It does not take a crystal ball to know that many unhappy and angry people will gather in the auditorium of Brooklyn Tech this Tuesday and Thursday evening. Nor does a person need extraordinary powers to predict that most will leave disappointed, if not furious.
On those two nights the Panel for Educational Policy, the powerless body that replaced the former city Board of Education, will hear public comment and then vote on proposals to close some 24 schools across the city, all schools the Department of Education has determined fail its students and are so far gone they cannot be saved.
The votes on Monday and Wednesday represent the latest round in the Bloomberg's administration's drive to close poorly performing schools -- many of them traditional large high schools but middle and elementary schools as well -- and replace them, some with smaller schools, including a number of charter schools. Although the city started shutting schools years ago, the agreements over the efficacy of the policy in general and the closing of some specific schools has not abated. Like so much in education debates today, the dispute encompasses an array of issues including how to help the city's most disadvantaged students and the role of charter schools.
No one denies that the schools on the phase-out list have problems. They tend to have low test scores and poorer attendance and lower graduation rates than most city schools -- even similar schools.
The Department of Education believes closing a school and starting a new one in its stead can change the building's culture. Education officials also have concluded that many city teenagers fare better in smaller schools and so have shut large high schools to make room for the new schools, many of which have only a few hundred, as opposed to a few thousand, students and focus on a theme, such as arts or the environment.
Of course, the effort does not always succeed. In fact a few of the small schools turned up on this year's closure list. In general, though, schools Chancellor Cathie Black said in a recent appearance on Inside City Hall, the policy works. "When we re-do the whole structure -- the physical outside stays the same, new schools go inside -- this group of kids and this group of kids are performing better -- 20 and 30 percentage points better. Nothing has been changed on the outside except for the level of commitment and teaching and effectiveness that's going to hopefully impact that child in a positive way," Black explained.
P.S. 260 Breuckelen School ( Brooklyn)
P.S. 332 Charles H. Houston School (Brooklyn)
M.S. 571 Bergen Upper School (Brooklyn)
Frederick Douglass Academy III (Bronx). This proposal would close only the mddle school grades. The school would continue as a high school, with grades 9 through 12.
John F. Kennedy High School (Bronx)
Christopher Columbus High School
Global Enterprise High School (Bronx)
P.S. 102 Jospeh O. Loretan School (Bronx)
Performance Conservatory High School (Bronx)
Norman Thomas High School (Manhattan)
Beach Channel High School (Queens)
Jamaica High School (Queens)
The hearing at P.S. 30 on whether to close the school was canceled because of snow. As a result, the panel's vote on that has not yet been scheduled. The panel does not have to vote on the proposed closing of Ross Globalin Manhattan -- actually a revocation of its charter -- because it is a charter school.
For more on the schools slated for closing go here and here
Opponents of the closings, including the United Federation of Teachers, say the administration has burdened the schools on the closing list with some of the system's most difficult students -- the homeless, English language learners, student who have been left back one or more times and so on -- setting the schools up to fail. In addition, they charge, the new schools may not accept the kind of students who now attend classes at places like John F, Kennedy High School or Norman Thomas High School.
Many critics also see a hidden agenda. With publicly funded, privately run charter schools set for many of the buildings now occupied by endangered schools, they charge the school closings represent part of a larger strategy to privatize public education. The administration, though, counters that charters are public schools and provide choice to the parent who need them most -- the kinds of parents whose children now attend the schools the city wants to close.
Teachers union president Michael Mulgrew, an outspoken opponent of many school closures, has noted that the city has been shutting down bad school for at least 25 years. But during the Bloomberg administration, it became a cornerstone of city policy, with the chancellor -- as Mulgrew put it at a recent forum --- "trumpeting" the closing of schools.
Under Bloomberg, the city has shut more than 90 school and opened 335 schools, many small, both conventional schools and charters. And over time, the closings have become more, rather than less controversial, possibly because the schools shut in the policy's early stages were widely seen as awful. With fewer truly appalling schools left -- and with the city even shutting schools with decent ratings on their progress reports or report cards -- the schools on the closing lists are more likely to have loyal supporters.
Not all do. Last year when the city proposed shutting Kappa IIno one appeared at the hearing to defend it. This year there again seems little , if any, opposition to the move even though Kappa II will not even have the luxury of being phased out over a few years. If the panel approves, it will simply be shut.
By 2009, the closing policy had grown so controversial that it was one of the few aspects of mayoral control the state legislature decided to tweak when it renewed the school governance law. Under the new rules, the education department must prepare an impact statement on each proposed closure and hold public discussions on its plans. In addition the Panel on Educational Policy must approve any shutdown, phasing out or significant change in the use of a school building.
