Bloomberg's solution to school overcrowding

Yesterday’s Times features an article about the Mayor’s proposal to convert parochial schools into charter schools.

Bloomberg said that this would “bring stability and much-needed predictability back to families with children at some of the 14 schools in Brooklyn and Queens that the diocese has said it may close at the end of the academic year because of declining enrollment and rising operating costs.”

But when has Bloomberg or Klein ever cared about the need for stability or predictability for our regular public schools --- with four drastic reorganizations in six years; increased levels of overcrowding in neighborhoods throughout the city, rising class sizes, and now, threatened budget cuts of over $1 billion, including his threat to fire 15,000 teachers?

As mentioned in the Times article, the parochial schools may be facing financial disaster, but unmentioned is the fact that our city schools are as well; should we be subsidizing the education of these children at the further expense of our own?

Every dollar provided to charter school takes funds out the limited operating funds for our own public schools. How many more dollars would we lose as a result; how many more teachers? Meanwhile the charter schools are allowed to cap class sizes at much lower levels.

At least during the press conference, the mayor admitted one thing that the administration usually denies: That public schools in Brooklyn and Queens “are already at or near capacity” and that we “just do not have enough classroom space for those who are currently going to school.” He suggested that the new charter schools relieve some of the overcrowding in neighborhood public schools.

On the one hand, his statements are a refreshing contrast to the administration's usual disingenuous claim that the problem of public school overcrowding is only a “pocket” phenomenon.

Yet there is another alternative to the ongoing crisis in school overcrowding, not mentioned by the Mayor nor in any press account I have seen – the option of the city acquiring these parochial school buildings at low cost, and turning them into regular public schools.

Repeatedly, over the years, DOE officials have refused the pleas of Brooklyn and Queens public school parents to lease already-vacated parochial school buildings to help ease overcrowding in their communities– telling them that this is impossible, since the Church refuses to allow sex education to be taught in these buildings!

Now they have the nerve to suggest that if parents want to avoid the overcrowding in their local public schools, they can enroll their kids in charter schools, run in partnership with the Church. This comes close to forcing parents into choosing these questionable charters, because the city refuses to do its job in creating enough public school space.

This issue raises another question; one of access. The Bishop of Brooklyn is able to advocate directly with the Mayor for the benefit of parochial schools; the Robin Hood and Gates Foundations, along with the Center for Charter School Excellence, and the children of billionaires who have started their own charter schools, are able to advocate with him for the benefit of charter schools; but who advocates for our regular public schools?

Not the Chancellor, who at every opportunity gives the charter schools precious public school space, and the authority to cap enrollment and class size at lower levels.

He and the Mayor also continually boast about the success of charter schools. Even in the press release about the new plan to “save” the parochial schools , the test scores of charter schools are favorably compared to those of regular public schools. On this occasion, the Mayor also praised parochial schools for their “focus on high academic standards and high student achievement."

What does it say about a Mayor and a Chancellor who brag about how much better the schools are that they do not run? As the Mayor himself said at his press conference with the Bishop of Brooklyn, this proposal would have been “inconceivable” under a different governance system.

As Diane Ravitch pointed out in her testimony to the Assembly on Mayoral control, the fact that the Chancellor refuses to stand up and fight for our kids is a sign that there is something fundamentally wrong with the current governance system:

The chancellor’s primary obligation is to protect the best interests of the students. If elected officials say that they must cut the schools’ budget, the chancellor should be the voice of the school system, fighting for the interests of the children and the schools. If the chancellor is appointed by the mayor, his first obligation is to the mayor, not the children.

The Times article says “The plan would require approval by the Legislature because state law bars charter schools from having any ties to religious institutions.”

Let’s hope this is true. Meanwhile, people ought to let their Legislators know how they feel about this proposal.

Diane Ravitch speaks the truth on Mayoral control

See video below of Diane Ravitch's impressive testimony on Mayoral control, and questions from the State Assembly members. In response to a question from chair of the Education committee, Cathy Nolan, she also has some choice words to say about the reliability of the State Education Department.

