Duncan for Mayoral Control, Against Local School Boards

by Clay Burell · 2009-04-01 07:04:00 UTC
Topics:

Arne Duncan

EdSec Arne Duncan this week came out fighting for mayoral control of large urban school districts, and against local school boards. I'm interested to hear your views on this, pro and con. Me? I see it as opening the door to more school closures without input from - and often against the will of - local school communities; more charters; more non-unionized teachers; and less democratic input into urban education. Maybe some of you can enlighten me about the advantages of mayoral control.

The AP article cited above sketches out opposing viewpoints like so:

Against mayoral control:

National School Boards Association official Michael Resnick said local school boards are the backbone of community representation in schools.

''Education is too important to fall onto the already lengthy list of functions that mayors are managing,'' Resnick said.

(And this NYC Public School Parents blog post suggests mayoral control in NYC is far from popular.)

For it:

Mayoral control is worth considering in about 400 of the biggest school districts, said Kenneth Wong, a Brown University professor who studies the issue. Those districts enroll about a third of the nation's 50 million school children.

''I think the time has come; there has been enough research suggesting it is a promising strategy,'' Wong said.

''The way I look at it is, we are talking about real accountability,'' Wong said. ''A lot of urban school systems are playing this game of blaming one another -- the superintendent blames the school board; the school board blames the union.

''With the mayor in charge, there ultimately is one single official held accountable every four years, whether they're doing a good job or not,'' Wong said.

Your take?

Clay Burell
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