NYC Parents to DC Parents

NYC parents to DC Parents:
"Buyer Beware!"
December 2006

On December 13, 2006, Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters, along with Eugenia Simmons-Taylor and Monica Ayuso, parent leaders in District 4 East Harlem and District 28 Queens, traveled to Washington DC to speak about Mayoral control, at the request of Parent Watch, a DC parent advocacy group. The Class Size Matters presentation is posted here.

Before we left, we solicited comments from NYC parents about the effects of Mayoral control on our schools. Here they are below:

There has been a complete refusal to listen to parents during the decision making process. Regardless of the issue, the DOE and Mayor decide on a policy, try to implement it, and only then are parents allowed to express an opinion. This procedure has demoralized many parents, including those active in various organizations, to the point that a sense of not wanting to bother pervades. More and more parents are simply concentrating on the needs of their own children and maybe, their schools. The loss of parental input has led to disastrous policies-cell phone ban, redundant test taking, etc- that lead to confrontations with parents. We hear collaboration from the DOE and we know that means only one thing, follow us, trust us, we know best.

-- Rob Caloras, President, Community Education Council District 26, Queens

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We must begin now to develop an alternative to the current system of mayoral control. We need to focus on the cornerstone of good government: a system of checks and balances. We’ve seen what unchecked power produces. We see parental rights and worker rights being violated every day in our schools.

We hear that Tweed is putting more money back into our classrooms. But we see more privatization, and more outside consultants feeding at the public trough, courtesy of no-bid contracts. Mayor Bloomberg: our school system is not for sale! We read that real change is occurring, but all we see is change for the sake of change. We need to challenge the conventional wisdom and the party line of this administration.

Now, our Mayor is worried about his legacy. Mayor Bloomberg has been traveling the country. He’s on tour selling the benefits of mayoral control from coast to coast. But, he won’t talk to us. This Mayor will travel to California, but he won’t walk across the street to Tweed Courthouse to address New York City parents. He won’t answer our questions. He won’t talk. And, he won’t listen.

When the history of this administration is written, historians will note that the stakeholders of the school system – parents and teachers – were left out of the critical policy decision-making. True parental empowerment is a precondition to our support for any future system of mayoral control. Parents deserve and demand a seat at every table when decisions affecting our children are made. We need to return democracy to the administration of our school system.

…..There’s a serious problem down at Tweed Courthouse. Most of the educators have left the building. The lawyers, and the management consultants, and the privateers have moved in. And, parents are locked out.

-- Tim Johnson, Chairman, Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council (CPAC)

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In theory I thought it was a good idea to break up the community school boards and give parents more of a say in terms of the CEC councils under the Mayoral and Chancellor's control. However, I find that as "parental representatives" our advice falls upon deaf ears. I think that the Mayor parades the premise and practice of Community Education councils to give the public the misguided notion that "we" have a say and that "we" are heard. This is not the case. I have yet to see any of the suggestions that we as a council been taken into consideration or put into practice. Also having the school under mayoral control only feeds his political agenda and does not address the real issues. Bloomberg claims to be a Mayor for the children and constantly uses education as his political platform yet again parents are seen but not heard. Just my two cents...

---- Kathleen Bullock-McCoy, Citywide Council on High Schools, Bronx

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Greetings from NYC! It has been a rough few years under mayoral control! We all welcomed it because we believed that change, any change had to be better than what we were dealing with. How wrong were we? We were very wrong! In what seemed to be a small amount of time parents found themselves unable to get in touch with personnel at the DOE. We found that nobody knew what they were responsible for and nobody answered telephone calls or return messages and emails. Special education is basically running with no accountability. School do not do what they are supposed to do for special needs children unless a parent request due process hearings and then the games begin.

The worst part about the whole mayoral control issue is the fact that everyday the mayor and the chancellor roll out another form of "The Dog and Pony Show!" What that means is that they constantly roll out a new initiative and never follow through on the impact it is having. 4 years later and we are still not getting our calls returned or emails responded to and nobody is held accountable... If you know of anyone being held accountable please let us know because I have not seen it yet in spite of all the mayoral talk of accountability. BUYER BEWARE!

