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The Bloomberg administration is arguing that chaos and anarchy would result if state lawmakers let mayoral control expire on June 30. But the reality of the school system prior to 2002 pokes major holes in the officials’ argument.

Over the last several days, Mayor Bloomberg has likened the resurrection of the pre-2002 decentralized school system to the return of the Soviet Union and has forecast widespread chaos. In a memo released today, Department of Education officials outlined how the system will become gridlocked if the law expires and the current power structure breaks down.

But the department’s memo rests on assumptions that people familiar with the pre-2002 governance structure picked apart in interviews today.

“I think a return to the Board of Education structure would be most unfortunate because of the tension, the politics, and the lack of coordination that the structure causes,” said former chancellor Harold Levy. “But it’s clear to me that the mechanics of having it function would be perfectly doable provided that the Board itself was reconstituted by the borough presidents.”

“They’re crying wolf. They’re catastrophizing,” said former general counsel to the Board of Education, David Bloomfield. (more…)

This is the memo Governor Paterson sent out listing the order of business for today’s special Senate session. He’s called the items “basically non-controversial.” Mayoral control is No. 3, and Paterson plans to introduce a copy of the bill the Assembly passed last week — the one that Mayor Bloomberg supports, without too many “tweaks.”

The session starts at 3 p.m., but of course, in order to vote, the senators have to know who’s in charge. And they still don’t.

(Postscript: Here’s why people don’t like the Wicks Law.)

The full agenda: (more…)

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is asking his office to craft a contingency plan for what he called an “Armageddon” scenario: the possibility that state lawmakers will not renew or revise the 2002 mayoral control law by June 30, its expiration date. In an interview with me this afternoon, Stringer urged Mayor Bloomberg to do the same thing.

“Normally, I would not take seriously this notion that the legislature would not finish mayoral control, do the sales tax, whatever,” Stringer told me today in a telephone interview. “But that’s before the thug and crook took control of the Senate.”

Stringer, himself a former Assemblyman, said that he is concerned that the Senate will not be in a position to take a vote on a renewed mayoral control law by June 30, the day the 2002 law expires. That would set the city’s legal clock back to the pre-2002 days when a citywide school board had the power to appoint — and get rid of — a schools chancellor.

Mayor Bloomberg has said that letting mayoral control expire would cause “riots in the streets.” Asked today whether he is preparing for that scenario, Bloomberg told reporters he’d rather not think about it. “It would be a nightmare, but I just cannot conceive of it happening. And we shouldn’t waste a lot of time preparing for it,” Bloomberg said. “This will get done. The public will not stand for this not getting done.” (more…)

As the fate of New York’s school governance legislation shifts to the Senate, groups advocating for language that would curb the mayor’s power are left to weigh their options.

Initially, many hoped that the bill passed in the Assembly would contain fixed terms for members of the Panel for Educational Policy, or would prevent the mayor from appointing the majority of the panel’s members. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s bill that sailed through the Assembly on Wednesday did neither.

Yet groups like the Parent Commission and the Campaign for Better Schools remain optimistic that the bill that is eventually enacted will look different.

Some opponents believe that they’ve oddly benefited from the Senate meltdown. With the Senate Republicans saying they’ll support Silver’s bill, Democrats there could perceive going along with the Speaker’s bill as capitulation, the opponents reason. Instead, opponents hope Democrats will seek to distance themselves from the Republican position by offering amendments to the bill. (more…)

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s mayoral control bill passed the Assembly 121-18 just now, our Anna Phillips reports to us from Albany. The bill would continue the mayor’s control of the schools until 2015, with some added checks, including strengthened audit powers over Department of Education data.

All eyes now move to the state Senate, where the new Democratic leader, John Sampson, is vowing to fight for more checks to the mayor’s power.

UPDATE: Anna sends in the no votes. They are Alan Maisel, Hakeem Jeffries, Carl Heastie, Jeffrey Dinowitz, Joseph Abbate, William Colton, James Brennan, Mark Weprin, Jose Rivera, Naomi Rivera, Jeffrion Aubry, Daniel O’Donnell, Annette Robinson, Deborah Glick, Vanessa Gibson, Nick Perry, Marcos Crespo, Nelson Castro. Inez Barron did not vote, and Rory Lancman voted yes.

Lancman had been leading the charge to make the Department of Education both a state and city agency, a revision that is not included in Silver’s bill.

ALBANY, NY — One branch of the state government is functioning today. Lawmakers in the Assembly pushed Silver’s mayoral control bill through the ways and means committee this afternoon, readying the bill for a final vote tomorrow.

