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Balanced Approach Awaits Lapse of Mayoral Control


Bloomberg Walcott school visit

Mayor Bloomberg at a school (photo: Spencer T. Tucker)


Mark Twain’s reproach against “Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics” could easily be reformulated against Lies, Damn Lies, and Statutes.  Such are the many inflammatory statements against reversion to the old Board of Education made by Mayor de Blasio and his allies as they seek renewal of mayoral control of New York City’s public schools. This fear-mongering against a return to the old system, so-called school decentralization or community control, employs caricature rather than truth to advance its purpose. In fact, a close reading of the old law – about to be resurrected if mayoral control lapses at the end of this week -- reveals a surprisingly cautious approach to balancing central, district, school, and parent interests. The true picture is a sharp contrast to the administration’s doomsday scenario.

The mayor has described “chaos and corruption under the old school boards.” The Chancellor predicted, “Our system is headed for disaster,” calling a lapse of mayoral control “devastating.” The president of Bank Street College, a former DOE official, further injured the former institution’s reputation by recalling “the system we had” when “in certain districts there was a going rate” for sale of administrative positions by local school boards. This unusually heated rhetoric is at odds with the professional experience of each since the mayor, chancellor, and Bank Street president all flourished -- apparently uncorrupted -- under the old system as a community school board member, superintendent, and principal, respectively.

But more importantly, the stereotype of community control they describe was long gone by the time mayoral control was implemented in 2002. Instead, the new system replaced a reform law enacted in 1996 that took pains to eliminate opportunities for corruption and substantially increased central power under the Chancellor while providing for important local roles. It’s that statute that will replace mayoral control if the state Legislature and governor fail to act.

Contrary to mayoral myth harking to earlier iterations of the law, the once-and-possibly future statute bans community school board members from most personnel decisions, subjecting them to removal by the Chancellor “for willful, intentional or knowing involvement in the hiring, appointment, or assignment” of school employees. The 1996 statute explicitly states that “community boards shall have no executive or administrative powers or function.” Instead they are confined to exercising “powers and duties to establish educational policies and objectives” consistent with policies of the central board and Chancellor.

The central board, now made up of seven members -- one each appointed by the Borough Presidents and two by the Mayor, thus without a mayoral majority -- is also limited to a policy role, similar to the original responsibilities of the mayoral control board, called for that reason the Panel for Educational Policy or PEP. (Its duties have since been somewhat expanded to allow for public decision-making on contract and siting matters.)

The exception to community school board members’ limited personnel role is in securing their own superintendents. But the law only provides for boards to recommend a list of candidates to the Chancellor under a model contract and regulations promulgated centrally.  Even the process by which the list is assembled is subject to sunlight, with the Chancellor empowered to establish an inclusive public process for the recruitment, screening, selection, and review of candidates.

The law, to take effect July 1, is very strong on educational accountability. Each Community Superintendent, once appointed by the Chancellor, is required to take action against the principals of failing schools. If not, the Chancellor may “remove a community superintendent who fails to comply with” all applicable laws, including “performance standards addressed by administration and effectiveness, and any requirements for continuing education and training.”

Presaging the Bloomberg-era emphasis on principal empowerment, the law reserves important powers to schools consistent with central and district policies. These include the authority to design and implement budgets; staff selection recommendations; curricula and syllabi; “teacher and staff development relevant to increasing pupil achievement, support extended day programs, school reform programs, and public support services;” make or arrange for minor building repairs; and purchase equipment and supplies if more inexpensive than system purchasing arrangements.

Parents, too, gain under the old statute which contains a number of explicit provisions making parent powers another key force in holding educators accountable and motivating them to act.  Parent involvement is one of three major criteria for evaluating principals’ performance, student achievement and school discipline being the other two.

I have my reasons for favoring mayoral control with changes. Part of the problem with the current debate over extension is its all-or-nothing posture. But advocates for mayoral control typically do a disservice to civic discourse by ignoring or mischaracterizing the reality of what would occur if mayoral control lapses. In its place would be a reform statute, curing many of the system’s previous ills, and setting forth a reasonable formula for educational accountability and effective management.