It is a scary world with the mayor in control because how do you hold the mayor accountable when no one will listen because he is the boss wielding so much power that no one dare go against him. I have nothing to lose. I am leaving the city because of the schools. They have gotten progressively worse since Mayoral control. Teachers have lost their gusto for teaching because of the nonsense. Parents are worn out because they have been racked over the coals and are exhausted because they have to follow chancellor's regulations to the T but school officials can do what ever they want and get away with it. Finally, the mayor and the chancellor do not like bad press, so when you try to uncover corruption in the DOE, they try to shut you down. Also, the mayor seems to think that hiring businesspeople to educate our children is a great idea. Our children have been guinea pigs the last 4 years. Different programs, more tests, no accountability and no education. I could tell you horror stories about special education but I would need to kill many trees to tell the very real stories of children's academic careers ruined because of the chancellor’s lack of accountability. Buyer beware of mayoral control! Mayoral control is not a good thing when it comes to education; leave that to the educators. Good luck! -

-- JoAnne Scichilone, VP, Special Education Parent Panel

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I have been a parent advocate for over 20 years, since my first child entered the school system up to my last child who is currently a junior in High School. We as parent leaders worked diligently to bring about real parent involvement. Yet with the change in governance to total mayoral control with no system of checks in place, we have never seen parents so disenfranchised as they are now. We have not only lost the gains we made, but we have moved back to the Dark Ages of Parent Involvement, where parents were expected to run bake sales and do homework and that was the limit to what their involvement was expected to be. Under previous Chancellors and especially under Chancellor Crew parents achieved a real voice in the system that educated their children. We were consulted on curriculum, zoning, special programs, etc. and we had meaningful input on the budgets of our schools and our districts.

Now with the changes of the last 4 years, we have lost those gains. We receive little or no information from the Department of Ed and when we do receive any information, it is only to be told about decisions that have already been made. The concept of real consultation does not exist. There is much talk about parent involvement, but actually it has been done away with it in it highest forms. Vast amounts of money are being spent with no input from parents nor for that matter from anyone else. The Region and District have their budgets in place and we have never been consulted on them, while in the past we would have sat at the table to spend every dollar. Our Special Ed and Gifted Programs are being decimated even though we were told this was not to be the case. Even as recent news stories have indicated, in the very real issue of safety and carrying cell phones, the Mayor has made his decision and has no interest in the very real concerns of the parents. I will not say that Mayoral accountability is all bad, and some change was needed however, any system must have in place a form of checks and balances. It is the very foundation of our Federal system of government and has historically proven itself to be the best system.

As recent statistics have actually shown, the supposed gains of this administration under total Mayoral control appear to not even be real but rather a reworking of the numbers. High School graduation rates are not up, and the children in the 8th grade are not showing great advances. If you look closely at the governance structure, the current administration is actually admitting the failures of most of their restructuring since they are now looking for new ways to restructure once again, using the empowerment school model to in effect return to a form of decentralization. As a parent, I warn, be very careful before you turn over total control over to anyone.

– Dorothy Giglio, Region 6 HS CPAC representative, Presidents Council District 22, Brooklyn

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My daughter is a public school student in New York City. Despite what Bloomberg and Klein say, mayoral control is not a success in New York. The top down style does not take into consideration the different learning styles of students nor does it appreciate the knowledge and experience of teachers. Refusing to respect education specialist and filling the ranks with rubber stamp teachers and principals with little experience has led to demoralization of staff and negatively impacted on students. Hiring central staff with no educational policy experience led to gaffs like the imposition of a city-wide curriculum in math that did not meet the needs of students. Their policy also added responsibilities to principals without giving them the authority to carry the new directives out. …

Mayoral control limits parental involvement. Parental input is a critical asset in the public schools. Klein and Bloomberg refuse to listen. One issue is cell phones in school. It is obvious that cell phones cannot be used during school time, but many children come to school alone, some as young as 11. Parents work and the only way they know their kids are safe is by receiving a phone call.

