IS THE STATE LEGISLATURE FINALLY WAKING UP TO THE FACT THAT MAYORAL CONTROL DOESN'T WORK AFTER 20 YEARS?

I watched much of the March 4 State Legislature Joint Public Hearings on Mayoral control of the NYC public schools. The law that gives the mayor full authority sunsets in June. Mayor Eric Adams is pushing for a four-year renewal. He and Chancellor David Banks testified in front of the Legislature who didn't seem overly impressed. Norm Scott has an analysis up at EdNotes. 

Norm cites parent Activist/Class Size Matters leader Leonie Haimson who pointed out the fatal flaw in the Adams-Banks argument at her blog:

Another problem that both Mayor Adams and Chancellor Banks encountered is a glaring contradiction in their rhetoric. Both repeated their now-familiar refrain about how terrible our schools are, especially for Black and brown kids. But of course, if true, this failure persists after twenty years of mayoral control - the very system that they claim is necessary to solve the problem. 

Banks tried to get around this evident contradiction, by testifying that all the deficiencies exhibited by our schools are the result of the system that earlier prevailed, more than twenty years ago: "We are still dealing with the remnants of the past world before Mayoral Accountability was adopted.  Corruption, patronage, and inequity ruled the day, and our students suffered greatly.  That is evident in some of the glaring disparate outcomes we still see, especially for communities of color."

Yet this argument didn't seem to be particularly convincing to the legislators.  In fact, in the first five hours or so of the hearings, while I was still watching, only one of them expressed strong support for continuing the current system for another four years, Senator Luis Sepulveda from the Bronx.  A four year extension is what Gov. Hochul has proposed and of course Adams and Banks would prefer:  The attitude of the other legislators seemed to range from slight skepticism to clear opposition,  at least during the portion of the hearings that I was able to observe.

Mayoral control might not sail through the Legislature in the April budget bills where most Albany legislation is passed but may have to wait until June. Mayoral control was not included in the one-house budget resolutions.

From Politico:

POLITICO was the first to report the news on Friday ahead of the official release of one-house budget resolutions. The lack of enthusiasm from the Legislature came despite the backing of Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has proposed a four-year extension that would span Adams’ entire term.

It represents perhaps the widest gulf as far as education budget priorities between legislators and Hochul, who have enjoyed a far better relationship than lawmakers did with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

That doesn’t necessarily preclude the possibility that it could still end up in final budget negotiations, but it’s a devastating blow to the Albany agenda of Adams, who had been pushing for another extension of mayoral control.

We need to bring democracy to the schools by ending mayoral control of our schools. Chicago just did that. The UFT's position is to tweak it a bit. Did Michael Mulgrew ask you how you feel about mayoral control? I don't think so. That is why we also must democratize our Union so it isn't just one person talking through most UFT meetings. We'll have more on that soon. Maybe we can end mayoral control of the schools and Mulgrew control of the UFT.