Debate on Mayoral control; check it out!

Check out the first hour of the Feb. 2 forum on Mayoral control, sponsored by the Queens Civic Congress.

Participants included Dina Paul Parks, Senior Policy Advisor to Deputy Mayor Walcott; Phyliss Bullion, Council of Supervisors & Administrators; Carmen Alvarez, VP of the UFT; April Humphrey, Campaign for Better Schools; and Rob Caloras, President, District 26 Community Education Council, and me, Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters. The debate was moderated by Elizabeth Green of Gotham Schools.

Towards the end of the clip, there's a real disagreement about whether the Chancellor has changed the principal selection process; thankfully Carmen Alvarez was there to back me up that power has indeed been taken out of the hands of school leadership teams!

Dina Paul Parks also insisted that there is genuine CEC and district input into the decision to close and open new schools -- please let us know in the comment section if you think this is the case, or not.

Carmen also describes some of the UFT's recommendations that had been released that day; for the entire report, check it out in pdf. News accounts of the UFT's proposals were published today in the GothamSchools, NY Times, and the Daily News.