Mayoral Control of Schools: The New Tyranny
Our Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, has been on a "listening tour" where he's done most of the talking. He advocates, repeatedly, that mayors should take control of urban schools. 
On July 23, 2008, nearly one year ago, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley convened a press conference at Chicago's City Hall to proclaim that the finances of the Chicago Board of Education were in such wonderful shape thanks to his leadership and the work of his leadership team that CPS would not have to ask for a routine increase in property taxes for the fiscal year that ran from July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009. Standing behind Daley at the time were the school system's four top executive and financial people. Left to right: Then Chief Executive Officer (CE)) Arne Duncan; CPS Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Pedro Martinez; CPS Budget Director Beth Swanson; and CPS Chief Administrative Officer Marion Hill Hammock. One year later, as the Chicago Board of Education prepared to meet on July 24, 2009, CPS was claiming that it was facing a $475 deficit. None of the four people who stood with Daley when he proclaimed how well school finances stood in July 2008 was still working for Chicago's public schools in July 2009. Arne Duncan (above left) is now U.S. Secretary of Education. Pedro Martinez was replaced as CFO by Daley's third CEO, former police officer Ron Huberman. Elizabeth Swanson is on maternity leave. Like Pedro Martinez, Hill Hammock was forced out of office by CEO Ron Huberman. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.
Obviously he cannot take an honest look at his own accomplishments under this governance system or — he'd have to shut up.
The usual rationale for a mayoral power grab is it brings more accountability and a clear line of authority. School boards are generally elected in off years and few people vote, allowing special interest groups (usually education unions, some claim) to essentially rig the elections. School boards are fractious and try to micromanage. They are amateurs and prisoners of deeply rooted school bureaucracies.
But do mayors do better? Depends on how you feel about democracy. The Spring 2009 issue of Rethinking Schools, said that, as Daley's man, Duncan "has shown himself to be the central messenger, manager and staunch defender of corporate involvement in, and privatization of, public schools, closing schools in low-income neighborhoods of color with little community input, limiting local democratic control, undermining the teachers union and promoting competitive merit pay for teachers."
For the past several months, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (above left) has been on what he calls a "listening tour" of the USA. Actually, what Duncan and his media handlers do is carefully prepare the questions Duncan will answer, much in the manner of the "town hall" meetings hosted by former President George W. Bush during Bush's years in office and during Bush's election campaign. Chicago had an example of how Duncan's listening tours are scripted on June 19, 2009, at the Regency Hyatt Hotel, where Duncan spoke to a newly minted corporate school reform group called "Advance Illinois." After a speech, Duncan took "questions" from the members of the breakfast audience. The questions, however, were collected by the Advance Illinois staff, then sorted. The result was that by the time Advance Illinois director Robin Steans (right, above) took the stage to ask the questions, Duncan could be confident that the questions would enable him to continue with his talking points, without ever having to address anything factual that might contradict his narrative. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.The most important corporate involvement involves the 132-year-old Commercial Club of Chicago. Yet that organization recently published Still Left Behind, slamming Chicago's public schools as awful and that the reforms they've endured were designed to make the adults running the schools look good, not improve the lives of children. You could say the Club stabbed Arne in the back — except that they did it upfront in the open, without once mentioning Duncan's name. The Club report backs up its case with many data.
If we look at the other most visible case of mayoral control, we see an even more autocratic system in place. When the New York legislature handed control of the schools in 2002 to Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his Chancellor, Joel Klein, it created the Panel for Educational Policy, attempting to establish a "balance of authority." The group is universally referred to as the Panel of Educational Puppets. The panelists, "an investment banker, a lingerie store owner and an expert on electromagnetics among them--rarely engage in discussions with those who rise to address them. They do not debate the educational issues of the day, but spend most sessions applauding packaged presentations by staff. Some have barely uttered a public word during their tenures" (New York Times, April 23, 2009).
And if they do utter a public word, it damn well better be in support of Hizzoner or else they're history. Said Bloomberg, "Mayoral control means mayoral control, thank you very much. They are my representatives, and they are going to vote for things I believe in."
Both Bloomberg/Klein and Daley/Duncan have touted rising state test scores as proof of their success. 
While U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke to Advance Illinois inside the Hyatt Regency Chicago hotel on June 19, 2009, dozens of protesters marched outside the hotel. One of the main points of the protest was to note that during his time as CEO of Chicago's public schools, Arne Duncan had fired more than 2,000 black teachers and principals under the guise of subjecting what he calls "underperforming" schools to what Chicago began calling "turnaround" (following the corporate jargon). When they tried to get into the hotel to question Duncan at the Advance Illinois breakfast taking place downstairs from where they were marching, the protesters, the majority of whom were Chicago teachers, were told they would be arrested if they entered the hotel. Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.But analysts in both cities have shown that the rises only show how easy it is to manipulate test scores. In New York, a narrow range of standards is tested and the content from year to year is highly predictable. In Illinois, the state made it easier for systems to meet the standards with new item formats and lower passing scores.
But if one looks at the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), both cities look dreadful and show little progress. This is especially true for black students, the group most affected. Compared to kids nationally in math, for example, NYC's black eighth-graders rank at the 26th percentile, while Chicago's come in at the 18th percentile. In 2003, 9 percent of NYC's black students were proficient or better in math, and by 2007 the proportion had "jumped" to 10 percent. In 2003, 4 percent of Chicago's black eighth-graders were proficient or better in math, and by 2007 the figure had risen to 6 percent. The black-white achievement gap shrank slightly in NYC, but grew in Chicago.
On July 9, 2009, teachers, parents, and community activists in New York City continued their protests against the privatization of public schools under New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The protest above was held at P.S. 123 at 140th St. and 8th Avenue in New York's Harlem community. The reason for the protest was that Bloomberg had given part of P.S. 123 to a charter school ("Harlem Success") and the charter had begun taking over more and more of the community's public school. The protesters at the July 9, 2009 New York event above included a member of the New York City Council, who told the crowd he opposes charters taking over public school buildings. The protest was also visited by the Borough President of Manhattan, who told the protesters that he had never in his career heard of a situation where the police had to be called to a public school because there were two warring factions inside the building. When the charter school, promoted by Mayor Bloomberg, tried to move teachers' materials out of classrooms, a crisis began at P.S. 123 (also known as "Mahalia Jackson Elementary School"). Substance photo by George N. Schmidt.A June 2009 Chicago Tribune article noted that two thirds of all new Chicago teachers leave within 5 years and that half of the teachers in high poverty areas disappear after only three. Hard to have a turnaround with that kind of turnover.
Of course, some of the teachers got a push. Chicago's Ron Huberman fired the faculty and staff of 16 schools in less than three months after replacing Duncan. If Duncan had worked the miracles his PR machine claimed, Huberman should have been able to spend most of the day smoking cigars, tweeting and embellishing his image on Facebook. Newsweek said the district "is mired in urban woes — and, in some cases, a sense of complacency." Complacency? Daley has had control of Chicago's schools for 13 years and Duncan was there for seven of them, but the test scores above are evidence that they didn't do much to stir anything but the public relations pot.
Bloomberg's authority expired in June, but about then collective insanity infected the Senate and the legislature adjourned for the summer without passing a new authorization. Bloomberg says he will ask the governor to call them back into session until he gets a bill, HIS bill. Checks and balances, anyone? 
Gerald Bracey is a Fellow at the Education Policy Studies Laboratory at Arizona State University
This article was originally posted and the Huffington Post on July 20, 2009, 12:17 AM. Reprinted by permission of Gerald R. Bracey.
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