Excerpt: "Never before in the history of NYC have the mayor and the chancellor exercised total, unlimited, unrestricted power over the daily life of the schools. No other school district in the United States is operated in this authoritarian fashion.

We have often been told by city officials that the results justify continuation of this authoritarian control. They say that test scores have dramatically improved. But no independent source verifies these assertions...

[The Chancellor who is ] the leader of the school system should be appointed by the independent board, not by the mayor. The chancellor’s primary obligation is to protect the best interests of the students. If elected officials say that they must cut the schools’ budget, the chancellor should be the voice of the school system, fighting for the interests of the children and the schools. If the chancellor is appointed by the mayor, his first obligation is to the mayor, not the children.

thanks to David Bellel for the video.

For news clips on the Assembly hearings yesterday, see Klein Defends Mayoral Control of Public Schools (NY Times) , Joel Klein under fire admits bus bungle (Daily News), 200 Pack Hearing on Mayoral Control of Schools (WNYC), Debate Over Schools Control Heats Up At Hearing (NY1) and several entries at Gotham Schools.

Testimony on Mayoral Control For Assembly Education Committee

I testified at Friday's Assembly Education Committee hearing on school governance. Thanks to Assembly Chairperson Cathy Nolan and Assembly Members O'Donnell, Brennan, Kavanaugh and Benedetto for their attention.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am Patrick J. Sullivan, the Manhattan Representative to the Panel for Educational Policy appointed by Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer.

Over the last year, Borough President Stringer has recommended a number of revisions to the school governance structure. I will summarize those recommendations in my testimony, but I would like to focus today illustrating why these changes are necessary based on my experience on the PEP.


Make the Board a More Effective Check and Balance Mechanism

With regard to the PEP, we recommend several measures to strengthen the board so as to serve as a more effective check and balance mechanism against abuse of mayoral control and to more effectively represent the viewpoints of parents:

1. The terms of the members should be fixed rather than having them serve at the pleasure of the appointing official.
2. The board should be reduced to include fewer mayoral appointees.
3. The authority of the city board should be clarified with regard to policy and budgetary approval.

Transparency and Customary Rules of Order

In my experience I have seen how the lack of independence of the PEP members has allowed the Chancellor to manage the PEP with complete disregard for how a board of directors should function. For example:

• Meeting agendas are typically distributed only a few days in advance.
• Presentation materials are rarely made available to members before the meeting. When they are provided it is typically within 24 hours of the meeting.
• Under its bylaws the PEP is supposed to meet in executive session once a year to discuss how to improve its functioning but this meeting has not been held, at least since I joined 22 months ago.
• Members may request roll call votes under the bylaws but my attempts to do so have been refused.
• There are no transcripts. Meeting minutes have not been not distributed since early 2007.
• There is no audit committee.
• Investigative reports of the Special Commissioner for Investigation are not provided to the board as required by executive order.

These poor practices serve to obscure the workings of the board and inhibit communication between the PEP members and the public school families they are supposed to represent. A board structured to be more independent, especially with a provision for fixed terms would provide the members with sufficient security to set higher standards for the conduct of the board.

Budget Decisions

I would like to discuss some of the votes where I dissented from the majority positions. I am extraordinarily fortunate to be appointed and supported by Borough President Stringer who has insisted that we always represent the best interest of the children even if it means drawing the ire of the mayor and chancellor. I think these examples will illustrate both how the board functions today and suggest how a more independent one would achieve a more balanced outcome:

Operating Budget

When the Chancellor brought to the PEP a budget that provided steep cuts in operating funds for many schools I objected. I explained that by state law we are tasked with proposing a budget sufficient to fund school operations and we should not send to the City Council a budget that clearly did not do so. We were also asked to approve a high level budget without being presented with sufficient detail to understand the spending. The budget was approved with eight votes in favor and my one against. Nevertheless, the City Council determined that the budget was insufficient to fund the schools and restored enough funds to eliminate cuts. Rather than starting with the funding provided by the mayor and reducing expenditures to achieve his desired balance, a more independent board would put forward a transparent budget with the “total sum of money deemed necessary” as state law requires.

