Bloomberg Unveils Master Plan To Save Public Schools

Mayor Michael Bloomberg revealed his plan for saving the floundering city public school system.
The plan, delivered in an address to the New York Urban League as part of a Martin Luther King, Jr., Symposium, will focus on three objectives: streamlining bureaucracy; teaching reading, writing and math skills; and increasing parental involvement in their childrens education.
The mayor spoke of his administrations recent work "clearing out the Byzantine administrative fiefdoms that multiplied under the Board of Ed," and the importance of "ending the bureaucratic sclerosis that prevents resources and attention from going where they are needed: the classrooms."
The mayor said that Chancellor Joel I. Klein is eliminating the existing administrative structure, which will be replaced with one unified chain of command. The new structure will be divided into two staffs, one that handles instruction and another that handles only operations.
At the heart of the new structure will be ten instructional leadership divisions, or Learning Support Centers, under the supervision of Diana Lam, deputy chancellor for Teaching and Learning. Each center will be governed by one outstanding educator, selected by Klein and his staff on the basis of past achievement. These regional superintendents will sit together at department headquarters in the Tweed Building.
Each center will house 10 local instructional supervisors who will oversee up to 12 elementary, middle and high schools each.
Bloomberg summarized the chain of command: "from one deputy chancellor to 10 regional superintendents; to 100 local instructional supervisors; to 1,200 principals; to 80,000 teachers; to one million, one hundred thousand students who we are here to serve."
The mayor promised that those chosen as superintendents, supervisors and principals will be individuals already employed by the department.
The instructional administration will be supported by a "handful of specialized, well-managed back-office support centers under Deputy Chancellor for Administration Kathleen Grimm," and will perform budgeting, information technology, human resources and other administrative functions.
Approximately six "off-line" operational support centers will be responsible for different geographic areas of the city. Housed in the learning support centers, each will be run by one regional operations manager and a staff taken from current operational staff. The new structure will function "at a fraction of the sums now wasted in redundant administrative wheel-spinning," the mayor said. The six managers would replace 40 individuals in similar positions, as part of a significant reduction in non-pedagogical staff.
Up to half of 4,000 existing jobs could be eliminated in the transition, but many administrators would be reassigned to other positions in the system.
As part of his second objective — the teaching of reading, writing, and math — Bloomberg announced the creation of 8,000 classroom seats (the equivalent of 12 new schools) by taking office space from eliminated bureaucracy.
The citys 200 "successful schools," would operate with less bureaucratic interference and freedom to choose their own curricula, teacher training and budget, he said.
As for the citys other 1,000 schools, he promised a standardized approach to teaching the "3 Rs," to be dictated by the chancellors office.
Presently, city schools are using at least 75 different mathematics curriculums and 35 literacy curriculums, according to the chancellors office.
Last year, less than half of the city’s fourth graders met state standards in reading. Only 52 percent met standards in math.
One unified-curriculum district exists in the city. The Chancellors District, established by Rudy Crew, city chancellor from 1995 to 1999, included 40 schools with long histories of failure. The highly structured math and reading curriculums have caused test scores to climb steadily since the districts creation in 1996.
Bloomberg also promised that all classrooms, grade four through nine, will have their own libraries. Many elementary and middle schools already do, and this must become the standard.
"Starting in September, every day, every elementary and middle school student will be surrounded with books that challenge and motivate them," he said.
Under the new plan, students grades Kindergarten through three will receive at least 135 minutes of daily literacy instruction and an hour of math. The emphasis on math will increase relative to that placed on reading in grades three through eight.
Beginning in September, middle school English class sizes will be reduced from the current standard of 33 to a maximum of 28 students.
Bloomberg said he also plans to reform the citys special education program and has asked Klein to submit a plan to him in 60 days.
Teachers will benefit as well, as improvements will be made in the area of professional development.
Finally, Bloomberg spoke of the problem many teachers have getting the instructional materials they need.
"Our schools spend almost three billion dollars a year…on things like books, supplies, food and transportation in support of classroom activities," he said. "Weve heard terrible stories about children sitting in classrooms without basic supplies and textbooks, or about books and other classroom materials that arrive weeks or months after the start of the school term. Those days have ended."
Purchasing policies and system changes that are "saving the schools millions of dollars in commodities," and the increased use of electronic commerce are already expediting the sourcing and delivering of supplies, he said.
The third major element of the mayors plan pertains to parental involvement.
"Parents want more access to, and information about, their childrens schools," he said. "They want regular communication."
Each school will have a parent coordinator, whose job is to involve parents in their childrens education. Parent engagement will also figure into a principals performance review, so it will be perceived as a responsibility central to the job.
The learning centers will establish parent service offices, to be open at least two nights a week and on Saturdays to serve working parents. Each office will be able to handle issues concerning any school in the district.
"The governance structure of the entire school system also must become parent-oriented," said Bloomberg. "Thats why tomorrow, Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott and Chancellor Klein will testify to the Joint State Legislative Task Force on Education that our current ineffective and politically driven community school board system must be abolished."
Community boards would be replaced by Parent Engagement Boards, on which only the parents of local students could serve. This would protect the boards from "being compromised by local politicians as has happened every time in the past."
The mayor announced the formation of a "citywide system of school-linked youth, family and health services, counseling, and opportunities for after-school and extracurricular activities for youngsters." The system, soon to be announced by Klein, will be a partnership between schools and the community organizations that deliver these services, a "social compact devoted to creating 1,200 great public schools."