The biggest issue confronting NYC schools is class size. Bloomberg and Klein ignore the problem. Studies have proven that smaller classes allow for greater learning. Teachers have time to work with children who are slower to absorb the lesson. They were 37 and 38 kids in a class in my daughter's middle school. That she was able to learn was a tribute to the well trained staff at that school. It was a unique situation. Parents send kids to private school because of class size. Public school students should receive the same treatment. Test score increases are not an indication of achievement. This mayor gooses the important tests by holding back students who would not do well. This practice is disingenuous…Mayoral control in NYC has not been a success. Washington, DC should not do it.

– Lee Levin, parent

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Do you know the expression, "All is not gold that glitters"? That is what is going on in the New York City Public School system. Instead of making class sizes that teachers can teach, there are still many schools that are running over capacity.

This is true for many schools in poorer neighborhoods, and schools in the most wealthy communities. In school district 3 where we live, on the upper west side, one of the most affluent neighborhoods in Manhattan, we have to send my two children, age 13 and 18, to a completely different district, where one school happens to function under completely different rules due to a "fluke" in the system which allows for this. We're thankful we have this—it’s a commute of 30 minutes on the trains and a brisk 10 minute walk to the train, but worth it, because there are only 25 children in the classroom, as opposed to over 35 in the classrooms in the district where we live... The other high schools in the district are just unacceptable to attend in terms of quality of student body and academic programs, and overcrowding--(one year we were assigned a high school where at the orientation, the parents and kids were forced to wait out in the rain for 30 minutes while they opened the building, then we proceeded to go to an auditorium where they used a bullhorn to control the crowds--at that point, our daughter ran crying from the building, and staunchly refused to attend that school).

Don't listen to the rhetoric of the politicians! Putting two kids thru the public school system in NYC is more difficult and stressful than applying for colleges, (which is what we are doing now). We had a period of years where we sent our child to private school just to avoid her being overlooked in a classroom of 36 kids, where her skills as a writer were completely overlooked due to the damaging effects of overpopulation. It forced us to spend thousands of dollars that we should have saved for college. When we ran out of money for private school, and tried to get back into public school, we were assigned a high school where at the orientation, the parents and kids were forced to wait out in the rain for 30 minutes while they opened the building, then we proceeded to go to an auditorium where they used a bullhorn to control the crowds--at that point, our daughter ran crying from the building, and staunchly refused to attend that school. The public school system in New York City is still a vast myriad of red tape that could be simply erradicated by implementing some foundational reforms, like cutting the class size to a human level!

-- R. and C. Sadoff, parents

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It's been almost five years since the mayor got control of the schools -- what, exactly, has been the nature of this "success"? Not even their precious test scores have gone up, let alone graduation rates. School climate is deteriorating. The emperor has no clothes!
I think we need to tell the folks in DC that "this model of accelerated school reform" is hot air. This is why ICOPE is calling for a new system altogether -- the age of "school reform" is over. We need to orient the system around human rights -- not just the right to education -- but the rights to democracy, dignity, development of the whole child and his/her community, etc -- all of which are interdependent.

The people in DC need to learn from the errors of NYC -- not duplicate them.

- Cecilia Blewer, Independent Commission on Public Education

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My daughter is in a class of about 25, with one teacher, who has not been able to secure help in the classroom. In her previous grades, the teachers have always had at least student teachers every day for most of the weeks. It’s a shame to put the workload on our teachers and to compromise children who learn better in smaller groups. My daughter’s best experiences in school, she has told me, was working in small groups and getting more individual attention.

– Faith Schwartz, parent

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I am the parent of a student in kindergarten in Brooklyn. I highly discourage you from modeling your schools on the NYC model. There is no room for parental involvement in the school system here. And there are no checks and balances in this system, which is dangerous and very undemocratic. What if our next mayor totally disagrees with the educational philosophy adopted by our current mayor? A horror story, that's what. And with such a large, overcrowded system the centralized running of our schools is not what our children need. Not all students work in the same way, teachers and principles deserve to determine their best teaching methods -- not a centralized authority -- and one that is not even necessarily run by an educational expert.
Please for the students in DC, their families and the future students and families that will come after them I implore you to work within your system to find out what works and focus on that. Focus on teachers and their good ideas, focus on principles, and focus on parents. Do not focus on standardized testing, or a centralized authority to supersede the best teaching practices possible in your city. The federal focus on no child left behind was a centralized one, and it has failed our nation's children miserably. No centralized accountability system can hope to aim higher than NCLB because it will not take in to account all the important variables that educators and administrators are adept at managing. So focus on giving them the resources they need and the rest will follow. – Lee Solomon, parent

