The new organization, NYC Kids PAC, announced a roster of candidates for City Council, Comptroller and Public Advocate they will support in the fall campaign season. Ann Kjellberg, president and spokeswoman for the PAC, said that the group has begun to collect donations and will distribute them amongst the candidates they endorse.

Many PAC steering committee members were also active in the Parent Commission on School Governance, which lobbied heavily for stronger outlets for parent involvement during the debate over mayoral control. Kjellberg said that many members were disillusioned by their experience as parents fighting for the ears of Albany lawmakers. Rather than continuing to lobby their opponents, she said, they decided to boost their political allies.

The PAC’s steering committee looked for candidates whose voting records align with the organization’s mission, which includes strengthening local control and community involvement in schools, reducing class size, opposing private sector influence in public schools and reducing standardized test preparation in classes. But the deciding factor, Kjellberg said, was each candidate’s stance against the city’s school capital program.

“We were very, very grateful and moved by those officials who stepped forth under considerable pressure from the mayor and voted their consciences on the capital plan and we wanted to encourage other officials,” she said.

Kjellberg said that the group was still in its very early stages and would continue to refine its criteria for endorsing other candidates. She said that the group’s aim is to represent a broad range of parents throughout the public school system.  “We wanted to represent all parents in the city and give a voice to all potential issues that parents want to bring to the process,” she said.

Another group of parent advocates that evolved from the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice launched their own PAC in July. Kjellberg said that she hopes the two political organizations will work together. “We don’t see ourselves as being antagonistic, but complementary,” she said.

The two groups may be part of a trend of parent advocacy groups mobilized to greater activity by the legislative battle over mayoral control. “We’ve really reached a decisive stage after the governance issue,” Kjellberg said.  “We’ve reached a crossroads, and we need to start over.”

The group endorsed:

• John Liu for comptroller
• Norman Siegel for public advocate
• Charles Barron for City Council in District 42
• Alan Gerson for City Council in District 1
• Robert Jackson for City Council in District 7
• Ken Mitchell for City Council in District 49
• Diana Reyna for City Council in District 34
• Al Vann for City Council in District 36
• Mark Weprin for City Council in District 23

Last Friday, Democratic state senators reached a deal with Mayor Bloomberg (that may or may not pass), essentially ending the drawn-out negotiations. Yet groups that were in the thick of the political fight just last week are intent on remaining active, even if the mayoral control debate has largely ended.

Learn NY, which was set up roughly a year ago by allies of the Bloomberg administration to campaign for mayoral control’s renewal, will continue to exist until the Senate passes a bill bringing mayoral control back. After that, the group’s future is uncertain.

Learn NY spokeswoman Julie Wood refused to comment in greater detail.

On the opposite side of the debate are groups like the Campaign for Better Schools, the 3Rs Coalition, and the Parent Commission on School Governance, all of which advocated for significant changes to the 2002 school governance law, but favored keeping mayoral control in place. Each them face their own existential questions.

“No determination about the future of the Campaign for Better Schools has been made,” said the campaign’s director Billy Easton, in an email today.

“There is no question that the groups who comprise the Campaign for Better Schools will continue working together and organizing for educational justice,” he wrote.

At least a portion of the campaign’s funding will end this Friday, when a $350,000 grant from the Donors’ Education Collaborative, known as DEC, is set to expire.

“The grant was given a little over a year ago to encourage debate around the issue of mayoral control,” said Norma Rollins, coordinator of DEC. Rollins added that all of the campaign’s lobbying efforts were funded separately.

Steven Bell, a member of the 3Rs Coalition, which has worked with the Parent Commission to lobby for increased parental involvement, said his group would continue lobbying regardless of whatever deal is brokered.  “Even after the legislature passes whatever they pass, we’ll probably continue working,” he said.

Leonie Haimson, a member of the Parent Commission, was more guarded about the organization’s future. “I think we’ll be putting out a statement later,” she said. “I don’t think we want to jump the gun at this point.”