Capital Budget

Similarly with the capital budget we see how the board’s insistence on rubber stamping the mayor’s proposal shortchanges our children. The capital budget vote was especially marred by a lack of candor and transparency. Both DOE and the School Construction Authority asserted that the current plan, now in its final year, would improbably accomplish all its goals: reduction of class sizes to 20 in every classroom K – 3, elimination of portables and an end to split sessions. Furthermore, the administration provided no credible explanation as to how this spending would align with their own class size reduction goals required by Contracts for Excellence statues and regulations. Despite the readily demonstrable inadequacy of the plan, it was passed again with only my one dissenting vote. We now have a new five year plan ready for approval this month yet no needs analysis or assessment has been provided. The PEP is simply told to believe that what the mayor is willing to spend is exactly what the children need. An independent board would require a careful assessment of need be published and spending be aligned with statutory and regulatory requirements.

Special Education System Contract

There is an acute need for the State Legislature to clarify what spending must be approved by the city board. When I read in the press that we would sign $55 million contract for a new special education system, I asked the DOE general counsel if the PEP would vote to approve the contract. I pointed to state law requiring approval of any contract which would "significantly impact the provision of educational services or programming". He explained that the new system “is not changing either the nature of the services we deliver or the manner in which we deliver them” and therefore no vote is required. When I objected on the record at the January PEP meeting, Chancellor Klein questioned what the purpose of such a vote would be. I explained that before voting, I would make sure all the CDECs and especially the CCSE reviewed the system requirements, provided input and preferably issued a resolution or letter endorsing the project and/or stating concerns.
But the Chancellor did not see the need or benefit for such collaboration. CCSE was never invited to provide input. Like me, John Englert, the president of CCSE read about it in the press. The Chancellor explained to me the PEP had been functioning this way for seven years. He didn't see any need to change. Hopefully the Assembly will see to it that the families whose children are served by the public school system have this reasonable and appropriate input into these massive expenditures. I suggest to you that all contracts above some set threshold be approved by the city board.

Policy Decisions

Gifted and Talented Admissions

The new Gifted and Talented admissions policy is a comprehensive failure of educational policy. Ostensibly seeking to improve equity, the Chancellor swept away the various admissions criteria employed by the schools and districts and replaced them with two standardized tests. Like many, I warned Deputy Chancellor Lyles that the new tests, focusing more on preparedness than giftedness, would only shift G&T seats from low income to higher income neighborhoods. Even one of the mayor’s appointees told me I was “100% correct on this issue”. Now the damage has been done with many programs in low income neighborhoods shuttered and new classes skewing even more heavily toward higher income students. A more independent board would never stand for this poorly considered policy.


8th Grade Retention

The original PEP was opposed to the mayor’s testing-based retention policy. As a result, several members were removed in the hours before they were to vote on this controversial policy. When we were asked to vote on 8th grade retention a wide spectrum of academics and community leaders protested the weak underpinnings of the policy and the total absence of any program to improve education in the middle schools. The research and evidence from other similar policies in Chicago and elsewhere demonstrate they are extremely costly and don’t work. Even with a more independent board the mayor may have eventually implemented his policy. The difference is that it would he would have had to couple test-based retention with a real plan for addressing the needs of struggling students with proven approaches including tutoring and smaller classes. I heard Deputy Mayor Walcott explain earlier today how the candid debate we had helped to improve the policy. I would disagree with him and point to how the Bloomberg administration, after contracting with the RAND corporation to study the test-based retention program implemented in 5th grade still refuses to release the research reports to the public. I've brought them here to show you; you can see there are hundreds of pages. This information should be not be surpressed but rather released to inform the debate.

Parental Involvement

I would like to conclude by asking the Assembly to strengthen the Community District Education Councils as bodies representative of the parent perspective. The ambiguity of the law with respect to CDEC duties, responsibilities, and powers must be clarified. In many ways, Community Boards are analogous to CDECs. Our City Charter clearly outlines the functions of Community Boards and there is no ambiguity on which planning decisions they are required to offer opinions. I would urge the State Legislature to use the language in New York City’s Charter with respect to Community Boards as a guide for outlining the duties and responsibilities of CDECs.

