version of "School Reform," the model is based on shoddy public relations and relentless attacks on democratic public schools and democratic unions.

In 1995, the Illinois General Assembly passed a law (the Amendatory Act) which gave Chicago's mayor complete control over the governance of the school system. At the time of the legislation, the Republican Party's most con- servative wing controlled both houses of the Illinois Gen- eral Assembly and the governor's seat. Thanks to the legis- lation he wrote with the Republicans, Chicago's mayor was able to abolish the old (appointed, but with many guide- lines) school board, appoint a five-member "School Re- form Board of Trustees", and appoint a "Chief Executive Officer" to replace the credentialed superintendent of schools. The legislation also prohibited collective bargain- ing on class size, abolished tenure, and took away other rights which Chicago teachers and other union workers in the city's public schools thought had been secured forever.

The Chicago system immediately went into an orgy of union busting, privatization, and teacher bashing. In July 1995, Mayor Daley appointed his former budget director (Paul G. Vallas) as Chief Executive Officer of the school system. Vallas, a career bureaucrat with no private sector experience, had no teaching experience and no other cre- dentials to run the newly deregulated school system. Presi- dent of the School Board went to Gery Chico, a lawyer who had most recently been the Chief of Staff for the mayor.

The key to the "success" of the Chicago "CEO Model" was control of public relations. From the very beginning of the Vallas administration, a careful campaign of slander and disinformation was launched against the unions repre- senting those who worked in the public schools. Thanks to a sweetheart contract with the leaders of the Chicago Teach- ers Union, by the fall of 1995, the mayor's propaganda people made the false claim that the new "CEO" (Paul G. Vallas) had ended what was claimed to be a $1 billion "deficit." The "deficit" had actually been created on paper by inflating estimated expenses and deflating estimated revenues. Within a year after taking over the school system, the mayor then announced that test scores had begun to go "up."

Deregulation in Chicago's schools was based on the same types of manipulation of numbers that served the execu- tives of Enron (and other crooked corporations) so well in the private sector during the "Dot.com" and stock bubble manias of the late 1990s. The manipulation of financial information (the budget "deficit" claim) and test score information ("trending up" was what Chicago's school administration called the test score reports during the same years the stock market bubble was being in- flated) reduced the integrity of the school board's finan- cial and educational data to a shambles. But that was no problem in the short term, because Chicago-based Arthur Andersen was doing for the financial data (through the annual audit of the ending financial statements) and many educational programs (through multi-million dollar "consultancies" to "audit" everything from pre school pro- grams to some high school academic programs) the same jobs it was doing during the same years for Enron (and before that for Chicago-based Sunbeam and Waste Man- agement, both of which cooked their books and cheated their shareholders and workers years before Enron did).

For the union to support the rampant teacher bashing and union busting that comes with mayoral takeovers like Chicago's the union leadership has to be willing to be- come a company union. The company is City Hall.

By January 1999, the mayor's team at the Chicago school board had busted several of the union's that represented Chicago school employees and was ready to attack the heart of teacher rights: tenure. In February 1999, after safely getting a new contract from the leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union (after a highly questionable referendum), the school board fired 137 tenured teachers, exercising its new power to terminate even those with tenure. When the union lead- ership challenged the firing in federal court, the school board, supposedly run by our friends from City Hall, not only used its own $8 million le- gal department but paid hundreds of thou- sands of dollars to the blue chip law firm of Jenner and Block to defeat the union's federal court challenge to the abolition of tenure for Chicago teachers. (To date, Jenner and Block has been paid more than $1 million to defend the school board against the union's challenge in the main federal case, Shegog et al v. Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees).

Throughout the entire attack on union and teacher rights, the union leadership refused to criticize the City Hall school "team" that was undermining the unions and slandering teachers and other school workers on an almost daily basis.

Critics within the union grew in size and strength during the six years (July 1995 through June 2001) that Paul G. Vallas served as Mayor Richard M. Daley's handpicked "CEO" of Chicago's vast public school system. On May 18, 2001, the members of the 36,000-member Chicago Teachers Union got their first change to vote on a referendum on the mayor's takeover. Paul Vallas, the school system's CEO, endorsed Chicago Teachers Union presi- dent Thomas Reece, an incumbent with a war chest on more than $200,000 and control of every one of the more than 40 jobs at the CTU's headquarters. The Chicago Sun-Times (circulation 500,000 daily) told Chicago's teachers to vote for Tom Reece and his "team."

When the results of the election were announced on May 25 af- ter a hand-count of the paper ballots, the opposition slate from the Pro Active Chicago Teachers and School Workers (PACT) caucus had won the election with 57 percent of the vote to Reece's 43 percent. On the day they voted, all five of the PACT candi- dates for city-wide union office were teaching in their schools (or, in the case of Maureen Callaghan, candidate for treasurer, working in the school office where she served as secretary). Deborah Lynch (now CTU president), Howard Heath (now CTU vice president), Jacqueline Price Ward (now CTU recording sec- retary), James Alexander (now CTU financial secretary) and Maureen Callaghan (now CTU treasurer) all had to clean out their classrooms (or desks) before they reported to the down- town offices of the Chicago Teachers Union on July 1, 2001, to begin leading one of the largest locals in the American Federa- tion of Teachers.

The victory of PACT in the May 2001 CTU election was an over- whelming vote of no confidence in the union leadership that had allowed the once powerful Chicago Teachers Union to become a company union under the domination of Chicago's City Hall. The victory of Deborah Lynch Walsh (who dropped the "Walsh" from her last name recently) and the other members of the PACT slate (including 40 of the 45 

members of the CTU executive board, was a victory for the rank-and-file and for the secret ballot and democratic unionism. The betrayal of the teachers and other union members in Chi- cago by the former union ad- ministration was decisively re- pudiated on May 18 in what was the most exciting union election in recent Chicago memory.

The hard work began immediately. The new leadership of the CTU is rebuilding a coalition of more than a dozen unions representing those who work in Chicago's public schools -- from janitors and school engineers to truck drivers and lunch- room workers. With an eye towards the negotiations for a contract which expires on August 31, 2003, Deborah Lynch and her colleagues in the union leadership have been mobi- lizing their union membership in unprecedented ways.

On March 19, the Illinois AFL-CIO's candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor, former congressman Rod Blagojevich, thanked the unions for the support which carried him to victory in a hard-fought three-way race for the nomination against former Chicago schools CEO Paul G. Vallas. A signal issue during the debates and in the pri- mary race was Vallas's union busting record as schools CEO. Democrats and the members of Illinois unions are optimis- tic that the Democratic Party can retake the governor's of- fice in Illinois for the first time since Jimmy Carter was Presi- dent of the United States.

On March 23, for example, the union leadership concluded the third of a series of three two-day leadership training con- ferences that involved all of the more than 800 elected del- egates representing the union's 36,000 active duty and re- tired members, teacher and career service.

Not only has the election of Deborah Lynch provided a re- pudiation of the politics of union busting and teacher bash- ing in Chicago's public schools, but it has begun to lead to an unprecedented era of mobilization and hope among a for- merly demoralized membership of the once mighty union. With every step the Chicago Teachers Union takes towards getting its strength back after years of convalescence in the isolation ward of company unionism, teachers and other union members add their voices, votes and hard work to the massive job of rebuilding the city's public schools after years of mismanagement by the political cronies of City Hall.

 

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

June 26, 2017 | by Angelo Falcón

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