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term limitations
November 4, 2009
Will Bloomberg’s third term bring big change to city schools?
Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered a victory speech last night promising, among other things, that the city’s schools would see even more changes in his third term.
“If you think you’ve seen progress over the last eight years, I’ve got news for you, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” the mayor whooped, his face flush with triumph.
Despite these declarations, many observers wonder if the mayor’s greatest overhaul of the city’s schools isn’t already behind him. The last eight years have seen Bloomberg win mayoral control of schools, wrestle work rule concessions out of the teachers union in 2005, and give principals power over how they apportion their budgets. The mayor has staked his claim to a third term on the idea that he needs more time to transform the schools, but whether he’ll add a few touch-ups or knock down walls is the subject of intense speculation.
Some, like executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, Joe Williams, believe the mayor will make good on his promise of delivering more of the same, and therein lies the problem.
“We haven’t really seen new fresh ideas coming out of this administration in a few years,” said Williams, who has pushed for significant changes to union’s contract and the expansion of charter schools.
“I think that’s what’s kind of frustrating to people who view this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to bring change. The mayor himself has said that this is about evolution rather than revolution. I’m not sure it can evolve past where it is right now.”
Rick Hess, an education policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said Chancellor Joel Klein, if not Bloomberg, is ready for broader changes.
“I think Klein’s inclination will be to not want to spend the next several years just trying to hold the line on what he’s already accomplished,” Hess said. “I think he’s going to be looking for opportunities to build on what he’s already done.”
“How many times can you reorganize the system?” wondered Diane Ravitch, an education historian at New York University. “There are people who say he has one more big reorganization in him, but I don’t know what it would be. First they tried centralization, then giving autonomy to principals, where do you go next? In terms of a new initiative, it’s hard to see.”
One issue Bloomberg and Klein — should he keep his job — will immediately face is contract negotiations with the United Federation of Teachers. Earlier this week, writer Chris Smith argued in New York Magazine that the biggest challenge of Bloomberg’s third term would be asserting control over the UFT. But the promise of a four percent raise for teachers and a bargaining pattern characterized by few if any work rule givebacks have worried those advocating for tougher tenure rules and the end of rubber rooms.
“I thought when that New Yorker piece came out, I thought that would have led to something and it didn’t. The mayor didn’t say a word,” Williams said. “A lot of people read that an indictment of the teachers union, but I read it as an indictment of the mayor’s inability to deal with the situation. If the city’s not asking for changes, it’s hard to see why the union would give things up.”
Another issue that could threaten the expansion of initiatives like merit pay is the looming budget cuts Governor David Paterson has proposed, which would pull $223 million out of state aid to city schools.
Ravitch said promises from state officials to make state tests more difficult could force Bloomberg to spend his third term on the defensive.
“Their fundamental problem is this whole strategy is based on scores, scores, scores and the state scores are going to go down and the national scores have never been a source of succor to them, or relief, so that’s an issue they’re going to have to deal with one way or another,” Ravitch said. “The question is how they will respond and my guess is they’ll redouble their focus on test prep.”
Discussion of Bloomberg’s third term aims is inseparable from chatter about Klein’s future. In the weeks before his win, Bloomberg said that he would ask some commissioners to resign, but hasn’t hinted at which ones. Though a letter from Klein to DOE employees today makes liberal use of the first person plural, he doesn’t say he’ll stay.
“My hunch is their biggest concern will be locking reforms so they cannot easily be undone by those that follow them,” said Chester Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank. “I have the strongest possible sense that Joel feels the job is not yet completed.”
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November 4th, 2009 3:44 pm
Flush with triumph?
More like flush with embarrassment.
He won by a little more than 50,000 votes.
Last night was a repudiation of Mayor Moneybags.
He outspent a really bad candidate 14-1, said really bad candidate was abandoned by his own party and his party’s traditional power base (i.e., the unions), said bad candidate’s fellow Dem, President Obushma, offered a tepid public endorsement for him while working for Bloomberg behind the scenes, and Bloomberg still only won by 50,000 votes.
Now it’s true the shills at this website and other ed websites and foundations will be licking their lips at a third Bloomberg term and all the possible changes and deforms that will bring.
But given history, when third terms have most members of mayoral administrations being carted out in handcuffs, and given the inauspicious start to the Mayor of Money’s third term last night, people know he’s already a wounded lame duck with absolutely no mandate or juice to do anything.
He may not see it that way; it is incumbent upon the political leaders and union leaders in this city not bought and sold by him already to let him no HE’S GOT NOTHING ANYMORE.
He won by 50,000 votes - he spent well over a $100 million to “win.”
That’s truly laughable.
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November 4th, 2009 4:49 pm
After you’ve given 98% of the elementary and middle schools A’s and B’s, what’s left?
Moreover, in that light, what could possibly be the justification for dismantling that system, replacing big chunks of it with charters, or any other reorg?
They spent $100M ($2,000 per marginal vote) declaring victory on the education front. Now they want to change direction? Uhgain?
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November 4th, 2009 4:58 pm
Hey RBE, I think your Monday morning quarterbacking is a little off base. The exit polls counted two major issues for those voting against Daddy Warbucks: (a) his outrageous spending and campaigning barrage and (b) his advocating overturning term limits.
There was no mention of concern over his actual policies, or the way he’s run the city. I’ll bet the more experienced political prognosticators out there would say, given the way Thompson ran his campaign (with a lot of hot air, little substance to offer, and lots of negative, pessimistic attacks on the incumbent), if he had equal resources he’d dig himself a bigger hole than he was able to. Remember, another of the NYT stories said that voters still didn’t really know Thompson. Are you so sure more votes would have gone his way if they got to know him?
By the way, it’s interesting that the mayor was roundly criticized for his treatment of term limits, but he had willing co-conspirators in the City Council, and all of them were voted back in with landslide numbers. (I have to admit, I voted for my incumbent City Councilmember…)
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November 4th, 2009 5:10 pm
KS,
Thompson’s platform on education was comprehensive. Other than the PR blitz, Bloomberg’s was a powerpoint re charters.
I’m surprised — after $85M of junk mail and robocalls — you’d think Thompson ran the more negative campaign. How could that even be possible given the spending disparity and the content of the Bloomberg mailers?
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November 4th, 2009 5:29 pm
Kitchen Sink - I never said it was a repudiation of his policies - I said it was a rejection of him.
He garnered 100,000 fewer votes this year than four years ago.
People said they were going to vote for him when pollsters called.
Then they stayed home.
He won because a) his “aura of invincibility” as spun by his campaign people and their shills in the media, along with his fortune, scared more competent opponents out of the race (i.e., Weiner) b) the Clinton people and other Dems he hired made sure Dem money dried up for any potential opponent of Bloomberg - Thompson’s fund raising was anemic even compared to Ferrer standards c) Thompson sucked - his campaign was amateurish, unfocused and had one (negative) message - Bloomberg is a dictator. Hell, I loath Bloomberg and I still didn’t want to vote for Thompson.
It’s difficult to lose a race when you’re an incumbent and it’s especially difficult to lose when you’ve got a 14-1 financial advantage and an incompetent opponent, and yet Bloomberg almost managed to do it.
Whatever political cache and juice he once had was lost last night when NBC retracted it’s declaration of a Bloomberg victory after 10 PM. The stories of Bloomberg aides glumly looking at their Blackberries as the race got tighter after 10 PM are delightful to read - there is nothing like seeing a bunch of bullies get a little come-uppance.
It’s true that in the end they won. But by a laughable margin, all things considered.
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