Honestly, I'd have to say it's been a mixed bag. On the plus side, we finally got an administration committed to making changes and empowered to do so. I support a number of the major initiatives. For example, I am conceptually behind the city-wide curriculum, and completely behind the matching system for high school admissions. The negatives have been largely due to the Mayor's contempt for teachers and parents, which was not anticipated. So the ultimate question is how do you create change within a system of checks and balances, which by their nature slow down process? -

-- Elizabeth Rose, parent

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To the Washington DC parents,

Mayoral control of the public school system results in less access and accountability and more arrogance on the part of the mayor and his chancellor. If you want a less democratic process in the say of your children's education and more of a dictatorial disregard of you and your children, then choose mayoral control of the public schools. Unfortunately, the old adage is true, "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." I urge you to reconsider and NOT accept mayoral control of your schools. It makes a bad situation worse. If fact, I would advise total decentralization of the public school system and have each school stand on its own, answerable to the parents and children of that individual school.

My best in your pursuit of justice and freedom to decide the fate of your children's future. Good luck. ]

-- Annette Evans, concerned parent/former educator
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As someone who originally supported both Mayor Bloomberg and mayoral control, I feel it's important to reach out to you before a decision is made in your city.
Like many, I thought mayoral control meant that politics would be removed from the schools. What I've found is that mayoral control simply meant the schools were subject solely and completely to the Mayor's politics. Here are some examples to illustrate our current situation:

Marginalization of Parents

With our Mayor enamored of corporate management approaches and autocratic decision making, mayoral control has meant the complete evisceration of parental involvement. Many local "community education councils", the new local school boards, have simply given up meeting as they have no role and their input is simply ignored. My school board, in an affluent part of the city, struggles to find members and a quorum to meet.

Our Public Advocate, a city-wide office responsible for representing the interests of the people collected input on how the Mayor's ban on bringing cell phones into schools put students in jeopardy on their long commutes. The Mayor dismissed the exercise as a "publicity stunt". Now we have a lawsuit against the Mayor to overturn this policy.

School Crowding and Class Size

The Mayor follows the cynics who don't believe public schools can be improved, that a new parallel system of charter schools must be built as an alternative. But instead of providing facilities for these new schools, he insists on forcing them into existing schools, causing further overcrowding. Currently, the Mayor is trying to force a new middle/high school into a Harlem school serving grades K-2. The opposition there is lead by a 24-year old PTA president who is fighting not only the Mayor, whose Department of Education is headed by one of the country's most accomplished litigators, but also Columbia University who will manage the school.

We have little transparency or accountability with regard to the very large class sizes we suffer. Classes of 28 are common for even the earliest grades. Despite a law passed by our city council, the Mayor refuses to provide average class size data for high schools. He repelled a referendum on class size by claiming he didn't really have authority required, that it was really the State who runs the schools.

School Construction

The Mayor is very close to the real estate interests who are busy transforming the city with their gargantuan development projects. But rather than task them to include schools in their plans, a measure he fears would hinder growth, he allows them to build housing that will overwhelm our schools. When he is willing to build schools, he finds the least desirable options. The NY Times reported a major thrust of the Mayor's long term planning will be to clean up toxic waste sites to provide land for schools and other facilities. Despite denials from his staff on this policy, the Mayor put forward a plan to build four schools on toxic waste site in the South Bronx.

Your Mayor will undoubtedly have his own agenda which may or may not follow ours. But the important point is that once we ceded control to the Mayor, we were left with few or no checks on his authority to do as he pleases. Our City Council can hold hearings but has no real authority. That State Legislature has authority but is too far removed and disinterested to police the Mayor's actions.
I urge you to consider the failings of our approach before embarking on this path.

-- Patrick Sullivan, parent