Several of the larger cities have it. It appears not to have worked as they thought. It allows for bypassing school boards and lets the mayor make unilateral decisions.
However it does make it easier to get the new schools "reforms" done. Not as many voices to deal with when the mayor has the power.
From the Washington Post:
Mayoral control means zero accountabilityThe New York City version of mayoral control means that parents and the public have no voice. The shell of the central board is dominated by a majority of mayoral appointees, who approve whatever the mayor wants. On the one occasion when two of his appointees threatened to vote independently, they were fired on the spot.
Every year, the State Education Department reported that scores were going up across the state and in New York City. In 2007, based entirely on steadily rising state scores, the Broad Foundation awarded New York City its annual prize as the nation’s most improved urban school district. Mayor Bloomberg used the state scores to win re-election in 2005 and to bypass term limits and get re-elected for a third term in 2009.
When the mayoral control law expired a year ago, the mayor referred to the state scores as evidence that his reforms were working and the progress should not be interrupted.
The narrative ended on a sour note last week. The State Education Department accepted that the state tests had gotten so easy in recent years that the standards had become meaningless.
Arne Duncan worked hard
to get this control for Mayor BloombergFunny thing, though. Even though the standards had become meaningless, Duncan sides with the city in wanting to have the teachers' names published just like in Los Angeles. The union is suing.
Rutgers University had something to say on the subject of mayoral control.
Mayoral Control Alone Doesn't Fix Schools, Rutgers Institute Study FindsGovernor Christie has indicated he will put Newark Mayor Cory Booker in charge of schools.
Mayoral control, advocated by politicians pushing to overhaul underperforming school systems, fails to improve student achievement, according to a two-year study.
The research, conducted by the Institute of Education Law and Policy at Rutgers University, looked at improvements in nine education systems where there were changes in how the schools were governed, led by Baltimore, Boston and New York City. The study will provide guidance to New Jersey policy makers as the state prepares to return schools in Paterson, Newark and Jersey City to local control after as many as 21 years under state operation, the authors said.
The findings, the subject of a seminar today at the university’s Newark, New Jersey campus, raise questions about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s plans to overhaul the schools in the state’s largest city by putting Mayor Cory Booker in charge, said Alan Sadovnik, professor of Education, Sociology and Public Administration and Affairs at Rutgers and co-author of the report in a telephone interview yesterday.
“Solving Newark’s problems will require more than mayoral control alone,” Sadovnik said. “Governance is one part of urban school improvement, which has to include effective school and administrative strategies and a variety of economic, community and health initiatives at the local level.”
Of course Newark has new problems to deal with as Mark Zuckerberg is donating 100 million to the Newark schools, and he has indicated he intends to present his ideas. This could mean undue pressure from outside Newark, and pushing from education management groups to get a foot in the door.
From what I read mayoral control appears not to be working too well in Cleveland either.
Cleveland: How The Comeback CollapsedMeanwhile, the Cleveland Municipal School District is making improvements only at a glacial pace. According to a recent report by America’s Promise, Cleveland ranks 48th of 50 large school districts in high school graduation rates. Fewer than six in ten of Cleveland’s 9th graders will complete high school; dropout factories here include Collinwood and East Tech high schools, where only four in ten 9th graders graduate.
And more on Cleveland from the above WP article:
Before promoting mayoral control as the answer to urban education, Secretary Duncan would do well to consider Cleveland, which has had mayoral control since 1995.
Like New York City, Cleveland has participated in national testing from the inception of urban district assessment. Cleveland has made no gains in fourth grade reading or eighth grade reading or fourth grade mathematics or eighth grade mathematics.
Chicago has mayoral control under Daley. The new mayor will have those powers as well. Rahm Emanuel is one of the candidates.
Rahm Emanuel holds meetings about schools in Chicago...but not with teachers.Emanuel is talking to all the wrong Chicago people about education. It's the same old Ownership Society crowd that dreamed up Renaissance 2010 (I know. We're not supposed to mention that word any more). Even the Civic Committee called the results, "abysmal."
They're the Pritzkers; they're Mayor Daley's patronage boys, like Juan Rangel; they're the hedge-fund charter guys like Bruce Rauner; and they're the power philanthropists who long ago ceded leadership of Chicago's foundation community over to Bill Gates. Missing from the back room was...well, you know who was missing. Who's always missing?
The reforms that Arne Duncan has been pushing...mayoral control, charter schools, firing principals and teachers, hiring outside private management companies...have not been proven to work.
But no one is stopping to think about that, and no one is stopping to listen to teachers and educators on the ground expressing their concerns. They just keep pushing ahead with them.
Pushing ahead with policies that have not been studied for effectiveness.
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