Charles Barron, NYC Council Member
Testimony on the DC Public Education Reform Amendment Act of 2002
February 7, 2007

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New York City Schools; Out of Control Under Mayoral Control

By NYC Council Member Charles Barron

Presented to District Of Columbia (Washington DC) City Council
February 7th, 2007

Introduction

In June 2002 the New York State legislature voted to give the New York City mayor control of the city's public education system. There were no public hearings at any stage of the process. One year later the legislature voted to replace community school boards elected by their communities with councils of parents selected by a handful of parent association leaders. The rationale behind these changes was to improve the schools by making the mayor accountable at the ballot box. Four years later it is clear that not only has no substantive educational improvement resulted from the substitution of mayoral control, but also the state of our Public School system has gotten even worse.

Regulations and practices regarding school and community level decision-making from educational planning and principal hiring have been changed to favor topdown decision-making by the mayor. The drop-out rate has remained the same; the achievement gap remains as wide as ever; Regents requirements in history, science, the arts, and physical education are routinely ignored in favor of mandated curricula in literacy, math and preparation for standardized tests; middle schools, the weakest link in the educational chain, have seen no improvements. (Source: Independent Commission on Public Education).

Other serious issues include the integrity of excessive, narrow and euro-centric standardized high stakes tests, in which scores are manipulated for political purposes. One of the most serious issues is the lack of transparency of the $15 billion dollar education budget (with a projected 2007 Budget of over $18 billion) and the Mayor using it as his own private holdings to auction off to his corporate cronies through nobid contracts. In fact, in cities all across the country there is an alarming trend of our public education system turning into a multi-billion dollar playground for rich contractors, at the expense of our children. The legislation for mayoral control in New York City Schools will be up for renewal in 2009. Just as I am an outspoken opponent for continued Mayoral control in New York City, I also strongly urge that your legislature also oppose Mayoral Control. We must advocate for a human rights-based alternative that will meet the needs of every child and that places greater control in the hands of parents, students, teachers and school communities.

The New York City public school system is the largest in the country, serving more than 1.1 million children in more than 1,200 separate schools. There are more students in the New York City Public school system than people in eight U.S. States. Currently Hispanic students have grown to become the largest group in the city's schools at 36.7%, and black students are next at 34.7%. Asians make up 14.3% whites are 14.2%. (Source: Wikipedia). New York City Public School students can also be considered as "guinea pigs." New experiments in education, textbook revisions, and new teaching methods set precedents to be used in the rest of the country.

Soon after taking office in 2002, Mayor Bloomberg abolished the Board of Education and assumed mayoral control of New York Public Schools. The then structure of school system governance in New York City grew out of the 1969 decentralization law that called for a five member board, selected by the respective borough presidents. In 1974 the law was amended to allow the mayor to appoint two members, in addition to the five borough president appointees. It was created this way to give the Mayor and borough presidents a role in education policy-making while at the same time trying to create an independent advocacy voice for children. (Source: United Federation of Teachers website).

A neighborhood in Brooklyn New York called Ocean Hill-Brownsville was one of three small "demonstration districts" empowered by the board of Education to show how citywide decentralization was to work. Another serious issue brought to the forefront by education activists who fought for community control was that the public education system was biased against black teachers and the curriculum was not culturally relevant. After a harrowing battle that pitted the predominately white teachers union against the primarily Black progressive education activists, the outcome was 32 new local school boards that were barely given enough autonomy to appoint their own superintendents, but enough to foster the illusion of reform---and permit new forms of bureaucratic bungling and outright corruption. The new law also preserved the central Board of Examiners that had kept the teaching force more than 90% white, far whiter than any major city in America. It kept in place the lists of people-again, overwhelmingly white who were eligible for principalships, and prohibited local boards from transferring teachers out of a district without their consent. Further the decentralization law was designed to preserve the Teacher's Union power, which ensured that community leaders in places like Ocean Hill Brownsville would never get a free hand to control their own schools. By running slates of candidates in local school board elections, the teacher's union continued to enjoy unprecedented power to hire and fire supervisors, effectively co-managing the public school. (Source: City Limits Magazine; Striking Differences, April 2003- See attachment for complete article).

It was also well known that the boards became patronage mills for power-hungry politicians. Boards were comprised of slates of candidates who were loyal to a particular power broker - their decisions usually had little to do with education. Superintendents were chosen based on their compliance to the board majority. (Source: New York Times Magazine; October 6, 2002). Supporters of Mayoral control used these problems to argue that "community control" was a failure. But the public schools were never allowed Community Control. The point is that decentralization that reigned for three decades was a far cry Community Control. Also people seemed to have forgotten that those 32 districts replaced a centralized system that was irreparably broken, failing the majority of its charges in ways every bit as horrendous as what we've witnessed in recent years.