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David C. Bloomfield is Professor of Educational Leadership, Law, and Policy at Brooklyn College and The CUNY Graduate Center. Much of this analysis is based on his earlier study, co-authored with Bruce S. Cooper, “Re-Centralization or Strategic Management? A New Governance Model for the New York City Public Schools (Teachers College, Columbia University, 1998).

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The Governor Cannot Duck Reckoning for Mass Transit Decline


Cuomo subways

(photo: The Governor's Office)


New York’s mass transit riders are experiencing a serious and rapid decline in service. The negatives are palpable and documentable; ever-worsening delays are aggravating and angering the millions of New Yorkers who need the subways, buses, and commuter rail systems to move them around.

A State Comptroller’s audit found on-time weekday performance for the subway system had declined from 80% in 2013 to 74% in 2014; the MTA’s investor disclosure documents show OTP declined to 70% in 2015, to 67% in 2016; and the MTA website shows OTP through March 2017 at 63%. Increases in equipment failures are real too. The subway mean distance between failure improved dramatically with the capital program reinvestments of the 1980s and ‘90s, from its low point of 7,000 miles in 1981 to a peak of 178,000 miles in 2005, but since 2011 has declined from 172,00 mdbf to 112,000 in 2016, another rapid deterioration.

Explanations for these serious problems include difficulties in loading and unloading passengers as the trains and platforms become more and more crowded, delays due to emergencies like sick passengers and police actions, the aging of the subway car fleet, and capital and maintenance work being conducted on the rights-of-way even as the trains are running.

The overcrowding is palpable and documentable too; ridership increased 58% between 1996 and 2016. Employment in New York City grew by more than 630,000 between the end of the recession in 2009 and the end of 2016, and is continuing to grow. New York City’s economy is successful, but its infrastructure is choking.

The MTA announced a six-point improvement plan in May, including adding EMS and other personnel directly placed at major stations to address emergencies more rapidly, accelerating subway car replacements, especially on the 8th Avenue Line, and increased track maintenance. These improvements sound hopeful but will take time. In part they are just about adding resources to the operations and maintenance budget.

Governor Cuomo nominated Joe Lhota, the former MTA Chair and Giuliani Deputy Mayor, to the Chair position again on June 21, and the State Senate confirmed him immediately. The Governor is also seeking governance changes. He has asked the Legislature to give him more seats on the MTA board to create an outright appointed majority of the seats for the Governor, as if he did not already have effective control. He is also proposing separating the Board Chair from the CEO to strengthen executive leadership.

The former Chair and CEO, the widely respected Thomas Prendergast, retired several months ago, and the Lhota appointment brings in someone of stature and competence. More than a decade ago, then Governor Pataki and the Legislature had combined the Board Chair and CEO positions for that same purpose, stronger leadership. While Lhota may be a positive choice, the notion that Governor Cuomo has not been in charge is ridiculous.

In a June 8 blog, “Cuomo Gave MTA Chump Change...,” I discussed how the Governor had allocated less than 5% to the MTA of a $9.9 billion windfall to the State from financial settlements with Wall Street bad guys due to pre-recession wrongdoing. Only $278 million is left unallocated; in addition, $1 billion is authorized for cash to the Javits Convention Center expansion. I pointed out that the hotel industry and the giant “New City” being developed in Hudson Yards offered ready-made alternatives for financing Javits, and the money might better be spent to help the straphangers.

Extra cash for critical operations, maintenance, and capital work won’t provide miraculous relief, but ought to help. Even getting these funds assumes Cuomo will step up to the plate but the record is pretty bad so far.

In the current $29.5 billion capital plan the State has committed $1.3 billion in identified resources, with an I.O.U. written in state law that the State will provide another $7 billion by 2025 or whenever the MTA runs out of current resources, meaning many years before the State has to come up with more money. This year Cuomo even reduced the State’s commitment in replacement funds to the MTA, authorized when the MTA lost revenue when its dedicated payroll tax was cut in 2011, by $67 million.