At the center of the debate are the two parent groups most actively lobbying Albany, and each has its own slightly different vision.

The Parent Commission on School Governance is pushing for a kind of parent union, which it calls an Independent Parent Organization and Training Academy.

According to Patricia Connelly, a member of the Parent Commission, the organization would act like a think tank-cum-lobbying force for parent advocate groups and would be modeled on the now-defunct United Parent Association.

“It can be a place where people come together and learn from one another,” Connelly said, adding that the group would also do research and train less experienced parents.

“Right now we don’t have an institutionalized role and people say well there’s OFEA [Office of Family Engagement and Advocacy], but that’s just an arm of the Department of Education and it’s more about delivering PowerPoint presentations rather than what we really need to know to be effective advocates,” she said.

The Independent Parent Organization would begin under the aegis of a nonprofit, said Steven Bell, a member of the 3R’s Coalition — a group that’s also backing the proposed organization — but would work toward becoming independent. It would have a chapter in each school district and hold elections to fill its ranks.

According to Bell, Sampson’s staff told the Independent Parent Organization’s supporters that they should aim for funding in the range of $3 to $5 million for the project, which would be paid for entirely through state education money.

Shomwa Shamapande, a spokesman for the Campaign for Better Schools — a group that wants to modify mayoral control — said the Campaign was opposed to the idea of an organization that didn’t have parent training as its central focus.

Tensions between the two groups center on concerns about diversity.

While the Parent Commission maintains that its vision of citywide chapters would attract diversity, the Campaign for Better Schools urges a focus on parents who wouldn’t otherwise get involved.

The Campaign’s own plan calls for the creation of a Citywide Parent & Student Leadership Center, which would offer training for parents and students in navigating the city’s public school bureaucracy.

The Leadership Center would focus on schools with weak or virtually non-existent Parent Associations and schools with a majority of African-American, Latino, low-income, and immigrant students. The Campaign is asking for $5 million in funding for the Center, which would be attached to a nonprofit.

Shamapande said the Center’s training would emphasize ways to get bilingual education and special needs students the proper instruction.

Connelly said the Parent Commission would welcome a training center in addition to the Independent Parent Organization. “I don’t think we’re in contradiction with other plans,” she said. “We’re complementary.”

All spring, local activists who oppose mayoral control have been urging people to contact their lawmakers. But after the mayoral control law expired and Bloomberg packed the new Board of Education with his appointees anyway, it became clear that a more powerful protest was needed, according to Jitu Weusi, a longtime activist from Brooklyn.

A protest being held at 5 p.m. today outside Tweed Courthouse, education department headquarters, will highlight widespread opposition to “the mayoral control dictatorship,” Weusi said. He told me that community activists from all five boroughs have signed onto the event.

City Councilman Charles Barron, who has called for Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to be fired, helped organize a planning meeting last week that about 40 people attended, Weusi said. Weusi spoke last fall at the first forum organized by the Parent Commission on School Governance, which has pushed for substantial changes to mayoral control, and the commission is co-sponsoring today’s protest.

Parent activist Ann Kjellberg, who attended the planning meeting, said today would mark a change from the recent past, when local activists stuck to their own communities. “I think everybody’s distress at what happened with the political process reached such a point that the protest became so loud that we heard each other,” she said.

Today’s protest will not be the last city officials will hear from the as-yet-unnamed coalition, Weusi said. ”This is just like an announcement that we are serving notice that we are an official citywide body of discontent,” he said.

“It would be very unlikely that we would oppose, because we think there’s so much good in here,” the lobbyist in Albany told me. “It would only be whether or not to issue a memo in support.”

Weingarten is still hoping that a parent initiative will get added into the law, and she met with lawmakers today to promote the idea, the lobbyist said. She and the other two groups are asking the state to fund a separate organization or initiative that would give parents a voice in the policy discussion. The idea is similar to one Weingarten endorsed in a speech last year, when she urged a community coalition that had fought budget cuts to become a permanent organization.

The clarification of her participation follows confusion among lawmakers about exactly where Weingarten stands on mayoral control, a state legislator told me today.