I have always sought input from CDECs on policy and budget votes. Requiring advisory votes from CDECs which the PEP members would be expected to follow would be one way to channel parent input into policy decisions.


I hope today I’ve been able to provide you with insight into the functioning of the current citywide board. In its current form the Panel for Educational Policy does not make policy or even meaningfully advise the chancellor. Those roles are reserved for the chancellor's management consultants and the distant foundations of wealthy men: the Broad Foundation, Gates Foundation and Dell Foundation. But we parents know better. The real insight into the challenges of urban education lies in the communities, school leadership teams, PTAs, community councils. We will never have real improvement in our schools until we embrace parents as real partners in the education of their children. I urge you to restore balance, order and even simple decency to the governance of our schools.

Thank you for your time.

The meaning of accountability, according to Michael Bloomberg

Yesterday, at a City Hall press conference, our billionaire Mayor called a question from a reporter "one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard." What was the question? Whether he would agree to limit his campaign spending, given that he had just said that it should be clear where he stands on various issues after seven years in office. See the video below.

He also said it would be an "outrage" if he agreed to take public financing -- which would limit his expenditures considerably below the $100 million he's expected to spend.

According to the AP, "Bloomberg at first would not even acknowledge that he has a re-election operation in place, despite the fact that his team of pollsters, strategists and advisers moved into its headquarters last month

The Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent mayor, who has been reluctant to even talk about his re-election effort, at first tried to direct the question "to the campaign." He then denied that there is one.



The Mayor has often claimed that accountability will only be fulfilled if the current governance system remains unchanged, giving him essentially dictatorial authority when it comes to our schools -- because the voters can always choose not to re-elect him. But what kind of meaning does this hold, when he seems intent, as in the past, to outspend his opponents ten to one?

Mayoral control forum, part 2

Check out Part 2 of the forum on Mayoral control, sponsored by the Queens Civic Congress. See Dina Paul Parks from the Deputy Mayor’s office, Carmen Alvarez of the UFT, Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters, Rob Caloras from CDEC 26, and others answer questions from the audience about Mayoral control.

Also hear the comments from two unexpected visitors : Council member Bill de Blasio, running for Public Advocate, and Rep. Anthony Weiner, a candidate for Mayor, who appear to have very different views from one another about whether there should be significant changes to the current governance system. De Blasio (at about the 30 minute mark) expresses concern about parent involvement, checks and balances, and democracy; Weiner (at the 40 min. mark) says we should simply keep Mayoral control and get rid of the Mayor.

Mayor Screws Up Chuck

February 4, 2009 (GBN News): A day after he exacted his ounce of flesh from Mayor Bloomberg, concern is growing over the health and well being of the groundhog known as Staten Island Chuck. His behavior has become erratic, and secrecy surrounded Chuck’s visit yesterday to a veterinary clinic. A spokesperson for the local chapter of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) alleged a cover-up, saying the group fears that the groundhog may have indeed contracted rabies from the Mayor.

“Bloomberg brought this on himself”, the PETA spokesperson said. “He condescendingly tried to force Chuck to do his bidding for a mere a photo op. It’s a typical case of a human trying to dominate an animal.”

However, J. Fredrick Runson, head of the Political Science department at Manhattan University, said that the Mayor actually treated Chuck no differently than he treats anyone else. “Look at how he got the Council to go along with overturning term limits”, Runson told GBN News. “Or the way he maintains Mayoral control of the schools through manipulating data and putting down his critics. He tries to dominate everyone through money and PR. The only difference is, the groundhog fought back.”

Meanwhile, Kevin Sheeky, Deputy Mayor for Government Affairs and a Bloomberg confidant, denied that the Mayor was rabid. “He does foam at the mouth on occasion,” Sheeky told GBN News. “But that’s just him, when he gets really angry.”

GBN News has learned that the Mayor may try to co-opt Chuck, a likely opponent in the upcoming Mayoral race, by offering him a position as Chief Mastication Officer for the Education Department. Mr. Bloomberg is said to feel that if Chuck can do to the Teachers Union and to parent groups what he did to the Mayor’s finger, the groundhog could prove himself extremely useful in maintaining Mayoral control over the schools.

