GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

State lawmakers are warning that if the Department of Education doesn’t comply with the new governance law immediately, they will try to force them to.

School officials came under attack earlier this week when they laid out their time-table for implementing changes ordered by the legislature. The law required that community superintendents work exclusively “predominantly” with schools in the districts where they are assigned. Education department officials said that it would take a full school year to make that happen.

Assembly members critical of the department said this week that was too long.

“It’s violating, certainly, the spirit of the law,” said Assemblyman Alan Maisel of Brooklyn.

Maisel said that if the department continued to defy what he said was the intent  of the law, legislators in Albany do have one recourse–amending the legislation.  “There’s no law that says we couldn’t come back and come up with another piece of legislation,” he said. (more…)

It may be a new day and a new system, but at Tweed the plan for handling mayoral control’s expiration is to act as though it never happened.

When Department of Education officials began considering what the system would look like if mayoral control expired, they envisioned anarchy. (At least when talking to the press.) An internal memo released to reporters described a complete breakdown of the power structure, such that no one would have the legal authority to hire or fire teachers.

That concern appears to have been cast aside. In the days following the law’s expiration, the DOE has tried to make as few changes as possible to the school governance system.

The issue at the heart of the confusion is the legal status of community superintendents. (more…)