GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Excerpts from a parent listserv on the topic of tonight’s mayoral control deathwatch party.
• Did mayoral control really expire today? A Daily Politics reader says it might have.
• Business leaders in Chicago have concluded that Arne Duncan’s reforms failed. (Via Russo)
• A space fight in Red Hook between a district school and a charter school rages on. Norm Scott reports.
• Mike Petrilli thinks the Supreme Court’s “firefighter case” clears the way for teacher testing.
• A teacher says she’ll try to enjoy the summer, even though she has to return to the rubber room next fall.
• Our blogger Ruben Brosbe reflects on what he wishes he had known when he interviewed the first time.
• Where are Garth Harries’s special education recommendations? Insideschools wants to know.
• Speaking of Insideschools, today was most of its staff’s last day. More on this tomorrow.
• Los Angeles schools sup’t Ramon Cortines isn’t pleased that Brüno posed with his students.
• Britain’s schools chief, Ed Balls, is releasing a paper officially calling for NYC-style progress reports.
• Randi Weingarten’s most recent “What Matters Most” column is a reflection of her time at the UFT.
• Here’s an example of what not to write in your kid’s private school kindergarten application.

It looks like Governor Paterson’s 7 p.m. extraordinary session failed to renew mayoral control. Mayor Bloomberg has already put out a statement (read it in full below) condemning lawmakers for “being held hostage to partisan politics.”

We’ve published a guide to the uncharted territory of a post-mayoral control world. Here’s a summary:

1. The borough presidents and the mayor convene a new city Board of Education.
2. The Board of Education members elect a president among themselves and begin receiving salaries.
3. The Board of Education selects a chancellor.
4. The Board figures out how to make money flow.
5. Community school boards form.
6. District superintendents are appointed.

Please note this all ideally occurs before the start of summer school tomorrow morning.

The mayor’s full statement: (more…)

The City Council passed a resolution today calling on Mayor Bloomberg to add two Muslim holidays to the school year, a proposal the mayor has repeatedly opposed.

For over a year, a coalition of Muslim New Yorkers has lobbied the Department of Education to change its policy. The mayor has said he does not favor including the two holidays because it would shorten the school year and could lead other religious groups to demand that their holidays be included as well.

Amy Sugimori, a spokeswoman for the coalition, said the group would continue to lobby the mayor “to come up with a solution that works for everybody,” she said, adding that she didn’t expect the policy to change in the upcoming school year.

Councilman Robert Jackson, who chairs the Education Committee, is Muslim and supports the change in policy.

“Having to choose whether to send your children to school on your highest, holiest holidays where there may be an exam or stuff like that, it’s a clash situation and it should not have to happen,” Jackson told Politicker.

He said the mayor was “not being open-minded, he’s not being flexible, he’s not being inclusive.” (more…)

Control of Tweed Courthouse, the Department of Education's headquarters, is in question as mayoral control expires.

In the past week, we have interviewed dozens of people and undertaken headache-inducing reviews of state education law.

That reporting informs the following guide to what will happen if — or, as seems increasingly likely, when — the 2002 mayoral control law expires tonight at midnight:

1. The borough presidents and the mayor would convene a new city Board of Education. The current law says that, starting June 30, 2009 (which technically is today),

The board of education of the city school district of the city of New York is hereby continued. Such board of education shall consist of seven members, a member to be appointed by each borough president of the city of New York and two by the mayor.

One borough president has already appointed his member; others say their appointments are on the way. But it’s not entirely clear that Mayor Bloomberg will go along with creating a new Board of Education. If he does, he will appoint two members, too. If not, the governance structure of the city school could land in court.

2. The Board of Education members would elect a president among themselves and begin receiving salaries. State law requires that the president of the board be paid $20,000 a year and other members receive $15,000.

3. The Board of Education would select a chancellor. Chancellor Joel Klein’s contract, which is simply a letter from Mayor Bloomberg dated November 2002, would expire with mayoral control. Under the pre-2002 law,

The office of chancellor of the city district is hereby continued. It shall be filled by a person employed by the city board by contract for a term not to exceed by more than one year the term of office of the city board authorizing such contract, subject to removal for cause. The chancellor shall receive a salary to be fixed by the city board within the budgetary allocation therefor.

All but one borough president has suggested he or she would recommend keeping Klein, so it’s fair to assume that Klein would remain chancellor, should he accept the offer. He’d just have a new contract (and maybe a new salary).

4. The Board would figure out how to make money flow. Now and under the pre-2002 law, the Board of Education has final say over the city school system’s purse strings. But the simple act of letting mayoral control expire would alter the school budget, and so a reconstituted Board of Education could end up having to approve a new budget for next year.

The board could also decide that it wanted to re-approve — or revise — the current school budget. It would also have to make sure to approve (or vote down) any looming contracts.