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.

Learn NY - and the future of our schools

Many parents have been asking us about Learn NY -- after having been contacted by this organization.

Learn NY is an organization established by allies of Mayor Bloomberg to retain his choke hold on our schools after the current governance system sunsets in June 2009.

The organization’s paid representatives, including Peter Hatch, Robin Warren, Brian Keeler, and Julie Wood, all claim that their activities are not funded directly by Bloomberg, but so far have refused to divulge who is paying their salaries. They admit to having raised millions of dollars, and have hired several prominent and well-connected lobbying and consulting firms to push their agenda with the Legislature in Albany.

The problem is that there are few if any involved public school parents who trust this administration’s good intentions, after having witnessed six years of unilateral, strong-arm tactics, in which the Mayor and Chancellor have ignored their views, and have imposed misguided policies on our children’s schools. So Learn NY is hard at work, trying to recruit parents and make them believe that they are actually interested in what parents think.

On the Learn NY website, they may say they have “made open dialogue with parents a priority”, but they have turned down several offers to meet with established NYC parent groups, and have so far refused to speak at any public forum that includes representatives from groups with opposing views. They also claim to want to increase parent input and transparency in the current governance system, but have not made any substantive proposals on how this would be achieved, except to suggest that there should be more public hearings.

Over the last six years, there have been numerous public hearings held by the Chancellor and/or other Department of Education representatives, but always after they have already decided what their policies would be. Never has this administration’s decisions been affected by a single comment, suggestion or proposal put forward by any parent or parent group. More public hearings without an administration that actually has to listen to the views of parents and take them into account before making decisions would be useless.

The position of Learn NY on the need to improve transparency also seems to be hypocritical, since they refuse to be transparent about who is funding their own operations, and their tactics are anything but transparent. An anonymous person left pro-Mayoral control comments on several blogs, until he was eventually unmasked as Brian Keeler of Learn NY. Moreover, their website includes much distorted data and PR spin, rather than actual fact.

Instead of Mayoral dictatorship, we need a system in which the Mayor would have to forge a real partnership with parents. Instead of PR spin, we need the truth. For more information about our concerns, please visit the NYC public school parent blog. Send us a message at NYCPublicSchoolParents@gmail.com.

And please, testify at the hearings on Mayoral control to share your views; the schedule is here.

Weiner doesn't have a problem with Mayoral control, just the Mayor

Check out Elizabeth Green’s description in Gotham Schools of the two unexpected visitors to our panel discussion on school governance last night in Queens -- Council member Bill de Blasio, running for Public Advocate, and Congressman Anthony Weiner, a candidate for Mayor.

As opposed to de Blasio, Weiner said last night that he’s not against changing Mayoral control, just changing the Mayor. He didn’t seem to have listened to what anyone on the panel had said about the numerous problems with the current governance system: Weiner doesn’t have a question; de Blasio on mayoral autocracy

First Blood Drawn in Mayoral Race

February 2, 2009 (GBN News): Staten Island Chuck, the meteorological prognosticator turned political gadfly, drew first blood today in what is expected to be a hard fought battle to unseat incumbent Michael Bloomberg in November’s mayoral election. While not yet the equal in name recognition of his cousin Punxsutawney Phil, Chuck, who also goes by the name Charles G. Hogg, achieved a public relations coup when he bit Mr. Bloomberg’s finger during the annual Groundhog Day ritual in Staten Island.

Conventional political wisdom has been that Mr. Bloomberg is so popular that other politicians are afraid to mount a serious challenge to the Mayor. But in an extraordinary display of political courage, Chuck showed that he fears neither his own shadow nor the Mayor.

Many political analysts feel that today’s confrontation will substantially boost Chuck’s poll numbers. However, others contend voters may feel that giving a rodent control of the city’s school system might be overkill after seven years of Joel Klein as Schools Chancellor.

As a precautionary measure, Chuck was brought to a local veterinary clinic for shots, out of fear that the Mayor may have been rabid when Chuck bit him.

