ECC Statement on Mayoral Control Extension

On Tuesday May 31st, the State legislature released the bill to amend and renew Mayoral control of the city’s school system (A10499/S9459). The bill has some important changes that are responsive to our advocacy efforts, such as enabling CECs to interview a minimum of 3 candidates for superintendency, requiring a CEC representative on the District Leadership Team and adding an elected parent member with a child in a D75 program to every CEC. The bill also extends Mayoral control by two years, rather than four, and tasks the NYS Education Department Commissioner with reviewing and assessing school governance. 


We appreciate tremendously the legislators who communicated with us throughout this process and fought for changes supported by the ECC.  However, we are deeply dismayed by some of the amendments in the bill.  In an effort to be responsive to as many stakeholders as possible, the law seems to have become a hodgepodge of disparate ideas without a cohesive vision for what this system should be.  We share our concerns below. 


Changes to City Board of Education (a.k.a., the Panel for Educational Policy or PEP)

• Citywide Councils are excluded from electing a representative to the PEP. Citywide Councils were mistakenly left out from this process when the law was amended in 2019.  We have asked for this simple fix for the last three years, yet, instead of making the fix, there will now be five PEP members elected by CECs - one member from each borough - without Citywide Councils. 
• PEP members will serve one-year terms. This is a terrible idea that will prevent PEP members from developing professionally to become effective policy makers. The annual turn over will create disruptions and instability.  Having all new PEP members every year will likely empower the Chancellor to make decisions without adequate consultation with the PEP. 
• PEP will have 23 members. This seems unnecessarily large even for the nation’s largest school district.  
• Only 4 of the 13 Mayoral appointees are required to be parents of children in the public school system. The amended law requires at least one parent who has a child with an Individualized Education Program, one who has a child in a bilingual or English as a Second (sic) Language program and one who has a child in a District 75 program.  We support requiring these representations, but believe the majority of Mayoral appointees should be parents with children in the system.
• Although PEP members can no longer be removed for voting against the appointing authority’s direction, they can still be removed for “good cause,” a term so undefined that it could mean anything.

Changes to Community District Education Councils (CECs)

• With the addition of the D75 parent member,  CECs will have 12 members.  Boards that make decisions by a vote normally have an odd number of members to avoid ties.  
• Every school is now required to have a parent coordinator and principals are required to consult with CECs in hiring of parent coordinators.  Parent coordinators can be important facilitators to parent engagement at the school level and can have a significant impact on parents’ experience with the school system.  However, this particular change came out of the left field.  If a school has an active PA/PTA, then it should be the PA/PTA, with the Title 1 PAC, that is involved in hiring the parent coordinator.  CEC should only be consulted if a school does not have an active PA/PTA.  We also believe it would be more meaningful for the CECs to have a role in hiring of the principals. The law is also unclear what high school principals must do when hiring a parent coordinator since the Citywide Council on High Schools is not mentioned.  
• There will be two non-voting student members, who must be high school seniors. We welcome the addition of another student member but believe juniors should be eligible to serve. 

Powers & duties of PEP and CECs 
We requested enhancing powers and duties of the PEP and CECs to create more checks and balances.  Unfortunately very little has changed. Here are some changes that were not included in the amended law. 

• Requiring the Chancellor to seek approval from the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) on policies and initiatives. Most of the controversial decisions in recent years - G&T, admissions, school reopening, AP for All, the Bronx Plan, etc. - did not require a PEP vote.  In fact the PEP was not even consulted before these initiatives and plans were announced. 
• Requiring the DOE to provide data and information upon request by CCECs and elected officials without going through the FOIL process. CCECs do not always receive data and information in a timely manner and sometimes must resort to submitting a FOIL request which may take over a year. Yet, CCECs are mandated by law to review educational programs and student outcomes and issue reports. 
• Giving CECs authority to approve or reject proposals on significant changes to school utilization.  PEP now must respond within 30 days if it votes against a CEC resolution on significant changes to school utilization.  However, CECs are not required to pass a resolution on these proposals. 
• Clarifying school zoning to include school phase-out, closures, grade expansions and grade truncations.  These changes affect school attendance zones and we believe they must be approved by CECs.  

Task Force to develop a democratic alternative to Mayoral control
We are pleased that there will be a process for a thorough review of the school governance.  The law tasks the NYS Education Department Commissioner to review and assess school governance and to contract with an institution of higher education in doing this research.  It is unclear if there is any funding set aside for this purpose.  The Commissioner is also required to hold one hearing per borough to engage the rights holders. 


We hope the Commissioner will create an advisory committee, working with the institution of higher education.  Public hearings are welcome and necessary, but they are rarely the appropriate platform for thoughtful and in-depth dialogue among rights holders to consider and vet ideas.  

​Conclusion
This amendment process illustrated why we needed a task force.  Some of the changes made are not in alignment with the realities of the roles in which we serve. As we feared, legislators ran out of time to have thoughtful and deliberate discussions regarding which immediate tweaks should be implemented to create more checks and balances, and which should be decided after the thorough vetting of a commission.  We will continue to advocate for a better school governance system because this is about our children and the future of our City.