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Comptroller Bill Thompson. (Via Azi's Flickr.)

My former colleague Jacob Gershman is very good at raising subjects everyone is talking about but nobody says in print. He did so with today’s piece on Comptroller William Thompson Jr., who is making school issues a big part of his mayoral campaign — without clarifying his positions on some of the main school issues of the day.

Gershman argues Thompson possesses a “carefully cultivated irrelevance.” But there is stuff we do know about where Thompson stands on education issues, though much of the facts raise more questions than they answer.

First, we know that he’s said he favors retaining control of the school system if he becomes mayor. It’s unclear exactly how much control he’d like to give himself (a big empty space, as we pointed out), but he’s said repeatedly that he supports the mayor having primary authority. “I may be in a shrinking group of those who support it,” he told a committee in testimony that was supposed to be off the record but which I obtained when I was at the New York Sun.

We also know the two main points of attack Thompson has selected for criticizing Bloomberg’s school efforts: He criticizes the mayor on transparency, which he says is so poor that even his office struggles to understand the school system’s finances, and parental involvement. Both of these are safe issues; they’re exactly the points conceded by one of the most prominent mayoral allies on schools, Geoffrey Canada, and they avoid the nastier battlegrounds of school closings, accountability, and charter schools. (more…)

Betsy Gotbaum, the current public advocate, has routinely directed her scrutiny toward the Department of Education.

This week, the city’s first public advocate, Mark Green, entered the race to take over for Gotbaum when she vacates the position at the end of this year. Green served from 1994 to 2001, and he paid attention to education, too — but he focused his efforts on what was then the Board of Education.

Here’s one of his first battles:

Mark Green, the city’s Public Advocate, sent a letter to Mr. Cortines on Friday asking that the board’s recycling regulations be adopted and released as soon as possible.

“It’s inexcusable that the Board of Education’s foot-dragging has gone on for five years,” Mr. Green said. “We can’t undo the board’s malfeasance, only hope that other governmental institutions do everything possible to accelerate the recycling programs.”

The battle to force the schools to recycle, by the way, is still being fought.

Chancellor Klein earns about six times the starting salary of a new New York City teacher. But back in 1898, the first superintendent of the city’s consolidated Board of Education, William H. Maxwell, was paid $8,000 — more than 13 times what female elementary school teachers earned. (Male teachers at the time had things a little easier: They were guaranteed a minimum of $720, or about 1/11th of Maxwell’s salary, compared to female teachers’ $600.)

An update on my post earlier today, about whether the school system’s Special Commissioner for Investigations should have to send his reports to more than just the schools chancellor. As I reported, the city’s position is that the acting Board of Education, the Panel for Educational Policy, shouldn’t receive the reports, even though SCI’s charter dictates that it should.

I first reported that I didn’t know why the city took that position. I just spoke to a spokeswoman at the city law department, who filled me in a bit more: The reason, she said, is buried in a little place you’ve probably never looked called education law section 2590-g, which governors the “Powers and duties of the city board.”

Here’s how the law begins:

The city board shall advise the chancellor on matters of policy affecting the welfare of the city school district and its pupils. The board shall exercise no executive power and perform no executive or administrative functions. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to require or authorize the day-to-day supervision or the administration of the operations of any school within the city school district of the city of New York.

I’m no lawyer, but I guess the argument goes that because the Board of Ed — e.g. the PEP — is no longer an executive power it also shouldn’t receive SCI reports? Or, alternatively, they’re arguing that reviewing SCI reports is a matter of “day-to-day supervision” or operations administration?

I’m not sure. The law department spokeswoman, Connie Pankratz, wouldn’t get into details.

110 Livingston Street, home of the old Board of Education, now houses condominiums. But the Board of Education lives, however quietly.

Earlier this month, I wrote about all the investigations into the Department of Education that happen every year but are never publicly reported. (In 2007, the Special Commissioner of Investigations into the DOE filed almost 300 reports that never became public knowledge.) A key to the reports’ remaining outside the spotlight: The only person besides the investigator who gets copies of them is the chancellor.

But it turns out that there’s another city group that might have the right to look at the reports: The Panel for Educational Policy, the 13-member group charged with voting on policy changes proposed by the chancellor.

The logic behind that possibility is buried inside the law that created the investigator in the first place, an executive order issued by Mayor David Dinkins in 1990. Here’s an excerpt from the order (PDF):

(e) The Deputy Commissioner shall, at the conclusion of any investigation that results in a written report or statement of findings, provide a copy of the report or statement to the Commissioner of Investigation, Chancellor, and the Board of Education.

What’s the Board of Education in an age of mayoral control? (more…)