Last year, the city did not seem to take these requirements particularly seriously -- to its eventual regret. The teachers union and the NAACP filed suit, charging the administration had not complied with the state law. The courts agreed, infuriating the mayor and stopping some 19 closures in their tracks.
Undaunted, the city came back in December with 25 proposed phase-outs and closures, including one charter school, Ross Global) . Four schools slated for closing last year got a reprieve: Choir Academy of Harlem’s high school grades, Maxwell Career and Technical High School, the Middle School for Academic and Social Excellence, and Business, Computer Applications, and Entrepreneurship High School. Fifteen, though, were back on the list along with 10 new ones (see list above right).
To stay in the law's good graces, the Department of Education has offered a stream of paper to back up its plans and held hearing at schools, where, in contrast to their largely stone faced silence (with occasional glances at their Blackberries) in past hearings, school officials actually interact with and respond to members of the public.
That though, has not silenced the debate.
Last year when the Panel on Educational Policy held its meeting on closing schools, the crowd fell silent when, Rebecca Freeman, a senior at Paul Robeson High School, came to the microphone holding her baby daughter and urged the panel to keep her school open. Bridling at charges that Robeson fails its student. Freeman declared, "I am not a failure and I will never be a failure. … And neither will my daughter."
Freeman attended a special program for students with children at Robeson. The school in Crown Heights, many speakers said, tried to help a very difficult student body.
Many other schools on the closing list could echo that claim. A report issued last week by the Independent Budget Office compared the schools on the closing list with city schools as whole and found, for example, that the high schools slated for closing had a far greater percentage of special ed students -- 18 percent compared with a citywide average of 12 percent -- and slightly more English language learners. While 52 percent of high school students citywide are considered low income, 63 percent of those in the endangered schools are. More than twice as high a percentage came in over age at the schools on the closing list, and they had lower scores on their eighth grade tests.
The differences for elementary schools were far less pronounced.
The city has said that, in deciding whether to close a school, it compares that school to other schools with similar student populations. Critics question that.
The critics also say the closings have a domino effect, putting previously well-functioning high schools at risk as the most challenging students from schools being shut go, not to the small themed high school now occupying the building, but to large high schools that essentially accept anyone. And so Beach Channel High School's fate, many believe, was sealed when the Department of Education shut nearby Far Rockaway High School.
Under Bloomberg, closing schools, "has become an educational shell game that defers instructional problems until they reappear elsewhere, to be met again with a similar reaction," David Bloomfield, head of the education department at the College of Staten Island has written
Meanwhile, the better students at the struggling schools may leave, preferring the smaller more selective schools now available to them. Last year, Christine Rowland, a teacher at Christopher Columbus and advocate for that school, said that Columbus' top students tended to enroll in new programs set up in and around that school. This left Columbus, she said, having to deal with classes that are "more challenging both academically and behaviorally."
Some warn, this year closings could topple more dominoes.. As large schools throughout the Bronx close, Mulgrew said last week, Dewitt Clinton High School has seen its special education population go up by some 37 percent and the number of homeless students double. "If the Department of Education does not intervene and help this school and support them in their challenges," it will be on a future closure list, he said.
The teachers and parents who come to the microphones at the public hearings often argue that the city should have done more to help the schools, rather than shut them down. The city counters that it tried but that in these cases, efforts to improve the school simply did not work.
While parents and teachers maintain the schools slated for closure have been starved of resources, the Independent Budget Office report tends to refute that. It found the closing schools -- at all levels -- had slightly more staff for each student than the city average and that, at the high school level, those teachers were a bit more likely to be "highly qualified' or to have graduate degrees.
At some of the schools, though, anecdotal evidence suggest the department could have done more to help. The most extreme case cited by some elected officials, as well as parents, is P.S. 114 in Canarsie. Certainly the school is hardly a model of academic excellence, with only a third of its students meeting standards on state tests and with parents and teachers giving it failing grades.
Many in the school though have told reporters and city official that the fault lies with the former principal Maria Penaherra, who according to an education department investigation, committed "serious misconduct," including faking financial documents and using school funds to pay for traffic tickets. She finally was removed, NY1 reported, "because one day when she failed to show up to work, a carbon monoxide alarm went off and students were kept in class. This, because the school had no safety plan and she had left no one in charge. She also left the school $180,000 in debt."
