Video - Mayoral Debate on Education: The Winner is ..... Moderator Zakiyah Ansari

Republished with full video coverage:
No one was more impressive than Zakiyah who dominated the debate with her no-nonsense take charge approach. I guess many of the candidates did not know much about her but every single one of them took notice.

Zakiayah for mayor.

The press corps was massive due to Weiner -- a major victory for NY-GPS in getting him to show -- did they have to guarantee him the seat next to Zakiyah which got the most camera work?
The biggest loser? Quinn by far, who was ridiculed. She is slipping into oblivion. Will we see a Weiner/Thompson run-off?

Video of entire debate plus my one on one post debate questions to Thompson and de Blasio.
https://vimeo.com/67227031



Friday I will publish my Wave column on how I got tossed from a Weiner appearance in Rockaway last Friday.

Read Leonie's report.
Read press accounts:
NY Times, Daily News, WSJ, NY Post,  Huffington Post, NY Mag, City and State. GothamSchools

Read More

Study Finds Mayoral Control a Bust, Someone Tell the UFT

Contact:
Katrina Bulkley, (973) 655-5189, bulkleyk@mail.montclair.edu
Dan Quinn, (517) 203-2940, dquinn@greatlakescenter.org

Mayor-Led Schools Report Problematic, Academic Review Finds
EAST LANSING, Mich. (Apr. 23, 2013) – Mayoral governance – where a city's mayor replaces an elected school board – is in use in several major American cities, including New York City and Chicago. A recent report from the Center for American Progress claims that "mayoral-led" districts improve school and student performance. A new review questions whether mayoral control is appropriately credited with the claimed improvements.

The report, Mayoral Governance and Student Achievement: How Mayor-Led Districts are Improving School and Student Performance, was authored by Kenneth K. Wong and Francis X. Shen.  Wong and Shen studied fiscal and student achievement data in an effort expand the discussion around mayoral control of schools.

Katrina Bulkley, Professor of Education Leadership at Montclair State University, reviewed the report for the Think Twice think tank review project. The review was produced by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), with funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

Professor Bulkley's review finds that the fiscal analysis of mayoral-led cities is "problematic due to inappropriate comparisons and a lack of reliable and valid evidence." Specifically, mayoral-led districts are claimed to have more resources as a result of the governance change but no evidence is provided that shows this is true. Regarding student achievement claims, she found the report highlights selected positive findings in a few districts, but does not address mayor-led cities where such gains were not found nor cities in the country that saw strong gains without mayoral control.

The report's use of research literature is also called into question, as no peer-reviewed journals appear in the endnotes and there is a lack of citations to research that examines finances or student achievement.

Furthermore, the review finds that the report "surprisingly" includes Philadelphia and Baltimore in the sections on student achievement but not the section on finances.  This is surprising because these two cities are cited in the report as "mixed" models – with a combination of state and mayoral control. "Without their inclusion, only three out of the nine analyzed districts would have shown improvement [in student achievement] by the report's own definitions."

On a positive note, Bulkley states, "This report offers useful information about the context for shifts to mayoral control in different cities and the challenges that may arise in such governance changes."
However, Bulkley concludes that the limitations presented in the review prevent the report from being used for serious policy decisions.

Find Katrina Bulkley's review on the Great Lakes Center website:
http://www.greatlakescenter.org

Find Mayoral Governance and Student Achievement: How Mayor-Led Districts are Improving School and Student Performance on the web:
http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/MayoralControl-6.pdf

Think Twice, a project of the National Education Policy Center, provides the public, policymakers and the press timely, academically sound reviews of selected publications. The project is made possible by the support of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

The review is also available on the NEPC website:
http://nepc.colorado.edu

===========

The mission of the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice is to support and disseminate high quality research and reviews of research for the purpose of informing education policy and to develop research-based resources for use by those who advocate for education reform.

Visit the Great Lakes Center Web Site at: http://www.greatlakescenter.org.

Read More

Vincent Wojsnis: Why Does the UFT Leadership Cling to Mayoral Control?

Vincent Wojsnis, who was never involved with a UFT caucus in the past, has become a stalwart MORE advocate. He has thrown his hat into the ring with gusto. He is running for a MORE Executive Board At-Large position. Vincent posted a "Why I Am Running With MORE" piece on the MORE blog.

"I’ve been a chapter leader, a delegate, an arbitration advocate. In 2009 I joined other UFT members to help organize teachers for the AFT in Texas. My union activity was recognized by the union leadership later that year when I was received a Trachtenberg Award as well as a UFT Partnership Award that I shared with my former principal. I am proud of it all.... 

Until recently, however, to anyone who’d ask me to which caucus I belonged I would simply say, “UFT.” So-called “in fighting” within the union, it seemed to me, was factional and counter-productive. I no longer feel that way. The extreme agenda advanced by the so-called “education reform movement” and our union leadership’s weak (often questionable) response to it has made me a partisan. Earlier this year, concerned over the direction that the union leadership was taking both in New York and nationally, a group of UFT members joined together and formed the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) as an alternative caucus within the UFT. I joined the MORE Caucus because I believe that union has to go in a different direction.

It is people like Vincent as much as anyone who has joined MORE that scares the Unity machine the most. But just as important is for MORE to justify Vincent's faith by staying true to democracy and principles. It has been an absolute pleasure working with Vincent. It is people like him who represent real change in the UFT.

Why Does the UFT Leadership Cling to Mayoral Control?

By Vincent C. Wojsnis

The headline of the March 21 edition of The New York Teacher reads “Mayoral Control – Not Mayoral Dictatorship!” Inside, the article reports on the recommendations of the UFT Task Force on School Governance which outlines a series of reforms the committee feels should be adopted to change the law that gives the mayor total control over New York City’s public schools.