Another sign of ambiguity came in the form of a press release that never arrived. A source with the parent groups said the teachers union promised to take care of alerting reporters to today’s press conference. But no press release arrived in our inbox, and when I asked Ron Davis, a spokesman for the union, to look over a press release a parent group leader sent me, he said he didn’t recognize it.

Accentuating confusion among lawmakers was the fact that last week, a group of about 15 local union officials urged lawmakers to fight for fixed terms for school board members, but Weingarten did not weigh in. The lobbyist told me the union has now decided that fixed terms are not a likely possibility.

Here’s the full press release from this morning’s press conference:

For Immediate Release
June 15, 2009

For Information
Shomwa Shamapande, Campaign for Better Schools, 917-447-5752
Patricia Connelly, Parent Commission on School Governance, 718-812-6728
Brian Gibbons, United Federation of Teachers, 212-598-9233

MEDIA RELEASE

Campaign for Better Schools, Parent Commission on School Governance
and the United Federation of Teachers Call on
Assembly to Add Fixed Terms, Parent and Student Training  and other
Key Elements to Mayoral Control Legislation
Albany —The Campaign for Better Schools, the Parent Commission on School Governance and the United Federation of Teachers called for additions to the State Assembly’s legislative proposal on Mayoral Control at the State Capitol today.

The focus of today’s press conference was on specific improvements that could be added to the Assembly proposal before it comes to a vote this week. Participants in the press conference called for:
•    fixed terms for members of the PEP in order to ensure independence;
•    strengthening parent and community engagement through an independent and publicly funded parent and student outreach and training initiative;
•    guarantees that district superintendents will have the authority to do their jobs in their assigned districts;
•    further protections for parents and community to have a role in decision making around school sitings, closings and insertions, and that these decisions are based upon an impact study that includes impact on English language learners, special education students, and the closing of the achievement gap; and
•    the Department of Education to be required to comply with all relevant State and City laws.
•    A two-year sunset to see if the governance changes have worked to increase and improve parent input into decision-making.

“These concepts are all squarely focused on ensuring a governance model that supports schools, engages parents and most of all, improves outcomes for our children,” said Randi Weingarten, President, United Federation of Teachers.  “Collectively, these are reasonable and responsible measures that would keep the stability and cohesion of mayoral control while also addressing the shortcomings in the current model by institutionalizing checks and balances, transparency and voice. It’s a best of both worlds approach.”

“There has to be real teeth in this governance structure especially in regards to parent and student participation,” said Zakiyah Ansari a parent leader with the Campaign for Better Schools.  “I have served on every parent structure in the school system, the lack of a funded and independent parent and student outreach and training center is a huge shortcoming in the current system and in the Assembly proposal.  And locally, our schools need District Superintendents who have the authority to do their jobs in their districts. The Mayor has had seven years and hasn’t got it right.  Parents are asking the Assembly to please listen: reform the law to include the voice of parents and students.”

“The Parent Commission is calling for an independent and publicly funded parent and community group to be established to strengthen the parent and community members role in decision making at the school, district and citywide levels,” said Benita Rivera of the Parent Commission.

“The Parent Commission also is asking for a two year sunset for the current legislation
on mayoral control so that we and the legislature can better evaluate whether the new
governance law is working properly,” said Tamara Rowe, President of the Presidents Council in District 2.

“Although there are several positive provisions in the Assembly proposal, on the two fundamental priorities in the debate it falls short of the mark,” said Billy Easton, of the Campaign for Better Schools.  “The Panel on Educational Policy has no independence and not enough is done to engage parents and students which is why we are calling for fixed terms on the PEP and an independent and funded parent and student outreach and training center.  There is still time to do something to address the need for PEP independence and meaningful parent and student participation.”

The partners in the press conference came together today as parents, teachers, students, community, and community based organizations to stand united in calling on the Assembly to add to its school governance bill a greater role for parents, students and the community in decision making at the school, district & citywide levels.