By then, though, the damage had been done, prompting the education department to propose closing it. But may supporters of the school question whether that is the proper response. "The solution is to fix it, not avoid it," the area's City Council member, Lew Fidler, has said. P.S. 114 "had been a terrific school in the past," he continued, "until it was shot in both feet by a DOE principal. This school should succeed. I know this city's agenda is charter schools -- but they sent one principal in to wreck it, one to chronicle it and one to close it."
To add to parents' dismay, P.S. 114's building, under the city's plans, will be occupied by a charter school -- one too small to accommodate all the kids who now go to P.S. 114.
The conflict over charter schools underlies much of the debate over the school closures. Not all of the phased out schools will be replaced by charters -- some will be home to regular public schools, and the plans for some have not yet been determined, or at least disclosed -- but charters will replace some of them, including P.S. 332 and M.S. 571, both in Brooklyn.
The challenge facing the city is clear: It supports charter schools but has problems finding space for them, a difficulty exacerbated by the high cost of real estate in New York and restrictions preventing charters from using public money to build facilities. To solve that dilemma, the city has put charters in regular public school buildings -- a practice that continues to cause battles among parents in some parts of the city -- and placed charters in phased out schools.
Two charters, created by New Visions, will move into the John F. Kennedy High School building in the Bronx, as that school begins its phase out. Community residents learned of this through a leak to the New York Times, even as city officials had been telling the area's elected officials they had not finalized plans for Kennedy. When the plan appeared in the Times, education department spokespeople dismissed it as just a draft. Now, though, New Visions Charter High School for Advanced Math and Science and New Visions Charter High School for Humanities seem set to open at Kennedy in September.
The maneuvering irritated even those who see reasons for closing Kennedy, such as Marvin Shelton, president of the District 10 Community Education Council. He told Manhattan Time News, department officials "just seem to shoot themselves in the foot … It may be a great product [coming in], but why do it this way?"
In a stagnant economy and a competitive job market, the prevailing wisdom tells unemployed workers to return to school to obtain new skills.
But in recent years, many New Yorkers have been punished for doing just that; namely, some of the over 130,000 who enroll in for-profit schools in the city each year.
A city government campaign called "Know Before You Enroll," sponsored by the Department of Consumer Affairs, the Department of Education, and Mayor's Office of Adult Education, aims to warn New Yorkers against the dangers of some such schools.
"I signed up for nursing school and paid $6,000," says 'Paula from Brooklyn' in one of the ads from this campaign, which is featured in subway cars, bus shelters, and newspapers throughout the city. "Ten months later, I found out the school wasn't licensed and the Attorney General shut it down. My dream is shattered and I'm in debt."
Just feet from these campaign posters appear ads for the very schools the city seeks to warn against. Combination GED and associate degree programs, unlicensed and unaccredited schools, and vocational courses that offer "guaranteed job placement."
For-profit schools in New York City cost attendees an average of $4,700, according to a survey by the Better Business Bureau.
But even though they're more expensive than their public counterparts, these for-profit or "proprietary" schools have become more popular in recent years.
“Unfortunately, difficult economic times sometimes draw out those who would take advantage of vulnerable New Yorkers,” said Department of Consumer Affairs Commissioner Jonathan Mintz.
Those vulnerable populations include low-income communities where language or literacy barriers obscure the processes associated with enrolling in school, Mintz said.
That is what happened to Garvin, a 26-year-old Brooklyn resident who attended a two-year Associate’s degree program that advertised on television. Only after completing that degree, to the tune of $25,000, did Garvin find out that his credits wouldn't transfer to the City University of New York, where he planned to finish his undergraduate education. To obtain his bachelor's degree, Garvin would have to start college all over again.
Schools like Garvin's Associate's program are deliberately misleading, and survive by preying on unsuspecting students.
But not all for-profit schools are predatory, Commissioner Mintz is careful to note. Defenders of for-profit schools praise their equal-opportunity accessibility; since many have little or no academic criteria for acceptance, they offer options for students who might not otherwise qualify for any sort of higher education.
"These schools exist on a spectrum," Mintz said. At one end of that spectrum, he believes, decent for-profit schools operate with proper accreditation, and bestow degrees and certificates of value. At the other, schools operate in a realm that is plainly illegal.
The programs in the middle of this spectrum pose the greatest challenge to regulators and students, he said.
"In the middle, you have schools that are licensed but aren't delivering what they're promising, aren't delivering value," Mintz said. "What they're doing is taking yet more dollars from people who are trying to better their situations."