The bill immediately passed with no discussion. At least three Assembly members voted against Silver’s plan, including Mark Weprin and Jeff Aubry of Queens and Deborah Glick of Manhattan.

Aubry said he was concerned that the bill did not place fixed terms on members of the citywide school board and that it gives the mayor a majority of the appointees to the Panel for Educational Policy. Both he and Glick are supporters of the “Better Schools Act.”

Tomorrow, the Assembly will vote on the bill, and even its most vocal critics agree that its passage is guaranteed.

UPDATE 2 (from Elizabeth): Billy Easton of the Campaign for Better Schools points out that nothing is final, even if the Assembly bill passes. “Tomorrow is an Assembly vote on their initial proposal,” he said. “That does not mean that that’s the final vote that they will take on this matter. We have to see what unfolds.” Easton added that lobbyists for the campaign are meeting with members from both the Assembly and the Senate.

Exactly how negotiations between the two houses will unfold, however, is almost impossible to figure out. Anna reports from Albany that she only persuaded one senator to talk to her about mayoral control today — and his response was to say, “It can’t stay the way it is,” and walk away laughing. (more…)

Others have said that she’s caved on mayoral control, or suggested that she never actually intended to challenge the mayor’s power as she promised.

I just stumbled on teachers union president Randi Weingarten’s own interpretation, buried in her latest column for the teachers union newspaper. She declares that she has not changed her position on mayoral control, saying contrary characterizations fail to see the nuance of her position.

Weingarten also unveils a new opportunity for teachers to act as “your own check and balance”: A new membership poll the union is conducting to evaluate the Department of Education and Chancellor Joel Klein. (A poll last year found widespread disapproval of Klein, and Weingarten purchased a New York Times advertisement to publish the results.)

The details on the new poll: (more…)

We just heard from a source with connections in Albany: The Assembly’s education committee has passed Speaker Sheldon Silver’s mayoral control bill. Five of the committee’s 29 members voted against the bill, which some critics have said includes too few checks on the mayor’s authority, our source reports.

The committee’s approval means that the bill can now be voted on by the Assembly as a whole. After Silver formally proposed the bill on Sunday night, lawmakers told the New York Times that they thought the Assembly would pass the bill by Wednesday. So far, they appear to be on pace to meet that deadline.

More on this story as it develops.

UPDATE: According to committee chair Catherine Nolan’s office, the five committee members voting against the bill were James Brennan, Alan Maisel, and Joan Millman of Brooklyn; Daniel O’Donnell of Manhattan; and Mark Weprin of Queens. The bill passed the education committee last night and is headed to the Ways and Means Committee today, with debate on the Assembly floor likely tomorrow, Nolan’s office confirmed.

UPDATE 2: A reader points out that this means only half, or five of 10, of the Assembly education committee members from New York City voted for the bill. They are committee chairwoman Catherine Nolan of Queens, Carmen Arroyo and Michael Benedetto of the Bronx, and Karim Camara and Barbara Clark of Brooklyn. (Clark is one of Mayor Bloomberg’s strongest mayoral control allies in the Assembly).

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post suggested that the mayoral control bill would become law upon its passage by the full Assembly. In fact, a bill becomes law only after the State Senate passes a similar bill and the discrepancies between the two bills are negotiated away in a conference committee consisting of members of both legislative bodies. The governor then has to sign the reconciled bill to make it law. The State Senate has not tackled legislative business in the nine days since its dramatic leadership coup.

A parent reader who’s not usually on the same side as the Bloomberg administration e-mailed me his take on the Assembly mayoral control bill the mayor endorsed. To his surprise, he liked a lot of it! This is the same bill that the two main parent groups and even the teachers union are saying needs additions.

The parent’s take:

To my amazement, there seem to be considerable advancements (at least at first glance), in the powers and functioning of school leadership teams (“SLTs”) compared to the present state of the law.  For example, reaffirming the requirement that ALL members of an SLT be consulted IN ADVANCE of an appointment of a new Principal is refreshing.  Moreover, parental participation in the formulation of school based budgets, is now substantively recognized.  Further, there is some sort of appeal process to the District Superintendent put into place (albeit rather inadequately)  for SLT’s to appeal a Principal’s version of a school based budget at odds with the SLT’s Comprehensive Education Plan.

Want to share your opinion? Send an e-mail to tips@gothamschools.org.

Randi Weingarten’s participation in a press conference today beside two groups who’d like to see changes in Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s mayoral control bill doesn’t mean that she’s going to fight for those changes, too. Weingarten is being overall “very positive” about the bill, a union lobbyist in Albany told me.

“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. (more…)