Bloomberg administration officials argue that a system vaulted back to the pre-2002 law would cost more money to operate. They estimate the costs of running the community school districts as they used to function is $340 million. Some of that is currently covered in superintendent salaries, which constitute about $5 million of the city budget right now, not including benefits. But other parts are not.

The $110,000 in salaries for Board of Education members would also be an added cost; members of the current Board of Education, known as the Panel for Educational Policy, do not receive salaries.

Other sources said that costs would be minimal. They said there’s no reason the community superintendents could not continue to exist on their current budgets. The 2002 law did not get rid of the community school districts, and it listed much of the same responsibilities for superintendents as had existed before 2002. (In practice, the Bloomberg administration assigned superintendents other roles.)

5. Community school boards would form. According to the old law, elections for school board members cannot be held until May of 2010. There are several ways to jump-start community school boards sooner. In one scenario, the chancellor would appoint interim members, known as trustees, to take the place of the 32 school boards that existed up until 2003. This was routinely done before mayoral control when school boards had vacant seats or were deemed dysfunctional.

Department of Education officials interpret the law differently. In a memo outlining what will happen if mayoral control expires, officials said that the chancellor cannot name trustees unless a board member has violated a law. A school official also pointed out that the concept of trustees seems to be absent from the state education law.

Another scenario would have the DOE go to court to get a ruling permitting the Community Education Councils to function as the school boards once did.

The school boards become even thornier if elections are held. In an e-mail to a parent today, obtained by GothamSchools, the executive director of the city’s Board of Elections, Marcus Cederqvist, said that the Department of Justice might have to give a “pre-clearance” before elections could occur. DOJ requires pre-clearances for changes in election procedures.

6. District superintendents would be appointed. The city currently has 32 community superintendents, but under the pre-2002 law, the superintendents would have to hold a contract with the community school boards.

The Department of Education has argued that the impossibility of convening school boards would make community superintendents unlawful. But others familiar with the pre-2002 situation said that superintendents could easily be re-appointed.

They said this could happen in one of two ways. Either the community school boards would select superintendents — likely the ones already in place — or the chancellor could go over the head of the boards and appoint superintendents himself.

These superintendents would have hiring and firing power and would oversee the opening of summer school tomorrow.

Only a handful of New Yorkers showed up to an afternoon-long party planned to celebrate the end of mayoral control.

The seven people who gathered outside Tweed Courthouse at 4:30 p.m. today were outnumbered by members of the press, but their display was spirited. “Take a hike, Mike, and don’t you come back no more,” they sang, drawing some participation from passersby. As the winds whipped across Chambers Street, DeMarco yelled, “The winds of change are blowing!”

Most of the celebrants were teachers who are facing termination. They carried a sign that said “Educators’ Rights = Human Rights” and one, Anna-Maria Thomas, said the group was planning to “give Joel Klein the pink slip just like so many educators were given the pink slip.” Another, organizer Nicola DeMarco, held an orange “eviction notice” that he plans to deliver to the chancellor’s office at midnight.

Joining the group was Ellen Raider, a member of the Parent Commission on School Governance, many of whose members are in Albany now to push for substantial changes to mayoral control. Raider said she was in a celebratory mood not because mayoral control is likely to end but because the commission’s recommendations are finally getting attention.

The event proved short-lived as rain began to fall and the group dispersed. But DeMarco said they would be back later tonight to deliver the eviction notice.

Talks are underway between City Hall and the city’s borough presidents to craft a plan for what to do if mayoral control expires tonight — but it’s not yet clear that Mayor Bloomberg will cooperate with plans to reconvene a Board of Education tomorrow.

Asked if Bloomberg has indicated whether he would appoint the two board members the law allows him, the Manhattan borough president, Scott Stringer, said he didn’t know. “They are having discussions at City Hall,” Stringer said.

One possibility being batted around is for the mayor to go to court to ask for a preliminary injunction, sources said. A preliminary injunction would freeze the process of reverting from the current centralized governance system to the pre-2002 system. It would stymie the creation of a Board of Education.

Asked about the prospect of a legal injunction, Stringer said he opposed it. “If you let the courts run the school system, you’re basically putting the school system into receivership,” he said. “I don’t think that’s something we should deal with.”

In his public appearances, the mayor has not committed to cooperating with the borough presidents in reconstituting the Board of Education. (more…)

As Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg warn of “total chaos” and ominous “uncharted territory” if mayoral control expires tonight, another, less-frenzied possibility is emerging. The possibility hinges on the success of efforts underway right now to produce a compromise mayoral control bill in the Senate, according to a spokesman for the Campaign for Better Schools, which is pushing a compromise.

A compromise would find a middle ground between the bill introduced by state Senator Frank Padavan, with the support of Mayor Bloomberg, and the one introduced by Senator John Sampson, the Democratic leader in the state Senate, who favors adding checks to the mayor’s power. But it would still mean the June 30 deadline would pass without a new school governance law to replace it.

