There is no viable alternative to “mayoral control” of the city’s school system, but that didn’t save Mayor Adams from getting fleeced in Albany for a paltry two-year extension of that law.
The limited grant of power means state legislators will continue to hold the mayor’s agenda to their whims and spending priorities; buck them, and Adams risks further obstruction of his education goals.
He’s not faring any better in negotiations with the City Council, having agreed to extend its underutilized pre-kindergarten program for 3-year-olds.
While some neighborhoods have a shortage of 3,000 seats, others have a wasteful surplus, so overall funding should have been cut as seats were moved around.
As parents increasingly seek options outside the Department of Education’s schools, Adams has not forcefully argued for new charter schools, the best way to increase educational opportunity in lower-income communities.
Parents in some districts are still dealing with the reduction of merit admissions to middle schools, while access to Gifted and Talented programs has not increased.
And parents across the city have been shocked by the antisemitic actions occurring in individual schools.
At no point has the DOE appeared to take action ahead of these outrages — but has merely reacted after dogged reporters brought the incidents to light
Meanwhile, in the Legislature and Council, money talks — and the loudest voices include the school-system employees and contractors who want payouts from various programs.
With one-party dominance in both the city and state, legislators no longer need even pretend that they stand for the children.
Any mayor in Adams’ position would be holding a weak hand.
So he might well wonder where the cavalry is: Where are the parents and grandparents of the city’s schoolchildren, standing up for their students?
He needs to look in the mirror and ask himself what he has done to gain their support, to prove to them that he’s using the power of mayoral control to make tangible improvements.
In fairness, Adams inherited a mess.
The previous administration retreated from reforms that were working to improve educational opportunity across the city, for rich and poor alike.
Adams’ schools chancellor, David Banks, knows those reforms well, having used the opportunities created by the Bloomberg administration to launch his own network of responsive and innovative schools.
But where is that action now?
Adams and Banks would be wise to consider a return to some of the strategies that worked so well under Bloomberg, modified to meet current needs.
If that’s not to their liking, they must better articulate their own plan, and give parents a clear, unified vision of school improvement to rally around.
In Adams’ first two years, it was unclear where the educational buck stopped.
Some issues of great importance to many parents, such as merit admissions to middle schools, have been delegated to local community superintendents appointed by the chancellor, and unanswerable to the communities they are supposed to serve.
That is the opposite of mayoral control’s intent, a system in which the mayor and chancellor — not unaccountable superintendents — set policy.
To gain the trust and support of the city’s families, the mayor and chancellor must demonstrate that they understand and are willing to use the power of mayoral control.
They could start by taking a stand on the following key issues.
- Accountability: The Bloomberg approach of assigning annual letter grades to schools, and closing those that didn’t meet the mark, worked. De Blasio’s approach of throwing $400 million to fix low-performing schools failed. How will Adams and Banks address and correct today’s low-performing schools?
- Consolidation and reorganization: Due to long-term enrollment declines, at least 150 schools in grades pre-K through eight enroll fewer than 200 students. Will the mayor consolidate lower-performing schools into more successful ones? Where schools close, will he make that space available to charter schools?
- Serving gifted students: Will Adams build on his first-year initiative to create more seats in gifted programs in communities where they are lacking, while preserving gifted programs where they are popular?
- Workforce preparation: The state is changing high-school graduation requirements. Will the mayor increase educational opportunity by expanding the number of seats in high-school programs which prepare students for direct entry into the workforce, rather than perpetuating the myth that college preparation is the only legitimate goal of high school?
Adams will need the support of the city’s parents if he hopes to be re-elected in 2025, and to win permanent extension of mayoral control thereafter. He and Chancellor Banks must act quickly to win that support with measurable plans to make the system more effective and efficient.
If they remain on their current path, parents will answer with indifference in the voting booth — or they’ll keep voting with their feet.
Ray Domanico is director of education policy at the Manhattan Institute.