The problem is, there's a pretty huge middle. To address the glut of these legal-but-not-quite-legitimate schools, the "Know Before You Enroll" campaign has set up a hotline to cull complaints from New Yorkers about specific schools and training programs. The city will forward those complaints on to the state Department of Education and the office of the Attorney General.
Any action taken against these predatory schools would fall to state agencies; when it comes to their regulation, the city has no authority. The same goes for reform. Stricter policies around licensing and accreditation, loans, and consumer protection, all rely on the legislature up in Albany.
In the meantime, the state has the power to shut down schools found operating without licenses. But that doesn't mean they always do. Like any state agency, the Department of Education, the State Board of Regents, and the attorney general's office all have to prioritize. This campaign may not top their lists.
But for what its worth, the city plans to help them raise some funds. "We're working with the state, helping secure them resources so they can investigate," said Tara Colton, the Executive Director of the Mayor's Office of Adult Education.
And for its own part, the City went the educational route, borrowing a page from its adversary's own playbook and plastering the subways with anecdotal posters that advertise a better, smarter way.
The campaign's main thrust boils down to a list of tips. In addition to the advice to be suspicious of employment guarantees, these include the classics: avoid unlicensed schools; do your research; don't sign up on the spot.
As for the unlucky New Yorkers who have already been prey to these "predatory" schools, there's a service for them too. The city offers free one-on-one financial counseling.
"They'll get on the phone with creditors and negotiate payment plans," said a spokesperson for the Department of Consumer Affairs.
So far, she said, those counselors have saved their clients over $6.5 million.
As someone who has famously proclaimed, "I am the government," Gov. Andrew Cuomo must find the governor's limited role in the state's schools particularly galling. So, for the last two weeks, Cuomo has made it clear he no longer will stand on the sidelines while others run education here.
In his State of the State speech and in comments on Martin Luther King Day, Cuomo plunged into the school wars and poised himself to take on the state's teachers unions. He is expected to continue this campaign in his budget address today.
If the governor, who has a relatively skimpy record on education, gets more involved in schools, what exactly will he do? Who will benefit? And who will lose?
The governor heralded his entrance into education disputes in his State of the State speech two weeks ago. In that address, he announced he would appoint an education commission and that he would serve as a lobbyist for the state's children who, he declared have no one representing them.
Because of the timing, most attention focused on what Cuomo and his commission might do on teacher evaluations. The day before, State Education Commissioner John King had announced he would suspend federal funding for failing schools for districts that had not reached agreement on a new teacher evaluation system. This could cost New York City, one of the 10 districts affected, $60 million for 33 schools.
The U.S. Department of Education tightened the noose last week when it announced New York could lose its federal Race to the Top money because it lags behind in complying with the terms of its grant. " It faulted the state for lack of progress in instituting new methods for teacher evaluation and for delays in upgrading its data systems. These shortcomings, federal officials told Cuomo, mean the state could lose $1 billion in Race to the Top and other federal money.
As part of its application for the federal program, New York agreed to revise the way it evaluates teachers and to consider test scores in making its determinations. Under a bill passed in 2010, though, changes in the individual districts are subject to collective bargaining. That has proved to be a stumbling block. In New York City, negotiations appear to have broken down completely.
A week after Cuomo's speech, Mayor Michael Bloomberg all but threw down the gauntlet in his State of the City speech, which focused on education. In that address -- and in a letter to the state education department -- the administration claimed it could remove teachers at failing schools -- whatever the union might or might not say. Bloomberg also staked out other stands sharply at variance with those of the teacher's union, calling for merit pay, an increase in charter schools and shutting down more schools he considers failing.
Daring Cuomo to follow suit, New York Post publisher Rupert Murdoch took to Twitter to call Bloomberg's plans "bold … [and] terrific. How will chicken Cuomo respond?"
Cuomo has started to give his answer. In a statement last week, he called for districts and unions "to expedite their negotiations." And he assailed the legislation that made the evaluation subject to collective bargaining, saying that law "protected the teachers union at the expense of the students and instituted a system that was destined to fail."
On Martin Luther King Day, Cuomo said he was not gong to let the state lose its federal aid. "No evaluation system is in place because the bureaucracy doesn't want one," he said, adding, "We will put an evaluation system in place that represents the students first."
And today, according to some press accounts, he will get more concrete and tie a promised 4 percent increase in state aid to adoption of the teacher evaluation system put forth by the state Board of Regents last year. Fred Dicker of the Post reported that a "source" told him, "All the systems, including the New York City schools, will have until Dec. 31 of this year to adopt the teacher-evaluation systems or lose the money."
