Bloomberg: Schools Can’t Be ‘Patronage Mills’ Or ‘Run For The Benefit Of The People Who Work In Them’
Bloomberg: Schools Can’t Be ‘Patronage Mills’ Or ‘Run For The Benefit Of The People Who Work In Them’
The Obama administration, guided by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, has come out in favor of mayoral control of urban education. This centralizes education policy for a city in the mayor’s office, instead of leaving it to the city’s school board, city council, and superintendent, who often can’t agree on a single policy direction.
“At the end of my tenure, if only seven mayors are in control, I think I will have failed,” Duncan said last week. “And given the fact so few cities have mayoral control, that’s a huge impediment that hasn’t been talked about enough.”
One of the foremost proponents of mayoral control is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was given control over the city’s education policy seven years ago. Today, The Wonk Room sat down with Mayor Bloomberg, to discuss the effect that this move has had on New York City schools:
I can just tell you that before we had mayoral control it was disaster. [...] I know of no thing that we’ve done that would have been remotely possible under the old system and any mayor that has a school system that is getting better, I think, will tell you the exact same thing…The school systems should not be run as patronage mills and they should not be run for the benefit of the people who work in them…And when you have these school boards that are fundamentally controlled by special interests, the truth of the matter is the students come last, if at all.
Watch it:
According to Kenneth Wong, a Brown University professor who studies the issue, mayoral control is worth considering in about 400 of the biggest school districts. “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.”
Currently, just seven cities have adopted full mayoral control of education, but its a system worth experimenting with, instead of relying upon a patchwork of policymakers to institute reform. Hopefully, a mayor can cut through the bureaucracy to compel a change in direction, and if that effort is unsuccessful, voters will have the chance to designate a new point person.
6 Responses to “Bloomberg: Schools Can’t Be ‘Patronage Mills’ Or ‘Run For The Benefit Of The People Who Work In Them’”
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Dang, this seems a supremely bad idea. Mayors have their hands full with crumbling public infrastructure, patching holes in the healthcare safety net, and arranging financing for long term projects. Adding public education to their staple of responsibilities is ludicrous.
Politicians pander in patronage mills. How will a Mayor be any different?
It’s not who’s leader but the management theory they apply. Obama/Orzag/Duncan/DeParle’s pay for performance will do the same for education and healthcare that CEO incentive pay did for Wall Street.
Our current leaders operate from bad management theory. Look up Dr. Deming folks.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:06 pmBad idea. Sure appoint a school Czar and streamline the bureaucracy, but the mayor has so much on his/her plate, voting on educational achievement alone is very unlikely and a bad school system in a thriving economy will not have much effect on a mayor. Also consider the South, where many people send their kids to private or religious schools. What is the motivation for a mayor to build a great school system, especially funding schools at an appropriate level, when voters don’t send their kids to those schools.
Lets start by losing the factory model of schooling and decentralize and personalize the educational experience for students. No more 2000-3000 pupil middle and high schools.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:50 pmIf the aim is to get the process less transparent and more top-down, this will do it. Mayors of large cities are actually in charge of many small townships, none of which have the same curricular needs or provide the same support for their schools. In a society in which the community is unimportant and the federal government should have all control, this is an ideal solution. Please God, let us not have such a system in the United States.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:51 pmThe point isn’t that the mayor him/herself personally takes over running the school system, it’s that they appoint one reform-minded individual (Rhee in DC, Klein in NYC) to do it for them. Say what you want about Rhee and Klein (and people have), but no one accuses them of running patronage mills for teachers unions.
Also consider that it’s only suggesting mayoral control for the 400 biggest school districts. If lots of parents are sending their kids to private or religious schools, then that district probably isn’t one of those districts. No one’s saying this should be instituted everywhere in the country.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:43 pmBen:
No, Rhee and Klein aren’t beholden to teachers unions – they’re beholden to an entirely different set of monied interests, while removing any interest in the voting public. Watching what Rhee does here in DC, it doesn’t look like a step forward.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:43 pmI understand why Arne’s in favor of mayoral control, Daley appointed him.
But mayoral control in Chicago has been an abject failure.
Arne was a disaster. I cheered his promotion to DC if only because it gets him out of Chicago.
He is a crappy Schools Administrator. A complete twit. And Daley made the schools a bigger patronage mill than ever before.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:56 pm