The state’s new budget undermines mayoral control of the city’s schools, putting future generations at risk.
Despite the smiles and backslapping that accompanied the completion of New York’s state budget, it includes a truly disgraceful provision that weakens a law crucial to New York City’s future: mayoral control of the school system. Making matters worse, the new law hands more control to the group that has long pulled the state legislature’s strings, the United Federation of Teachers.
It’s a shameless betrayal of the city’s nearly 1 million students that will undermine the progress the city’s schools have made and harm the next generation, leaving them without the skills they need to succeed in future careers — and leaving too many trapped in poverty and tempted by crime.
In 2002, the New York Legislature abolished the New York City Board of Education, which had long been a poster child for government incompetence and educational failure, and gave control of the school system to the mayor. Our administration had just taken office and pushed hard for the change. Over 12 years, we made major gains: raising graduation rates by 42%, opening 654 new schools, reducing the racial achievement gap by nearly a quarter, and nearly doubling the college readiness rate.
Continue reading the full op-ed on bloomberg.com