The Campaign for Better Schools and the Parent Commission on School Governance have sponsors for their separate plans for school governance and reform in the legislature. The Campaign for Better Schools proposal was introduced by Assemblyman Carl Heastie, Senator Kevin Parker and others as the Better Schools Act (A8478/S5576).  The Parent Commission proposal was introduced by Assemblyman Danny O’Donnell and Senator Shirley Huntley and others as the Education Through Partnership Act (A8550/S5739).  A central feature of the Education Through Partnership Act is a provision calling for a stakeholders’ commission to draft a consensus document, for the legislature’s approval, including the mission, goals and operating principles for the NYC school system.

There are several items in the Assembly proposal the participants in the press conference support including:
•    having the Independent Budget Office prepare analysis and evaluations of Department
of Education programs and student outcomes;
•    having the New York City Comptroller perform fiscal audits of the Department of Education;
•    adding basic public notice and public hearing to various procedures,
•    requiring that School leadership teams have the central role in developing Comprehensive Education Plans and School-based budgets.

###

Randi Weingarten testifying at a mayoral control hearing in February. (GothamSchools)

A group of parent activists and union members is expressing anger with teachers union leader Randi Weingarten, telling her that she has dropped the ball in fighting for checks to the mayor’s power over schools.

The frustration began with a May 21 New York Post column, in which Weingarten indicated that she is open to allowing the mayor to continue appointing a majority of members to the citywide school board. A union task force recommended in February that the state legislature reverse that majority as a way to strengthen the board, known as the Panel for Education Policy or PEP.

Weingarten’s Post op/ed dismayed some members of her own union. “I was quite disappointed and angry, actually,” said Lisa North, a teacher who sat on the union’s task force to consider revisions to mayoral control.

North said the task force never seriously considered recommending that the mayor keep his majority of appointments, and so when union delegates ratified the committee’s final recommendations, she expected Weingarten to promote them. “The delegate assembly is supposed to be the highest authority of the union, and it voted for it,” she said.

In an interview today, Weingarten acknowledged that people have reached out to her with concerns about her position, including her own union members. ”I did get a couple of e-mails from members saying, ‘Why are you doing what you’re doing?’” she said. She said that she empathizes with those concerns. “I totally and completely understand and concur with the frustrations that many have that this mayor and this chancellor have not listened to and respected enough the voices of those who go to our schools, their parents, and those who teach them,” she said.

But she also said that she has to weigh concerns about checking the mayor’s power against the reasons she supported giving the mayor control in 2002. “It’s always been a balance of stability, cohesion, and responsibility, which is what mayoral control brought us, and modifying it to create sufficient checks and balances and transparency,” Weingarten said.

Parent leaders, who had hoped to ally with the United Federation of Teachers to lobby in Albany, also say they feel alienated by Weingarten. Lisa Donlan, a Manhattan parent who is part of the Parent Commission on School Governance, which is calling for significant changes to mayoral control, said the Post column ended discussions between the union and parent leaders who are strategizing about how to lobby lawmakers. Donlan said the Parent Commission had been trying to identify areas of agreement among all of the groups who have suggested revisions to mayoral control so that it could present a unified slate of recommendations in Albany.

“We felt very comfortable going into that conversation [with the UFT] that we all believe that the mayor should not have control of the central board,” Donlan told me.

The confidence disappeared with the Post article, Donlan said. ”That conversation did stop when [Weingarten] pulled back on the composition of the PEP,” she said. “We feel very disappointed that we don’t have the UFT advocating any more for that shift at the central level, where policy is made.”

Activists within the teachers’ union are also showing their concern. “The idea that [Weingarten] would have a task force that spent a year studying the issue and then on her own, say something different … This is a betrayal of the task force concept,” said union activist Norm Scott.

“I do feel betrayed,” said Michael Fiorillo, another chapter leader who sat on the union’s task force. “I just wish I could say I felt surprised.” He said Weingarten has veered away from members’ consensus on other topics in the past, and so he had early doubts that she would hold firm on the task force’s recommendations. (Fiorillo ultimately voted against the recommendations, saying they weren’t aggressive enough curbs on mayoral control.)

