Despite the smiles and backlash that accompanied the completion of the New York State budget, it includes a truly shameful provision that weakens a law crucial to the future of New York City: government control. mayor on the school system.
Worse, the new law gives more control to the group that has long pulled the strings of Parliament, the United Federation of Teachers.
This is a brazen betrayal of nearly a million city students that will undermine the progress the city’s schools have made and harm the next generation, leaving them without the skills they need to succeed in their future careers – and leaving too many of them trapped in poverty and tempted into crime.
In 2002, the Legislature abolished the New York City Board of Education, which had long been an example of government incompetence and educational failure, and handed control of the school system to the mayor.
Our administration had just taken office and was pushing for change.
In 12 years, we have made major progress, increasing graduation rates by 42 percent, opening 654 new schools, closing the racial gap by nearly a quarter, and nearly doubling the college readiness rate .
When we took office, none of the top 25 performing elementary or secondary schools in the state were in New York.
When we left office, 22 of the original 25 were in New York.
At the time, the union was a partner in much of this work.
My successor as mayor and I disagreed on almost nothing, but we both strongly favored mayoral control.
Regardless of the mayor’s political leanings, the public needs to know who is in charge of schools in order to hold them accountable.
Yet the Legislature and the governor refused to make the mayor’s control permanent.
And because the law has to be reauthorized every few years, they have gradually eroded it.
Now, with the latest project, everything is hanging by a thread.
The new law removes the mayor’s power to appoint the chair of the Education Policy Panel, the group that must approve the mayor’s policies.
Instead, lawmakers and the Board of Regents (which is controlled by the legislature) can give the mayor a list of three possible candidates.
If none of the proposed choices please the mayor, he can request a new list, although Parliament is not required to provide it.
In other words: the mayor can choose the president, provided that it is a person preselected by Parliament.
It would be difficult to imagine a more cynical plan.
If the mayor is on good terms with the Legislature – and tensions are common given Albany’s desire to dictate to the city – perhaps lawmakers will agree to include the mayor’s choice on its list .
But maybe not.
And it could force the mayor to make costly political concessions.
Either way, make no mistake: it is now the Legislative Assembly that will decide the president, not the mayor.
The mayor still has the power to appoint 12 of the 23 committee members – a majority, but barely.
And the mayor no longer has the power to replace members who oppose the administration’s agenda, increasing the chances that interest groups will successfully lobby to unseat the mayor’s appointee.
Governor Hochul has supported mayoral control and has sought to reauthorize it through budget negotiations, where she has the greatest leverage.
She declared that she wanted to “stop any politicization” of municipal control.
That was great to hear.
Unfortunately, she allowed the opposite to happen – following lawmakers’ efforts to inject even more politics into the process.
It’s the governor’s job to be an advocate for children, not a mediator between the city and the union.
Parents are right to wonder: how could the city let this happen?
After all, the victims are their children, who still have not recovered from the learning loss they suffered during the pandemic.
The state could have taken many steps to help them — like expanding summer school and tutoring programs, and allowing more charter schools — but the state chose to play politics instead .
It’s no wonder the school system has lost nearly 200,000 students in recent years as families voted with their feet.
Parents, children and everyone who cares about education should stir up trouble and demand that Parliament revisit this issue before the end of the school year.
If lawmakers don’t act, there’s something else we can do: support those who challenge them — and vote them out in November.
Michael R. Bloomberg served as mayor of New York from 2002 to 2013. Adapted from Bloomberg.com.
New York Post
