Will the Legislature renew Mayor de Blasio’s control of New York City schools? He hasn’t earned it — but, in the bizzaro world of New York public education, the alternatives are as bad or worse.
The mayoral-control law expires in June. De Blasio’s asking for seven more years, same as he did last year — when he got one.
For that, thank the Republican majority in the state Senate. The Senate’s now uncommitted on the question— and mainly looking forward to hearings that will force the mayor and Chancellor Carmen Fariña to defend their (indefensible) record.
Gov. Cuomo officially backs a three-year renewal, but surely won’t mind any humiliation the Senate inflicts on de Blasio.
And Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie will support whatever the United Federation of Teachers tells him to.
As a practical matter, the UFT is already running the city’s schools — de Blasio pretty much handed over that power even before he tapped Fariña to play beard.
The mayor made that clear when he gave the union a $9 billion, no-concessions contract — and even before, with his lockstep allegiance to UFT positions:
- Do your best to crush charter schools.
- Fight every effort to hold teachers accountable for their work.
- Do nothing to reform the city’s $27 billion-a-year, 1.1 million-pupil, 1,800-school system. The only change allowed is finding ways to hire more UFT members — which, by no coincidence, is the main impact of universal pre-K.
Thing is, taking official control out of de Blasio’s hands won’t dent the UFT’s power in the least.
If lawmakers just fail to renew the control law, they’d be bringing back the wholly dysfunctional days of the late and unlamented Board of Education — a time when the UFT also pretty much ran things.
The other obvious option would be to hand control to the state Board of Regents — which, oops, is also again a pawn of the teachers unions.
So, whether or not de Blasio gets control renewed, the UFT will still call the shots.
Which means the debate effectively revolves around principle. How rare is that in New York?
And the principle boils down to this: Why shouldn’t the mayor of New York have control of his city’s schools?
The answer is simple: He should.
Mayor Mike Bloomberg exercised his power productively, if imperfectly, facing down the union and achieving quantifiable, across-the-board progress.
Yes, de Blasio is unraveling most of the Bloomberg-era reforms — but he won’t be in City Hall forever.
The next mayor may well be reform-minded — and shouldn’t have to re-fight the battle for control of the classrooms.
Mayoral control should be permanent. The only problem with it is the mayor — and fixing that is up to the voters, not the Legislature.