June 30, 2009 is the expiration date on the current School Governance Law, enacted in 2002 to authorize mayoral control of the New York City school system. While I believe that we should maintain mayoral control and the accountability it creates, we need significant guidelines and protocols in place to avoid revisiting the kind of fiascos that have occurred under the Department of Education’s (DOE) current leadership.
If the Legislature had known that the chancellor would create a top-down, haphazard bureaucracy, marked by dramatic upheavals, the mayor never would have convinced the Legislature to grant him authority over the schools. The wholesale reorganizations of the school system have been bizarre and unnecessary.
DOE created a corporate, Etch-a-Sketch-style bureaucracy, which was drawn up, shaken, and started again from scratch three different times. The changes have confused and alienated principals, teachers, and parents in neighborhoods across the city, without being connected to demonstrable results. The next School Governance Law should delineate the authority of the mayor, chancellor, and community school district superintendents.
The Legislature passed the School Governance Law with the requirement that the city maintain the community school districts and superintendents. However, the chancellor has circumvented the law, stripped the superintendents of their authority, and created a highly centralized bureaucracy, producing a vast disconnect between local schools and the administration at Tweed.
DOE has cut budgets mid-year, rolled out new policies and initiatives without adequate consideration of the burden placed on the principals, and shackled principals to their desks and computers instead of allowing them to devote their time to education as academic leaders.
The local school districts should be the nerve centers of our school system. A local school district allows schools to function as part of the local social network, creating a communal spirit among people who live and work in the same area and strive together in pursuit of common goals. We need to re-empower superintendents and re-establish the community school districts to function as the Legislature intended.
Reliance on standardized tests to judge teachers and principals has turned our schools into test-prep factories in which strategy trumps content and students learn how best to bubble in the correct answer choices. Our principals and teachers need to be held to high standards, and the local superintendents should provide the protocol for accountability.
School assessments should be based on a combination of visits and independent evaluations by education experts, surveys from parents, teachers, and principals, frequent engagement by the superintendent and district staff, and yes, test scores.
In addition, we must utilize twenty-first century technology to allow schools to fully integrate the daily classroom with the school community. Every classroom should have computers with internet access, Smart Boards that allow teachers to post content material online, and a website through which parents with authorized access can find out what their children are learning and what their assignments are. If students are late or absent, their parents should receive automatic electronic notification via email, telephone, or text message.
Finally, the law should foster parent involvement by keeping parent coordinators, adding district support staff who can interact with parents, and continuing to create smaller high schools, which are more user-friendly and conducive to learning.
Mark Weprin, who represents the 24th Assembly District in Eastern Queens, is a parent of two New York City public school students and a longtime advocate for public education.
