This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated February 9, 2024
I am a product of the New York City public school system from the era of the old Board of Education. I did not know so at the time, but there were plenty of problems with the board that used to have control of the system.
The Board of Education was around from 1842, before all five boroughs had even been incorporated into New York City. By the 1960s, with schools horribly mismanaged and segregated under a structure in which the mayor held ultimate decision-making power for the school system, the Board of Education, comprised of seven appointees from the borough presidents and mayor, was given full control, with local elected school boards across the city’s 32 school districts having local decision-making power.
Decades of patronage, among other issues, led to mismanagement and by the early 2000s it was clear that reform was needed. In 2002, shortly after first being elected mayor, the state granted Mayor Bloomberg the full control of the city’s public schools he lobbied for. The Board of Education was renamed the Panel for Education Policy, often referred to as the PEP, and the 32 community education councils, CECs, lost almost all decision-making power, becoming advisory bodies. The PEP expanded to 12 members, with the majority of appointees coming from the mayor. Further reforms have expanded that body to 23 appointees, with 13 currently being mayoral appointees.
Mayoral control was granted to Mayor Adams in the 2022 state budget and expires this June. With the state education department being tasked with creating a report on the state of this system, they held hearings across all five boroughs throughout the past two months, in which stakeholders had the opportunity to provide testimony. I provided testimony at the final hearing in Staten Island on January 29, introducing myself as a parent leader who has been involved in school governance through various elected and volunteer roles at the school level, as well as currently serving as president of the district 21 CEC.
I was sure to mention that I was speaking in my personal capacity, opinions I expressed were my own, and they did not necessarily reflect those of the City of New York, DOE or any body I am elected to. And I needed to say all of that because elected parent leaders are periodically advised, as we were one week prior to that hearing, that we must provide that disclaimer any time we speak at a hearing, as well as in a host of other situations, pursuant to Title 53, COIB Rule 1-13(d) for any public servant mentioning their city title.
I often hear elected officials speak publicly, I introduce them to speak at my CEC meetings, and I have never heard one reel off that disclaimer before they speak about positions they take. I have never heard the mayor state his opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the City of New York before he opines on legislation that is not yet law. Parent volunteers elected to non-paying roles that are strictly advisory are held to stricter oversight.
“I had no clue of the extent of how many programs were being funded by stimulus dollars until [Chancellor Banks] sat down and did a complete briefing and he said, here’s the list of programs that stimulus dollars are running out. That we have to find funding.”
Mayor Adams during January 12, 2024 press conference
Under mayoral control, the undemocratic structure in which a political figure has absolute control of the largest public school system in the country, there is essentially no oversight of the mayor. Twenty years and multiple mayors have demonstrated the faults inherent in this system.
It is not about any particular mayor. Multiple administrations ignored efforts to lower class sizes, stating it was impossible without state funding. Yet now, with Albany fully funding the foundation aid the city had long been denied, Mayor Adams still resists class size reductions required by law.
The current system is devoid of accountability or any checks and balances. The PEP, with its majority of mayoral appointees, is simply a rubber stamp for whatever policy the Mayor wants to push forward.
Adams has been making significant cuts to school budgets the past few months, but he recently said he “had no clue of the extent of how many programs were being funded by stimulus dollars until the Chancellor briefed [him].” It was also reported that he made schools, including one in southern Brooklyn’s district 20, wait for much-needed fire inspections so developers who have donated to him could skip the line.
As other major cities move away from systems of mayoral control, and with none having a structure as absolute as ours, we need a new democratic structure with fewer mayoral PEP appointees. We need to decouple this entire decision from the state budget. And we need to empower community stakeholders with actual decision-making power. Quite simply, mayoral control is out of control.