“My guess would be the sense of betrayal would be stronger among people outside the union,” Fiorillo said, noting that union members were accustomed to watching Weingarten change her mind.

In the interview, Weingarten emphasized two checks to the mayor’s power that do not involve the school board: empowering district superintendents and parent councils to have more decision-making power. “There’s different kinds of ways to get to the standards I just set out,” she said, referring to her commitment to ensuring “checks and balances” and “transparency.”

Weingarten’s critics say that checks and balances are insufficient in a system that is fundamentally flawed. “From the Parent Commission’s point of view, unless we change the balance of power, all of the minor adjustments to the system would be severely handicapped,” Donlan said.

“I am hoping that the legislators in Albany, if they don’t have direct knowledge of how bad things are for our children, that they will be influenced by the hand of the Lord on their heads,” said Benita Lovett-Rivera, one of the event’s organizers.

From tonight until 8:19 p.m. tomorrow — the official sunset — opponents of mayoral control citywide will abstain from eating and drinking. At 7 p.m. they will gather in small groups for “fervent” prayer and to sing the protest song “We Shall Overcome,” Lovett-Rivera said. She told me she has heard from nearly a thousand people who said they would participate.

The fast was the brainchild of a small group of mothers who attended a recent town hall meeting about mayoral control in Brooklyn (that Elizabeth moderated), where Major Owens, the former longtime congressman from Brooklyn, said he wished opponents of mayoral control would mobilize to stop the school governance law from being renewed, rather than just hold forums about it.

After the event, the mothers, who also included a District 13 activist and two members of the Parent Commission on School Governance, discussed what they could actually do, given their limited resources and short time frame, Lovett-Rivera told me. We can pray, she said they decided.

“We all felt very spiritually this is such a big fight for those of us who don’t have the armor of financial power and political clout,” Lovett-Rivera said.

She said she opposes mayoral control after witnessing the effects of the current administration on her family and community. Her son was shunted into a new small high school where he did not get the preparation or support he needed for college, she told me.

The ”Better Schools Act,” introduced today in both the Assembly and State Senate, would turn into law many of the recommendations made by the Campaign for Better Schools, the coalition of community groups which is calling for control over the city school board to be taken away from the mayor. The bill’s lead sponsor in the Assembly is, as I reported on Monday, Carl Heastie of the Bronx, and he has 15 co-sponsors in the Assembly and eight for an identical bill in the State Senate. 

Here’s the laundry list of bill supporters, from the Campaign for Better Schools’ press release:

Sponsors include Assembly Members Jeff Aubry, Inez Barron, William F. Boyland, Jr., Nelson Castro, William Colton, Vivian Cook, Deborah Glick, Carl Heastie, Janelle Hyer-Spencer, Hakeem Jeffries, David Koon, Grace Meng, Nick Perry, Linda Rosenthal, Matthew Titone and Keith L. Wright. And Senators Ruben Diaz, Sr., Ruth Hassell-Thompson, Shirley Huntley, Velmanette Montgomery, Kevin Parker, Bill Perkins, John Sampson and Diane Savino

Meanwhile, members of the Parent Commission on School Governance, which is also calling for substantial curbs on the mayor’s school control, are working on lining up sponsors for a bill to support the commission’s recommendations. A member told me today that Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell of the Upper West Side has agreed to sponsor the bill, and that the group is close to narrowing in on a State Senate sponsor as well, with a goal of having legislation introduced early next week.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver

In the part of the city represented in Albany by the man who helped give control of the city schools to Mayor Bloomberg, both community boards are asking lawmakers to take some of that power away.

Community Board 1, one of two boards in Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s downtown Manhattan district, passed a set of resolutions last Tuesday that advise lawmakers to alter mayoral control in the city dramatically. In addition to calling on lawmakers to empower district parent councils and place checks on the mayor’s authority, CB 1 endorsed the recommendations put forth in March by the Parent Commission on School Governance. The Parent Commission, which draws its members from across the city, is calling on state lawmakers to slash the number of mayoral appointees to the city school board and shift more power to parents.

