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A bill that would create a parent-training center is expected to sail through the Senate next week. But it could face an uphill battle in the Assembly.

Assembly members said today that they had serious doubts that the state should spent money on a parent-training center when the city’s school system has already gone through a round of budget cuts. Others were skeptical that parents of public school students would benefit from training. The center would cost the state $1.6 million, and would be housed at CUNY.

“It sounds like a colossal waste of money to me,” said Assemblyman Mark Weprin (D-Queens). “I know people want to have parent training, but our problem has never been that the parents don’t know what they’re doing, it’s that there’s no power locally,” he said.

“Obviously the senators seem to think they have a deal, but no one has checked with us,” Weprin said.

Assemblyman Micah Kellner (D-Manhattan) was equally unenthusiastic. “I’m not a fan of the idea of parent training centers,” he said. “If we want a better relationship between parents and the DOE [Department of Education] it’s not about parents needing to be trained better, it’s about making sure the DOE is listening to parents.”

“It seems like a boondoggle to me,” he added. (more…)

Last week one state politician said he would revamp mayoral control by changing who makes decisions about school policy. Two others said they are proposing legislation that would take a different approach to reforming school governance, by clarifying the constraints under which current decision-makers must operate.

Two state politicians, Assemblyman Rory Lancman and Sen. Daniel Squadron of Brooklyn, announced last week that they have introduced legislation that would require the city Department of Education to be treated just like any other city agency when it comes to budgeting, oversight by the comptroller and public advocate, and public notification about policy changes. Currently, the department occupies a no-man’s-land between city and state authority, a position that has allowed the DOE to escape some of the scrutiny regularly applied to other city agencies and to avoid following laws passed by the City Council.

Lancman and Squadron say their bill is not meant as a comprehensive way to address the school governance question, which lawmakers must tackle by the end of next month. Instead, they say, it’s meant to close a big loophole in the law that has been open since 2002, when the state gave control of the city schools to Mayor Bloomberg. The loophole allowed the nonprofit organization that raises money for the DOE, the Fund for Public Schools, to avoid disclosing its donors, saying that disclosure rules apply only to groups working with city agencies. The DOE has also used the loophole to justify its decision not to follow state law that says elected parent councils must be consulted before the department can close schools.

Lancman told me he doesn’t expect the bill to become law, in part because it addresses only one component of the school governance question. The final school governance bill will deal with other issues including the makeup of the school board, currently known as the Panel for Educational Policy, and how much input parents should have in DOE decisions. Lancman told me he sponsored a partial bill to raise awareness about the particular issue of whether the DOE should be a city agency. “This legislation is a vehicle for driving this issue into the final bill,” he said.

Lancman and Squadron’s bill would firmly establish the DOE as a city agency. (more…)