Bloomberg Administration Intransigence on Contract for Excellence Undermining Support for Mayoral Control

While the mayor and chancellor were being lionized in Washington yesterday by the Broad Foundation and Bush Administration, back home some key stakeholders in public education were not so flattering. In this article by Elizabeth Green in the NY Sun, Queens Assemblyman Ivan Lafayette expressed his frustration over the Bloomberg Administration's failure to submit an acceptable plan to spend new state funds:

Assemblyman Ivan Lafayette, a Democrat of Queens who is the deputy speaker, said he is concerned that the city might not agree to revise its plan. "We're offering all that extra money, but the city refuses to use it as they're requested to do," he said. "They're like petulant children."

Mr. Lafayette said the resistance has convinced him that his support for mayoral control of the schools was a mistake. "The one nice thing we did about this turning the power over to the mayor is that it sunsets in '09," he said.

The article goes on to quote Regents Vice Chancellor Merryl Tisch who also made the misbehaving-children comparison.

Several members of the Board of Regents, the body that governs state education policy, said they have been assured that the city will add a five-year plan to reduce class size and revise its distribution of funds among schools.

"If you don't like the rules, you just don't pick up your marbles and walk away," the Regents vice chancellor, Merryl Tisch, said. "The mayor and the chancellor are such responsible leaders that they would never adhere to ‘I'm picking up my marbles and walking away,'" she added, referring to Mr. Bloomberg and the schools chancellor, Joel Klein.

Earlier coverage of the Contracts for Excellence controversy can be found here and here.