CB1′s set of resolutions got a couple of press mentions last week, at the same time as another community board resolution against the current form of mayoral control slipped under the radar. Members of Community Board 3, which covers Chinatown and the Lower East Side, voted unanimously (with one abstention) to endorse the Parent Commission’s recommendations. 

Together, CB 1 and CB 3 make up the entirety of Silver’s 64th Assembly District. With just eight weeks until state lawmakers’ deadline to decide what to do about mayoral control, the resolutions place Silver in the difficult position of having brokered the deal that gave Bloomberg control over the schools but representing politically engaged constituents who wish he hadn’t. Silver has said he thinks mayoral control should be renewed, but with some changes to give more voice to parents.

Leonie Haimson, a founding member of the Parent Commission, said the group did not begin with a grand strategy of putting pressure on key lawmakers. Instead, members are seeking to have the commission’s recommendations considered by community boards and school district parent councils throughout the city. “We’re doing outreach as quickly and efficiently as possible given that we have only a short time,” Haimson said. 

But with parents on the commission who have ties to the downtown Manhattan community boards, the group was happy to have its first endorsements come from the Assembly district of one of the key decision-makers in the school governance debate.   

“We were not ignorant of the fact that these are in Shelly Silver’s district,” Haimson told me.  

Haimson said members of CB 1 have asked for a meeting with Silver to explain their objections to mayoral control as it currently exists. And the Parent Commission’s recommendations are already on the agendas of several district parent councils, with other community boards also considering putting the recommendations up for an advisory vote, she said. 

The complete resolutions from both community boards are below.

Community Board 3 Resolution:

Whereas mayoral control is sunsetting June 30, 2009

Whereas the Parent commission on School Governance and Mayoral Control has presented a comprehensive structure for parental input

Whereas under mayoral control there has been a lack of parental and educator input in the New York City education system

Be it resolved, that Manhattan Community Board 3 endorses the principles, goals, and proposals of the Parent Commission, to create a governance system distinguished by an educational partnership between the Mayor, parents and educators who together would endeaver strive toward consensus in the effort to improve our schools.

Community Board 1 Resolutions

Their proposal is topped off by a radical answer to the question of how to change the Panel for Educational Policy — the effective citywide school board — that would both strengthen the powers of the board and reshape who sits on it. The board would include just three mayoral appointees compared to six parent representatives, plus a City Council appointee, an appointee of the public advocate,and four expert members selected jointly by the board.

The commission is also proposing a stronger role for the CEC elected parent councils in each district. A key complaint about Mayor Bloomberg’s leadership has been that parents are not included in decision-making about the schools. Some have criticized the DOE for not consulting those councils when choosing to open and close schools, as is required by law.

Lisa Donlan, a commission member from Manhattan and the president of a CEC, testified that the state should create an “ombudsperson” role who would have the legal authority to advocate for parents when they aren’t comfortable advocating for themselves. This role addresses the DOE’s Office of Family Engagement and Advocacy, which Freeman called “a way of distracting [parents], but not a way of helping them.”

The commission also suggests creating a Parent Academy to train parent leaders, who Monica Major declared need “much more than a 45-minute Power Point at an OFEA training.” Major said the commission will call for official meetings to be publicized on the Internet, with agendas posted beforehand and transcripts afterward.

Members testified today that the commission will also ask legislators to require that chancellors have at least three years experience as a teacher and principal. They also want the city’s district attorneys to appoint an inspector general to investigate and report publicly claims of misconduct.

Members argued that structural changes aren’t the only ones they will seek. “What is needed is an explicit and legally binding declaration of purpose for what we are trying to accomplish,” said commission member Josh Karan, who lives in Upper Manhattan. The commission is asking legislators to convene a committee to draft a “constitution” for the city schools that would both provide guidance for future changes and open the door to lawsuits.

