Mayoral Control of Schools

Daine Ravitch is increasingly becoming my favorite person when it comes to writing on issues of education. Ravitch has spot on as she has been since she has seen the light on education reform and No Child Left Behind. In one of her most recent articles for Huffington Post, she criticizes Obama's Race To The Top. Toward the end of the article, she takes on another issue that is increasingly popular with so-called "education reformers": mayoral control of public schools. Ravitch writes:

"The latest test scores were especially startling for New York City, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg staked his reputation on their meteoric rise. He was re-elected because of the supposedly historic increase in test scores and used them to win renewal of mayoral control. But now, the city's pass rate in reading for grades 3-8 fell from 68.8% to 42.4%, and the proficiency rate in math sunk from an incredible 81.8% to a dismal 54%.

When the mayor ran for office, he said that mayoral control would mean accountability. If things went wrong, the public would know whom to blame.

But now that the truth about score inflation is out, Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein steadfastly insist that the gains recorded on their watch did not go up in smoke, that progress was real, and they have reiterated this message through their intermediaries in the tabloids. In other words, they are using every possible rationalization and excuse to avoid accountability for the collapse of their 'historic gains.'

Meanwhile Secretary Duncan travels the country urging districts to adopt mayoral control, so they can emulate New York City. He carefully avoids mentioning Cleveland, which has had mayoral control for years and remains one of the lowest performing districts in the nation. Nor does he mention that Detroit had mayoral control and ended it. And it is hard to imagine that anyone would think of Chicago, which has been controlled by Mayor Richard Daley for many years, would serve as a national model."

In doing research for this post, I also found another Huffington Post article where Ravitch wrote exclusively on this issue back in April.

For a fairly solid opposing viewpoint, the American Enterprise Institute's Frederick M. Hess wrote this position paper supporting more school districts having mayoral control over school boards and districts from 2008. It is well written, except for Hess's insistence that it was "Progressive" policies a century ago taking politics out of school control that caused lots of the problems in public education today.

I am with Ravitch on this subject, as I find I am with her on so many subjects. It is easy to think that if we just put one person in charge of public schools, it is more likely that they will clean up the schools because there are less hoops to jump through via an independently elected school board. This is not to say that there should never be mayoral control, but like charter schools and standardized tests, let's not pretend that it is a panacea. In my neck of the woods, neither the Kansas City Public Schools, nor the school district I work in have mayoral control of public schools. But as the ideas of the reformers become increasingly prevalent in our national education system, it is something to look out for.