Grabbing real estate by closing schools

Today's NY Times article, called optimistically, "To Close a School: A Decision Rooted in Data, but Colored by Nuance," entirely misses the boat.

Why is Garth Harries, CEO of the Office of Portfolio Development, making the decisions as to which schools to close? Why not Marcia Lyles, Deputy Chancellor in charge of (supposedly) of teaching and learning; or even Jim Liebman, CEO of accountability?

Because Garth’s top responsibility is to find homes for all the new charter schools and small schools the administration is intent on forming, and thus must aggressively grab existing buildings to put them all in – especially since the DOE’s new school construction program is so anemic.

It has nothing to do with data, nothing to do with improving student outcomes, but everything to do with real estate.

Maria's testimony on school governance

Good Morning. My name is Maria Dapontes-Dougherty. I am the President of District 30 Q Presidents’ Council and also currently the Corresponding secretary of CPAC.

I have been an involved parent and advocate for our parents and especially the students in the NYC public school system for the past 12 years.

When mayoral control first came upon us I was enthusiastic and hopeful. I truly believed that holding one person responsible with the active participation of parents, teachers, administrators and Board of Education personnel would lead to the success of our massive education system. I WAS WRONG. The years of mayoral control of our schools have been a nightmare.

I will begin with the topic of parental involvement, which is the closest to my heart, and of which I truly believe that the strength of the home school partnership is the key to the success of our children. Under mayoral control parents are philosophized and politicized as a vital component of the system, but are blocked any time they voice an opinion or try to participate. Schools cannot be run exclusively like a business, in, as the "products" of this business are the future minds of our country. They are our children!

The new regulation Chancellor’s A655 on School Leadership Teams tried to decimate the parental voice, parents spoke out that these changes were against NYS law and no one listened It took a legal complaint and a recent decision by State Education Commissioner Mills to confirm what parents already knew that parents must be involved in setting schools’ goals and strategies for meeting those goals. Currently SLT’s are dysfunctional and DLTs are orchestrated by Tweed. Teachers and parents have become the required bodies present and nothing else.

District 30 in Queens has been one of the most overcrowded districts in our city. This year class sizes went up in all grades except for the 7^th grade. Statistics show the city plans to build only about one half of the new seats we need to eliminate overcrowding and reduce class size. Since mayoral control we have opened one school, which was overcrowded on day one. This school being built was a result of the previous administration. Lockers for the children still sit unused in as there are not enough for the overcrowded building in which they sit.

We saw the past Capital Plan from this administration showing new seats that never happened. SCA could not find proper spaces, but somehow was able to place Charter Schools. Our legislators found spaces and strongly supported us, but were ignored. We now see the same seats in the new plan, but hold no hope. We still have overcrowded classrooms in aging buildings. Reports show that this administration has created the least amount of seats across the city for our children. Nothing has changed, but the DOE and the mayor continue to spin-doctor.

Tweed touts accountability, but it does not exist. They flip flop their opinions on who is responsible for our schools from whether it be the auspices of the state or the city, at their whim, and whichever fulfills their choice at the moment. A critical example would be the cell phone lawsuit. It is a sad day when parents whose post 9/11 children are traveling across the city are denied the right to communicate to their children, because the mayor has a pet peeve about cell phones. Ah an example of the spin doctoring: The phones are used for cheating. Hmmmm cheaters existed long before the mayor’s ban and will still exist long after. A cheater is a cheater no matter what era we are in.

Since Mayoral control our Schools Safety Agents are under the jurisdiction of the NYPD. We have children that are being policed and arrested. The NYCLU has fully documented these unacceptable actions in its "Criminalizing the Classroom" report. CPAC seeked advice on what the rights and responsibilities of Safety agents were and we were told that the NYPD would have to answer. The Chief of School Safety of the NYPD refused our requests. We have instances of 5 year olds being handcuffed and arrested and are not provided with the framework of rules that affect our children.

The system is not transparent and there are no checks and balances. The PEP, theoretically the body that would facilitate accountability, transparency and checks and balances is powerless. It is comprised of mayoral representatives and Borough President appointees that are fired if they do not agree with the mayor’s beliefs. This is not an example of a democracy; it is a dictatorship.