That’s because in order to become law, both houses of the legislature have to vote for the same bill. But a compromise bill would be different from the one the Assembly passed two weeks ago.

“Our point is that schools will open up as usual tomorrow, even if mayoral control expires,” said the spokesman, Shomwa Shamapande. “Let’s get the legislation right and make sure parents have a voice.”

Shamapande would not disclose details of the talks he said are underway, saying he does not want to jeopardize the effort. I asked him if he is confident the talks will produce a compromise. “We’re hopeful. I’m not going to go with confident,” he said. (more…)

Courtesy of the Bronx borough president's office

No one can accuse Bronx borough president Ruben Diaz Jr. of being unprepared for the possibility that mayoral control will expire tonight. Diaz just named his potential appointee to the theoretical Board of Education.

That person is Dr. Dolores Fernandez, a professor of urban education at CUNY’s Graduate Center who retired as president of Hostos Community College in 2008.

Fernandez’s appointment will become effective at midnight tonight if the 2002 mayoral control law expires and the Senate does not pass a law to replace it.

Diaz said in a statement today that he is “a supporter of some form of mayoral control.” Asked if Diaz would recommend that his appointee to the board vote to retain Joel Klein as chancellor, John DeSio, a spokesman for the borough president, would not comment yesterday. “He has mixed opinions on the chancellor,” DeSio said.

Fernandez could not immediately be reached for comment. In a release put out by Diaz’s office, she said:

“For me, it is an honor to be thought of by Borough President Diaz to represent The Bronx on the Board of Education. I look forward to serving our borough, and its children, in an admirable and professional way.”

Between 1988 and 1990, Fernandez was deputy chancellor for instruction and development for the Board of Education. She served under chancellor Richard Green, the system’s first black chancellor, who died suddenly a year into his tenure of an asthma attack, leaving the school system in disarray. Fernandez has a Master’s in Education and a professional diploma in Educational Administration.

The full press release follows. (more…)

Mayor Bloomberg appeared via satellite at a press conference in Albany today. I watched via webcast.

As Governor Paterson said he will give the state Senate a last chance to operate at 7 o’clock tonight, Mayor Bloomberg outlined his plan for what happens if mayoral control expires at midnight. The plan was, by his own admission, murky and short on details.

First, he said, “the lawyers take over in New York City”:

Every decision – from personnel decisions to policy decisions — will be subject to litigation and uncertainty. That’s no ways to run a school system. It will be like a nightmare flashback to the days when politics ruled the schools and our children suffered the consequences.

Critics of mayoral control and people who are familiar with the pre-2002 school system have disputed this characterization, saying chaos would not ensue if mayoral control expires.

Governor Paterson echoed Bloomberg’s concerns, saying that if mayoral control expires the city’s public schools will descend into “total chaos.”

Bloomberg, speaking via satellite from City Hall at a press conference in Albany, said he will work to “shield the system from the chaos the Senate is experiencing and is planning to inflict on city schoolchildren”:

Make no mistake about it: We will not allow our schools to be padlocked or summer school to be canceled. Summer school starts tomorrow, no ifs ands or buts. The kids that are going to summer school need help. And we are going to provide it.

We’ll keep things running to the best of our ability and deal with questions as they arise, that is our responsibility. But we are going into uncharted territory, and there’s no crystal ball. Our job will be to try to shield new york children and their parents from the chaos to the best of our ability and continue to press the Senate for action.

The NYCLU and Sikh community members demanded protection against discrimination at a press conference this morning. They said their push could be helped if mayoral control is revised.

Mayor Bloomberg refused to take questions on mayoral control at a press conference this morning, and two school-related groups staged protests outside City Hall and Tweed Courthouse without addressing the 2002 law directly.

That’s despite the fact that mayoral control is set to expire in 12 hours if the state Senate doesn’t pass legislation today. With the Senate still locked in a court battle, chances of a resolution look dimmer by the minute — and a reconstituted Board of Education looks more and more likely.

Bloomberg said he will address the small matter of the deadlocked legislature at 12:30 today, at a press conference where he will virtually appear next to Governor Paterson, who is in Albany.

Meanwhile, a group including the New York Civil Liberties Union and Sikh community members demanded more protection from discrimination this morning, in a protest outside the Department of Education’s Tweed Courthouse headquarters. The group accused the DOE of not enforcing a regulation that is supposed to protect children from discriminating against each other in school.

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU, said the issue relates directly to mayoral control. The NYCLU has argued the current mayoral control law wrongly insulates the school system from following city law. “The refusal of the DOE to protect kids has to be looked at in the context of mayoral control,” Lieberman told our Anna Phillips, who is at City Hall this morning. (The Assembly’s version of a revised mayoral control law does not clarify whether the Department of Education must follow city law, as NYCLU advocated.) (more…)