Mayors take over schools
City control gives politicians power
March 21, 2007
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Even with students on split schedules to limit crowding, the central court of Cibola High School is a chaotic, noisy swirl of adolescence between classes.
The school on Albuquerque's fast-growing west side was built in 1974 for 1,600 students; now it has 3,200.
Just one of the city's 12 high schools made adequate yearly progress last year under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, and it wasn't Cibola. Of Albuquerque's 128 public schools, 47 met the standard, the state Public Education Department reports.
The overflowing classrooms and sagging test scores have convinced Mayor Martin Chavez that the city's schools are failing. So he wants to follow the example of mayors in Boston, Chicago, New York and several other cities: Take over the schools himself.
If Chavez can get the New Mexico Legislature to agree to his plan -- he hasn't so far -- Albuquerque would become part of a movement that began 15 years ago, when Boston switched control of its school system from an elected board to one appointed by the mayor.
Some improvements
The push for mayoral control has reflected rising frustration and desperation over poor student achievement, crumbling buildings, bureaucratic wrangling among school officials and revolving-door superintendents.
Schools in Boston, Chicago and New York have improved test scores, eliminated teacher strikes and stabilized school leadership since mayors took over.
They have standardized their curriculums, ended so-called social promotion of kids who fall too far behind, opened new schools to give students more choice and brought in millions of dollars in corporate donations.
It sounds like a compelling argument for mayoral control. But education specialists continue to debate whether kids really get a better education under such arrangements, whether any academic gains would be permanent, and how much credit mayors should really get for the successes.
Studies inconclusive
Kenneth Wong, a Brown University education professor who studies mayoral control of schools, examined test scores from the 100 largest urban school districts from 1999 to 2003. He found that students in mayor-controlled school systems often perform better than those in other urban systems. Mayor-run districts are progressing significantly faster, he says.
Wong says in his study that "there is still a long way to go before" mayor-controlled "districts achieve acceptable levels of achievement."
On the other hand, Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, says his review of previous studies finds that it's inconclusive whether mayors can raise test scores more than elected school boards.
Solid data on student achievement have not been collected long enough, he says.
Although test scores in Boston, Chicago and New York have risen in recent years, Hess says, they're also up in Houston, where an elected board runs the school district.
Other analysts note that eliminating an elected board removes direct public involvement in school decisions. That can leave many parents feeling shut out, says Michael Kirst, a Stanford University education professor. A controversial move can set off a wave of parental fury at the mayor.
In January, New York schools reorganized bus routes, doubling commute times for some children and leaving others stranded. Parents were outraged. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg last month appointed a parent as the city education department's first family engagement officer.
In Albuquerque, Chavez sees potential benefits of controlling schools outweighing drawbacks. "I don't want to run the schools, I assure you," he says of the 87,000-student system. "But I do want to have accountability."
Copyright © 2007 Detroit Free Press Inc.
Detroit's residents resist mayoral control
A 1999 state takeover of Detroit Public Schools had virtually no effect on student achievement as the district continued to lose students to the suburbs and charter schools. It was forced to shut dozens of buildings with overwhelming budget shortfalls.
Five years later, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pitched a plan under which the appointed board created in the takeover would be replaced by an elected board. Under the plan, he would nominate the chief executive officer, but the board would have to approve his choice. The measure failed 2-to-1 at the polls in 2004, and the city's first elected board with full power to hire a superintendent took control in 2006.
But it doesn't appear Kilpatrick is ready to give up. He played a big role in brokering a deal last fall that ended the 16-day Detroit teachers strike. During that strike, he announced his intention to try to take over management of the schools, saying their failures hurt his efforts to turn around the city.
STAFF WRITERS KRISTEN JORDAN SHAMUS and CHASTITY PRATT
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