The New York City public schools have for several decades, even before decentralization, maintained an appalling dropout rate, low percentages of high school graduation, and dismal levels of student achievement. By the mid 1960's, blacks earned only 2.5 % of the diplomas required for admission to college, making up nearly onethird of the student population. Eighty-five percent of Harlem's sixth graders were two years behind grade level, and Harlem's elementary schoolchildren's IQ's actually declined between third and sixth grades. "The more time black pupils spent in the city's public education system... the more they appeared to regress. (Source: City Limits Magazine; Striking Differences, April 2003) Of course, the numbers looked worse for Black and Latino Students. In 2002 only 46% of African American and 40% of Latino Children graduated from Public School. (Source: Manhattan Institute 2002 Civic Report). The. city's schools have long been plagued with inadequate funding, poor teacher training, unproven curricula, and rundown and overcrowded facilities, amongst other problems.

Michael Bloomberg, a multi-billionaire with no prior track record or experience in the field of education, consolidated the massive bureaucracy of municipal, community and parent decision-making power into the sole dominion of his chancellor, Joel Klein when he wrested Control of the Public School System. Joel Klein is another businessman with no prior experience, nor background in education. In fact, he was so unqualified that the job requirements had to be waived in order for him to become the commissioner. Bloomberg and Klein immediately awarded a multi-million dollar contract to devise a new curriculum. Teachers were literally forced to throw their books, manuals, student materials, and other teaching tools into the garbage at the beginning of the 2003 school year, all to make way for a "uniform" curriculum. This unproven curriculum was mandated for all of the schools in New York City, that is, except for the top 200 schools considered to be exemplary. These high performing schools were permitted to continue to execute their own curricula and was never asked to make their curricula available to the failing schools.

The picture was dismal enough in 2003 when Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Klein announced their plans to leave back 15,000 third graders based SOLELY on a single test score on the city-wide English or Math test. To the dismay of many, no grades, classroom work or teacher evaluation was to count. With less than half of all students in tested grades meeting the state and city's English Language Arts standards in 2002, this policy was certain to adversely affect a large number of children. It appears that Mayor Bloomberg's testing policy was a way of playing politics with our children. By holding back the least successful test takers the Mayor was able to make himself look good on the 4th grade scores just in time for his re-election campaign. He later declared that fifth graders and seventh graders would also be held back according to their test results.

Aside from high stakes testing being used for political purposes, our children have suffered tremendously. When you're 8 years old or any age, being left back can be devastating. Every single study in the past twenty-five years has concluded that holding kids over at this young age does not lead to higher performance and increases by 50% the likelihood of a child dropping out of school later in life. (Source: Timeoutfromtesting.org) Leaving behind 8 year olds destroys their self-esteem and their desire to learn. Excessive emphasis on standardized tests takes music, art, class trips and other enriching experiences out of the curriculum and teaches children how to take tests rather than developing well-rounded young adults who have good academic and social skills.

With promotion being based exclusively on standardized test scores, Black children are at greater risk than any other group for repeating grades. When they do repeat grades, they are ushered into corporate-run after-school programs (AIS), which frequently offer unstructured group tutoring, promotional items disguised as textbooks and workbooks, and some homework help. This, unfortunately, is the fate of the lucky students, because many children, despite their "eligibility," receive no additional assistance at all ... The numbers speak for themselves... Between the school years of 2003 and Z004, the meager ranks of Black students in grades 3-8 who met the state and city English Language Arts standards at Level 3 or 4 fell from 33.1 to 32.5, a decline of .6%. This fact would not be troubling if it were not also true that Black students experienced the greatest test score decline of any reported ethnic group, or if the test scores for Whites and Asians had not simultaneously risen by .5% and 2.5% respectively. In fact, of all reported ethnic groups in 2004, Black students had the highest rate of failure (22.1% performing at Level 1) and were surpassed only slightly by Hispanics in the number of students performing at Level 2. (Many Hispanic students, however, are exempt from the harsh promotional policy by way of being labeled ESL, English-as-a Second-Language. These students are not held over for testing or academic failure.) (Source: Black Commentator Online; How New York City is Failing Black Kids by Zahraa AbanteHayes).

The city and state implement a standards program that contains a rubric of four levels. It can be summarized as Level 4 representing mastery above grade level, 3 being grade level proficiency, 2 being slightly below grade level, and 1 representing a lack of proficiency. Children who repeat a grade or who achieve a Level 1 or 2 on their standardized tests are eligible for Academic Intervention Services (AIS), which are most often outsourced to for-profit businesses and corporations such as Kaplan, Sylvan Learning, Platform Learning, and others who are making a killing off of our children, while the students are unknowingly being ushered towards failure in high school. In fact, many parents are not aware that their children's elementary school performance can be a powerful indicator of whether or not they will graduate from high school. However, this is well known to educators and those in charge of education. The picture becomes even clearer when one considers the high correlation between dropout rates and rates of unemployment, underemployment, and incarceration. Why would the mayor want to hold back so many students? The picture only makes sense when one understands the convoluted logic that now governs New York City's schools Bloomberg and others like him want to grind our children into fuel for the industrial engines of corporate America. Every oppressive societal institution makes money when the Black child fails. (Source: Black Commentator Online; How New York City is Failing Black Kids by Zahraa Abante-Hayes).

