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A parent activist likes much of the Silver bill, to his surprise

A parent reader who’s not usually on the same side as the Bloomberg administration e-mailed me his take on the Assembly mayoral control bill the mayor endorsed. To his surprise, he liked a lot of it! This is the same bill that the two main parent groups and even the teachers union are saying needs additions.

The parent’s take:

To my amazement, there seem to be considerable advancements (at least at first glance), in the powers and functioning of school leadership teams (“SLTs”) compared to the present state of the law.  For example, reaffirming the requirement that ALL members of an SLT be consulted IN ADVANCE of an appointment of a new Principal is refreshing.  Moreover, parental participation in the formulation of school based budgets, is now substantively recognized.  Further, there is some sort of appeal process to the District Superintendent put into place (albeit rather inadequately)  for SLT’s to appeal a Principal’s version of a school based budget at odds with the SLT’s Comprehensive Education Plan.

Want to share your opinion? Send an e-mail to tips@gothamschools.org.

  • vern

    (1) the devil is always in the details, (2) laws are meaningless if they aren’t enforced, (3) this regime has demonstrated an aversion for obeying the spirit, intent and letter of the law.

    Nevertheless, this bill is an improvement over the gaping holes that have been on the books for the past seven years. Whether it’s enough…

  • Michael M.

    With all due respect, the items the “parent reader” identified are all school-internal matters.

    And good luck getting that District Superintendent re-empowered by the same guy that banished them all to Siberia — in clear violation of the CURRENT law — to serve in exile as Senior Achievement Facilitators.

    Wow, they put in stuff I took for granted all along.

  • http://www.classsizematters.org leonie haimson

    Under previous chancellors and according to the intent of the original state law that created School leadership teams, SLTs were given the ultimate authority to develop both Comprehensive education plans and school-based budgets. Thus the provisions cited above as an improvement are in some ways a serious step backward for parent input and shared decisionmaking at the school level.

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