When Cuomo became Governor in 2011, both the State and the MTA were emerging from the financial crises that had confronted them during the recession. The 2010-14 MTA capital program, originally conceived at $32 billion, had been proposed in 2009 at $28 billion but scaled back to $26 billion that fall, with only two years of identified funding. As a last resort the MTA indicated it could borrow heavily.

In July 2011, the MTA, lacking large commitments from outside parties, scaled the capital program back further, to $24 billion, and would borrow $14.8 billion to provide the resources. The State would contribute a meager $770 million. The huge borrowing assured continued substantial fare hikes as the interest on the debts would be paid.

Fortunately, economic growth, improved ridership, and low interest rates allowed the transit system’s finances to stabilize for several years and fare and toll hikes dropped from 7.5% every two years to 4%. By 2014 the review process had begun for the new 2015-19 capital program, which once again was proposed at $32 billion, the same amount as had originally been contemplated for the 2010-14 program. Transit advocates proposed a new Round II version of Congestion Pricing, imposing tolls on the East River bridges and below 60th street in Manhattan, but lowering tolls on other city bridges, as a way to fund the capital program, but Governor Cuomo never supported it. Instead, his appointee to the MTA Capital Program Review Board vetoed the MTA’s $32 billion plan in October 2014.

It was 17 months before a plan would finally be adopted. Legislation submitted by my office to divert a tiny fraction of existing revenues from the personal income tax within the region to fund a large portions of the plan drew no response from the governor, even after Senate Republicans latched onto my proposal by linking funding for roads and bridges that would benefit their districts.

The recession was a financial catastrophe for the MTA, and was a factor in funding setbacks. Hurricane Sandy proved a physical catastrophe, causing major setbacks while repairs were made and are continuing, along with diverting much managerial attention. New York City’s substantial employment growth is a good thing but is straining the mass transit system. On the political front, Governor Cuomo has been a catastrophe for this huge state agency.

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Jim Brennan was a member of the New York State Assembly for 32 years, where he chaired four committees. On Twitter @JimBrennanNY.

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Pacific Park Developer's Deceptive Affordable Housing Spin


535 carlton pacific park

Part of the 535 Carlton Pacific Park lottery ad


Ashley Cotton's June 22 Gotham Gazette op-ed “Tackling New York’s Housing Affordability Crisis” is deeply deceptive, part of the long-running spin from the developer of the Pacific Park (formerly Atlantic Yards) project.

It's on par with the misleading mayoral press release June 13 for the "100% affordable" 535 Carlton, which I analyzed in City & State.

Cotton, the External Affairs Executive VP for Forest City New York (and thus the spokesperson for the joint venture Greenland Forest City Partners), writes of that new building, "It’s 100 percent affordable, and proof positive that our public-private affordable housing model delivers great results."

Really? Half of 535 Carlton is dedicated to middle-income households earning up to 165% of Area Median Income, or AMI. Translation: studios cost $2,137, one-bedrooms $2,680; two-bedrooms $3,223, and three-bedrooms $3,716.

While those dip below market rates, they hardly supply housing to those who need it most. According to the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development's Affordable Housing "Cheat Sheet," only 7.4% of New York households even fall within 140% and 170% of AMI, above which is clearly market rate.

I recall the 2009 public hearing, where a member of the housing group ACORN urged approval of Atlantic Yards because "[t]he people in my building cannot afford $2,000 a month rent." They still can't.

The word "affordable" sounds good, but vagueness about actual affordability obscures how affordability differs significantly from that originally promised, which got advocates like ACORN on board.

Cotton writes, "We committed to delivering 2,250 units of below market-rate housing by 2025." Yes, but that obscures how the developer, with compliant public officials and cowed advocates, has delivered apartments for households in the top quartile of city incomes.

The 2005 ACORN agreement was supposed to deliver 2,250 units of affordable housing, with only 20% of them -- 450 total -- going to the best-off middle-income cohort. Not only has AMI floated up significantly, this building has 50% of the units assigned to the best-off cohort.