CECs, Presidents’ Councils, and CPAC are powerless. These bodies are micromanaged and their valuable input is dismissed. Our legislators are ignored. Our Superintendents have a title required by state law, but are sent to schools across the city and are powerless in the districts they represent. The press is influenced by our wealthy and powerful mayor and his cronies. The revelation of the power of data is only a tool to doctor the numbers to the benefit of the administration and the unknowing public.

I participated in the original hearings on mayoral control and remember how important it was to the members of that panel that parents and the community be engaged. Years and countless reorganizations later our system is more dysfunctional. Graduation rates are still dismal. Classrooms are still bursting at the seams. The bureaucracy, cronyism and entrenched interests we believed would be dismantled have been replaced by SSOs, multimillion dollar no bid contracts and partnering with private groups that only care about profits.

I plead that you bring the “public” back to public education.

Please send your testimony to leonie@att.net.

Report from the Queens hearings on school governance

I arrived a Borough Hall at about 9:30 am and was told that the "mayoral fillers" were already there trying to take up all the front seats. The seating arrangement was changed so that scheduled speakers could actually sit towards the front. I was #7 and assured I should be up soon, as I had to be at a work-related event at noon.

Ms. Gotbaum [the Public Advocate] spoke about her commission's findings and then speakers #2 & #3 were Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott and Martine Guerrier [head of DOE's Office of Family Engagement]. They also brought John White, from the Office of Portfolio Development and someone who was a special ed specialist for OFEA (despite the fact that she couldn't answer an Assemblymember's question about monitoring IEPs). They also had a posse of at least 12 Tweedies. [editor's note: as well as lots of political consultants/lobbyists from the Mayor's office, Learn NY, and charter school advocates.]

Dennis Walcott's introduction about himself was extremely too long. I don't really care how many feathers you need to put in your cap. Ms. Guerrier's presentation was also lengthy. Between them they spoke for over 50 minutes. It was a hard sell on all the "accomplishments" of the administration. The spin-doctoring and cooked numbers were out in full force. Despite my knowing the true reality of the wall of Tweed it saddened me to see our legislators making inquiries on issues the DOE should have provided answers to long before today's hearing and obviously had not. All of a sudden Tweedom want to speak to legislators they have dismissed and ignored; all in the name of mayoral control.

Some disturbing and misleading comments were made by the duo. Legislators only hear the whiny complainer parents, everyone else is happy. Dennis Walcott said that they had fulfilled the legal obligation of having District Superintendents. Graduation rates have skyrocketed. The system is better than ever. We are fully transparent and accountable. Martine Guerrier claimed that parental engagement and accountability are flourishing. Examples given included were parent surveys, parent coordinators, and workshops.

CECs [Community Education Councils] and SLTs [School Leadership Teams] are fully functional in the whole city; they have been provided with workshops.

We are now at over an hour and 20 minutes and parents are restless. This is a "public" hearing, after all, not a DOE campaign. It was as if they were using a filibuster, to take time away from parents that were there and waiting to speak. At 12:20 PM, I had to go to work and left. Assemblywoman Nolan, upset I did not have the opportunity to speak had someone read my testimony.

I felt the hearing was important and returned at 5PM. There were still some parents present and some had waited a very long time. I thanked Ms. Nolan and the Assembly members who remained and politely and respectfully commented on the DOE performance I had witnessed earlier. I stated that I truly believed the DOE crew abused the privilege given to them to speak first. I took the time to rebut some of the fiction I had heard in the morning.

Parents from D24, 27, 29 & 25 spoke about the need for more parental involvement and training , DOE's abuses of Title 1 funding, overcrowding, charter schools, and suggestions for empowering CECs and parents. -- Maria Dapontes-Daugherty, President of Presidents' Council, District 30 in Queens

Here are some news clips about the hearings: Debate on Mayoral Control of Schools Is Renewed (NY Times), Back to the chalk board, say parents (Daily News) , Committee On Education Debates Mayoral Control Of Schools (NY 1). For Maria's testimony, see above. Click here for a schedule of future hearings, including next Friday in Manhattan.