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In its review of mayoral control, lawmakers should force the city Department of Education to follow the same financial transparency rules as other city agencies, Comptroller William Thompson said today at Manhattan’s Assembly school governance hearing.

But on the all-important question of whether the mayor should control a majority of the seats on the school board, currently known as the Panel for Educational Policy, Thompson said nothing. According to Elizabeth, when reporters pressed him on the point after his testimony, Thompson declined to provide a straight answer. This separates Thompson from Rep. Anthony Weiner, currently his main rival in the mayoral race. Weiner believes that the city schools should remain firmly in the mayor’s control.

Thompson urged lawmakers to clarify whether the DOE is officially a city agency and to require independent analysis of DOE data and measures to help parents to get involved in school leadership.

Thompson also described how, as president of the city’s old Board of Education, he helped build a foundation for the constrained form of mayoral control he now supports. “In short, we laid the groundwork for a more centralized management of our public school system that helped clear a path towards mayoral control,” he said. “But in doing so we prioritized two things that are currently missing from the current administration’s approach — transparency and parental involvement.”

Below the jump, Thompson’s entire testimony as it was prepared. (more…)