 Among the panel’s recommendations were: changing the number mayoral appointees on the Panel for Education Policy from eight to five members; ending the practice of appointing non-educators as chancellor; restoring the power and independence of local superintendents; and empowering  Community Education Councils to approve school co-locations in local school buildings.

 These recommendations were presented to and approved by the UFT Delegate Assembly on March 20. However, it was not without opposition. MORE member, Gloria Brandman, who represented one of two dissenting votes on the task force, spoke in opposition, arguing against union support for any form of mayoral control. Her voice was drowned out by Unity-led hecklers. So it is now official, in this election year, the United Federation of Teachers supports a modified form of mayoral control.  

Lest there be any doubt about the official union position on mayoral control consider the following statement by UFT president, Michael Mulgrew. In a March 14 message to the membership Mulgrew stated: “I am expecting that some in the press may erroneously report the story as the UFT and Michael Mulgrew are trying to end mayoral control. I want to make sure you know that is not the case. We are not proposing to end mayoral control. We do not want to turn the clock back to 2001 or return to the chaotic days of the old elected school boards.”

I wonder how many teachers who were around in 2001 currently serving time on the Absent Teacher Reserve would agree that they are so much better off now than they were during those “chaotic days of the old elected school boards.” 

I arrived late that Wednesday from a high school trip with my students, so I could not attend the last DA. Were I able to attend and were I permitted to speak, I too would have opposed the resolution.  My question to the membership is this: Were we not led down this road before? Did we not learn anything from that experience?

The last time the issue of mayoral control came up was when the original law expired in 2009. (Opposition to that law actually caused it to expire for several months before the state legislature could vote on a new law.) Then, as now, a task force on school governance was formed by former UFT president, Randi Weingarten.  Its recommendations were very similar to proposals made by the current task force. As a UFT chapter leader at my former school, I fought for those proposals. I remember stating at a Senate committee hearing: “We need to reform the reforms.” I was wrong. The essence of the proposals being made here (then, as now) are not so much to “limit” mayoral control as they are to save mayoral control. Why does the union leadership continue to cling to such a miserable and failed public policy?

2009 was a pivotal year in education reform. It was the year Mayor Bloomberg muscled the City Council into changing the law allowing him to seek a third term, though he had previously long championed term limits. “Education reform” was at the center of the mayor’s re-election campaign. It is also notable that the UFT did not oppose Bloomberg’s re-election.

2009 was also the year the DOE announced the phase out of my former school, MS 399, one among the second big wave of school closures under former Chancellor Joel Klein. As a chapter, we rallied together with parents and community organizations to oppose the school’s closure. The election campaign and the debate to renew the mayoral control law presented unique opportunities for our school to “make our case” at various public forums.
For its part, the union leadership was very supportive and helped to organize demonstrations and rallies in support of our school. However, while it became clear to teachers and parents that “our battle” to save our school was part a “greater war” against mayoral control, the message from the union leadership was also as clear and distinct; we oppose the closing of your school but, THE UFT STILL SUPPORTS MAYORAL CONTROL. 

The concept of mayoral control is an idea hatched by corporate think tanks that have two objectives: one, to enrich and empower the corporations who will benefit as a result of the “reforms” and secondly, to disenfranchise millions of American citizens of a basic democratic right; the right to affect real change in their children’s education.

It’s not just Bloomberg and it’s not just New York. When Pres. Mulgrew points to examples of where mayoral control of the public schools appears to have succeeded; in Boston or Washington D.C., he is being deliberately misleading. Everywhere it exists, mayoral control has led to school closures and their replacement with privately-run charter schools. It has replaced a broad and robust curriculum with an insane preoccupation with standardized testing. For teachers, it has led to an erosion of fundamental union rights such as seniority, tenure protection and the implementation of an unfair teacher evaluation process.

But mayoral control does not exist everywhere. Throughout the country there are still school boards that are elected by members of the communities, mostly parents, who seek to have a voice in education policy. This is particularly true in affluent, suburban, mostly white school districts. Are not the parents of less affluent, urban communities of color entitled to the same rights?  

I believe that our union is now standing at the crossroads. Do we want to continue with a union leadership that is content “to have a seat at the table;” and essentially acts as an overseer for policies that have proven to be so harmful to the schools and communities we serve? Or, do we dare to choose a new leadership that will stand independently and fight for the best interests of our members and students?

The Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) is running candidates in the upcoming UFT elections. In contrast to the Unity Caucus, in paragraph 3 of our platform it states:    

3. MORE Democratic Governance by Communities, Parents, and Educators; No Mayoral Control, No Corporate Education Reform
We must wage an unequivocal fight for a democratic and responsive educational system, overturning mayoral control and resisting corporate “education reform,” which have disenfranchised communities from the governance of their schools.

We will fight for . . . An immediate end to the current UFT support for mayoral control and its replacement by a democratic system of local governance run by communities, parents and educators.

This spring UFT members have a choice. Vote for the MORE slate of candidates. We are the social justice caucus of the United Federation of Teachers.

References:
Landau, Micah. “Mayoral Control with Limits,” New York Teacher, March 21, 2013.

MORE Platform, Movement of Rank and File Educators,  http://morecaucusnyc.org/the-more-platform/
Mulgrew, Michael. “Our School Governance Recommendations,” UFT.org, March 14, 2013
Wojsnis, Vincent C. “The Closing of MS 399,” New York Teacher, March 9, 2009
Wojsnis, VincentC .  “Public Education at the Crossroads,” Mount Hope Monitor, May 7, 2009

Read More