Here’s the complete formula the commission presented for a reinvigorated board of education:

• Six parent representatives, with five elected by community education councils and one seat reserved for a parent with a child in special education
• Three mayoral appointees
• One City Council appointee
• One appointee of the public advocate
• Four additional members chosen by the board, each with expertise in different areas

(Via NYC Public School Parents, AfterEd TV)

Ravitch and her fellow panelists, community organizer and retired educator Jitu Weusi and New York State Regent and former educator Betty Rosa, provided an overview of the history of school governance to a crowd of more than 200 parents, education activists, teachers, and others interested in the future organization of the city school system. The current school governance law, establishing mayoral control of the schools, sunsets in June 2009; the state assembly will begin holding public hearings on the issue in January.

The Parent Commission is planning monthly panels on different aspects of school governance to help answer the overarching question of what model will serve New York’s children best.

Ravitch launched her overview of 200 years of changing school governance in New York with the statement, “You’re in school, here’s your history lesson.” You can read a detailed account in her paper advising the Public Advocate’s Commission on School Governance, but here are a few highlights:

In 1869 Boss Tweed took over the school system, shut down the existing Board of Education, and created a created a Department of Education run by the mayor. When Tweed was jailed in 1873, reformers returned power to an independent Board of Education, however, all members were appointed by the mayor and no school officials at any level were elected. The boroughs were consolidated in 1898 to form the City of New York, and a central board was created along with 4 boards representing the boroughs (Manhattan and the Bronx were combined). Conflict among these boards soon led the state to abolish them and create a large central school board and many small, powerless district boards. This system lasted until 1969, when, in response to the Ocean Hill-Brownsville conflict, a new 7-member central board was created, with 1 elected member from each borough, plus two mayoral appointees. Due to concerns about unfair representation since borough populations varied, elections never took place and instead borough representatives were appointed by the borough presidents. Finally, in 2002, Mayor Bloomberg took over control of the schools, created the Department of Education and reorganized the school bureaucracy.

“At no time has there been so total an absence of democratic participation in control of the schools,” Ravitch concluded, adding that among major U.S. cities, at least two top-performing districts have school boards, two poorly-performing districts have mayoral control, and neither system seems to guarantee a good education to students.

Weusi, who helped organize African-American teachers in Brooklyn’s Ocean Hill-Brownsville section in the 1960s, spoke about the events in that community and across the city that led to conflict between the United Federation of Teachers and neighborhood activists who wanted more control of their children’s schools. Ocean Hill-Brownsville was a “demonstration site” for decentralization, overseen by a local superintendent.  After the abrupt firing of more than a dozen teachers led to bitter racial tensions and three teacher strikes, new legislation created 32 weak community school boards headed by a strong chancellor and central school board.

Betty Rosa spoke last, sharing her experience working with students with special needs in District 75 and later, serving as community superintendent in District 8. She said that when she was first tapped to become a superintendent, she hesitated because she felt “the school boards were so focused on adult issues and I wanted to focus on instruction.” Nevertheless, she became a superintendent, inheriting a community school board rife with conflict. She says that she worked hard to unify her board and keep its attention directed to issues affecting children. Rosa said after Mayor Bloomberg began reorganizing the school system in 2003, she resigned, telling the principals she worked with, “I will not let this mayor rewrite my history.”

Moderator Pedro Noguera, a professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at NYU, followed up, asking the panelists to describe the kind of governance structure that would give the community a voice while ensuring good academic outcomes for children.

None of the three panelists had a specific proposal for a new system, but all emphasized the need for checks and balances and better avenues for public participation.

The panelists pointed to flat or falling scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests and high enrollment of city graduates in remedial classes at CUNY, calling into question the stream of good news — a shrinking achievement gap and rising graduation rates, widespread improvement in school progress report grades — coming out of the Department of Education.

“If the mayor is in control, what is he going to say, the schools have failed since I took control?” Weusi said.

Weusi expressed concern about a lack of critical media coverage of the schools. “If you see something, say something? … You cannot say anything about anything you see in these schools,” he quipped.