No wonder that I discovered, after analyzing the raw spreadsheet of applicants for City Limits, that while 92,743 households applied for 297 lottery units, only 2,203 applicants even fell within income eligibility for the 148 middle-income apartments among them.

"For lottery winners, these units are life-changing," Cotton writes. Sure, for the woman Cotton features in her essay, who had been trying desperately to get good housing, and luckily won the lottery.

For the relatively small number of those seeking the middle-income units, as well as the significant number of middle-income households who've actually turned down the housing after winning the lottery, it's not so life-changing.

"Pacific Park Brooklyn," writes Cotton, "is already proof that putting affordability first can reap great rewards for the citizens of New York." Actually, it's proof that "affordability" is a great selling point when few look closely.

The unfortunate but deeply important lesson of Atlantic Yards -- 13-plus years in -- is that the developer is always spinning.

Those of us with long memories recall past deceptive essays by the developer. In May 2008, Bruce Ratner, CEO of Forest City Ratner (since renamed Forest City New York), penned an op-ed for the Daily News, contending, "for the first time, I am offering an updated construction timetable for the project...We anticipate finishing all of Atlantic Yards by 2018."

Well, we know how that turned out. The timetable stretched to 2035, and then was said to be 2025, at least for the affordable housing, though officials at Ratner's parent company now hint at well past 2030.

"We're still building the iconic Miss Brooklyn tower," Ratner wrote, regarding the Frank Gehry-designed flagship building at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, which would loom over the Barclays Center and contain an atrium in which arena attendees could gather.

Now, of course, Gehry is long gone, and the Greenland Forest City joint venture -- surely wary of construction over a regularly used arena -- now plans to seek state permission to shift the bulk of Miss Brooklyn across the street. That would transform an already large approved tower -- replacing the current big-box stores Modell's and P.C. Richard -- into an enormous two-tower project.

Consider the Feb 2010 op-ed from Ratner's deputy, MaryAnne Gilmartin, in the Commercial Observer. Atlantic Yards, Gilmartin wrote, "has been about jobs and housing and an historic community-benefits agreement that ensures that the project’s economic and social benefits help the folks who live here and need it most."

Well, it's clear today that much of the "affordable housing," not to mention the market-rate housing, doesn't help those who need it most.

What about that much-ballyhooed Community Benefits Agreement, or CBA? It was a huge part of project promotion, earning a press release from Mayor Bloomberg's office when it was signed in 2005.

One significant part of the CBA, a pre-apprenticeship training program that was supposed to vault struggling Brooklynites into coveted union jobs, dissolved, leading to a bitter lawsuit. Other elements remained vague, unenforceable aspirations.

Who oversees the CBA? Because it's not a government document -- Bloomberg was just a witness -- it's left up to the compromised signatories, which had neither the expertise nor the incentive to challenge the developer. As a consultant Forest City itself hired to evaluate the CBA concluded, the developer financially compensated the organizations for their potential to secure community support for the project, but not for their capacity to fulfill the CBA's programmatic goals.

The CBA required an independent monitor. "Atlantic Yards is setting a new standard," Ratner asserted in March 2007, "and the ICM [Independent Compliance Monitor] will be everyone's watchdog to ensure we reach all of the goals and benefits we have agreed to." The monitor was never hired, despite a Request for Proposals. The developer saved at least $100,000 a year, and the CBA evaded scrutiny.

I remember a November 2004 public meeting in which Forest City's initial Atlantic Yards point man Jim Stuckey, asked how the project would be overseen, replied, "The CBA we have in negotiation calls for an independent officer. Probably more than one." He even told the New York Times in July 2005 that the full project -- which was supposed to take 10 years when announced in 2003 -- might be completed as soon as 2011.

That's the developer's record. Their statements, including claims of "Tackling New York’s Housing Affordability Crisis," always deserve skepticism.

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Norman Oder is a Brooklyn journalist who writes the daily blog Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report and is working on a book about the project. On Twitter @AYReport.

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