The marriage of Business and Public Education is at the core of Mayoral Control in New York City. Since 2002, the Department of Education under Bloomberg gave away an estimated $270 million in taxpayer dollars by skirting the competitive bidding process. (Source: Statement of Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum for City Council Hearing on No-Bin Contracts; Nov. 21 2006 - See attachment for complete report). About 120 million of these no-bid contracts were handed out to consultants, teacher trainers, testing companies and other outfits last year without the public review required of most city agencies. (Source: New York Daily News; A no-bid bonanza; August 21st 2006)

In one high profile case, Bloomberg signed a backdoor deal with Snapple, awarding Snapple Beverage Group exclusive and immediate rights for the soft-drink maker to sell its products in vending machines in city schools. The city's comptroller, William Thompson Jr., the leading critic of the Snapple deal sued the DOE for violating regulations as it pertained to independent contractors. Also the comptroller released an audit that found the marketing corporation was not funneling its earnings to the city's treasury as it's supposed to. (Source: NY Sun; Mayor Folds Marketing Department Following Bungled Snapple Deal; June 9, 2006) Although the Snapple deal was highly publicized, Bloomberg doles out millions of dollars in secret.

The DOE has slashed its budget and cut back on vital necessities such as custodians, drug education programs, music and art programs and school bus service. A final case in point: Private consultants have been at the heart of Bloomberg's and Klein's effort to reinvent the nation's largest school system from the beginning of his tenure in 2002. He first turned to McKinsey & Company, then to a team led by a former partner at Goldman Sachs, the investment bank. Later came Alvarez & Marsal with a broad mandate to scour the system for $200 million in savings. He hired the consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal, without competitive bidding. One provision of the $15.8 million contract called for "restructuring the Office of Pupil Transportation to obtain annual cost savings." Simply put: drive down the cost of busing children to school. Consultants from Alvarez & Marsal are all over the upper reaches of the Education Department. One of the firm's senior directors, has essentially served as the system's chief financial officer for the better part of a year, billing $410 an hour. A managing director, ($450 an hour), runs the consulting operation with the title of the chancellor's chief adviser on restructuring. Another director, ($375 an hour), served as the chief restructuring officer for pupil transportation.

Several years ago Alvarez & Marsal was hired to run another one of the nation's most academically and financially crippled school systems in St Louis. In a report, the firm described its work there as a "textbook turnaround," resulting in $79 million in budget cuts and improved student performance. But in St. Louis - which had about 40,000 students at the time, a fraction of New York's nearly 1.1 million - some parents, politicians and school board members said things were not so simple. They said the firm erred by eliminating needed positions, and ignored the human cost behind decisions like closing 16 schools with little notice. Today, they point out, the St. Louis system remains near bankruptcy, and student performance is abysmal. As the plan in New York combusted this week, it left shivering students waiting for buses in the cold and thousands of parents hollering about disrupted routines. (Source: New York Times; Consultants Draw Fire in Bus Woes; February 3, 2007)

The issue of qualified teachers has also been a serious problem Under Bloomberg. There have been a record number of valued veteran educators leaving the school system. They are being replaced with inexperienced,. often inept new recruits from programs such as the Teaching Fellows, Teach for America, and Teacher's College.

We are also witnessing alienation between the typical student on one side and education and educators on the other. There is a growing structural biased against hiring Black teachers. New hires have decreased from 16% (with an interim high of 27.2% back in 2001-02) to 14.1% Currently. This represents a NEGATIVE growth. And the city's fastest growing group of people- the Latinos - have seen no positive change to reflect this phenomenal growth. In fact, 11.7% new "Hispanic" hires also represent a NEGATIVE growth. (Source: Black New Yorkers For Educational Excellence (BYNEE)/NYC Department of Education). Disparities in resources and outcomes based on race and class violate the human rights principle of non-discrimination.

Conclusion

The power to teach New York City's children has been wrested from the hands of the people. Our system's top-down bureaucracy prevents flexibility in reform efforts, and keeps the power to change the system away from parents, students, educators and communities. Before us lies a portrait of an educational system more grim than ever - politicians awarding governmental contracts under questionable conditions to favored businesses, and multi-million dollar testing and tutoring corporations making money when our children fail.

As you embark upon the daunting task of reforming your public school system, I caution that Mayoral control is not the answer even if he or she has good intentions. I believe that it takes an empowered community, parental involvement, and collective resolve to transform a failing school system. Local leadership and true community input and control of our schools are vital. Every child is different. Every public school is different. Every community is different. The Convention on the Rights of the Child and other human rights documents guarantee the rights to quality education, dignity and safety for every child, an equitable distribution of resources, freedom from discrimination, and meaningful participation for parents, students and communities. NYC has proved that centralized Mayoral Control fails to guarantee these human rights standards.

Charles Barron has been a community activist for thirty years, a national leadership trainer for twenty years, and now an elected member of the New York City Council and Chair of the Higher Education Committee, which oversees the City University Of New York (CUNY).