That system, which gave increased weight to test scores, was challenged successfully in court by New York State United Teachers.
In response a spokesman for New York State United Teachers, Carl Korn, has said, while the union is prepared to work with the governor and legislature on the issue, "the answer is not to start from scratch or to tie education funding to the teacher-principal evaluation process but to work collaboratively with the legislature and governor to try to move the process along."
No doubt the impasse over evaluations -- which could cost the state money and prestige -- angered Cuomo. He is not the first governor, though, to seek a greater role in education. "Governors have traditionally looked to wrench some of the power away from a historically and constitutionally independent education department, and whether that's the right thing or the wrong thing to do, Governor Cuomo sees the same need," Richard Ianuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers, said recently.
Under state law, the legislature appoints the state Board of Regents, which sets policy (testing, graduation requirements, standards, curriculum). The board names a commissioner of education to carry out those policies.
Whatever its merits might be, no other state has this system, according to a survey by the Education Commission of the States, a national group. In 36 states, the governor appoints the members of the state board of education (what we call the Board of Regents here), the chief state education officer or both. South Carolina is the only other state in which the legislature appoints the board, but the chief schools official is elected -- not appointed.
Overall, New York's system also is less democratic than those in much of the country. Residents of 22 states get to choose either the board or the person who runs the schools.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer, for one, tried to weigh in on schools by creating the post of senior education policy adviser -- dubbed "education czar" by some -- and filling it with Manuel Rivera, the Rochester schools superintendent who had been National Superintendent of the Year in 2006. In a kind of foreshadowing of the stand Cuomo would take five years later, Spitzer's office said at the time that his education policy would include "implementing sweeping reforms designed to improve accountability." Unlike Cuomo's plan, though, it also called for increased funding.
Spitzer's effort faded when he resigned.
Up until now, Cuomo has not focused on education. Even in his State of State speech, he devoted only a few lines to education. "We must make our schools accountable for the results they achieve and the dollars they spend," his written remarks said. From there Cuomo went on to call for "major reform in two areas": teacher evaluation and management efficiency."
In his 2010 campaign book, the New NY Agenda, Cuomo called for making schools more efficient -- notably by removing unfunded mandates, requirements the state puts on district but does not pay them to meet -- and for an increase in charter schools.
During his first year in office his efforts on education concentrated on funding. He and the legislature agreed to a cap on increases in the property taxes that fund public schools in much of the state. While Senate Republicans had pushed for this -- many of them represent suburban districts where property taxes have risen sharply -- teachers groups and many school boards worried it would force districts to cut programs and teaching staff. The cap will have little effect in the city, however.
Most significantly, Cuomo sharply reduced state education spending in his first budget. Rather than refiguring the state's education formula to spare its highest need districts, including New York City, Cuomo let the cuts take effect across the board. Critics charged this meant they had a greater impact in needy areas than affluent ones.
"We took a huge step backward in last year's budget. Billy Easton of the Alliance for Quality Education recently told AP. "The poorest districts lost not just the money but they lost the most in their classrooms."
While the Cuomo and Bloomberg administrations bickered for months over how much the cut meant to the city -- and whether it would force the city to lay off teachers -- the loss certainly was in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
This year, Cuomo has said he will increase school funding by some $800 million statewide. It remains unclear how that money will be allocated.
In November, though, the governor announced that a far smaller pot of money -- $75 million over three years -- would go to schools that applied for it. In a move modeled on Race to the Top, he said the winning districts would be those that have "demonstrated the most success in increasing student performance, narrowing the achievement gap, and increasing academic performance among students with the greatest educational needs" or that "exhibit the greatest potential for continued improvements in student performance." (For one writer's explanation of how this might work, go here.)
The possible tying of all aid to the new evaluation system of course, enormously ups this ante.
As the debate over funding and evaluation continues, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver will certainly play a key part.
The current system for naming the Board of Regents gives him enormous sway over the state's schools. Silver has support from the teachers union -- in 2008 he held his primary election victory celebration at the union's lower Manhattan headquarters. He also is seen as a champion of groups allied with the union, notably the Alliance for Quality Education, which enjoys funding from the union and has emerged as a particular target of Cuomo's.
If the evaluation issues becomes enmeshed in next year's budget, Silver could be torn between the popular governor -- and the push for an on-time budget -- and his allies in the teachers union. The fact that this is an election year could complicate matters for Silver -- and for many state senators from both parties who enjoy the union's support and campaign contributions.
Not surprisingly, Silver has been cool to Cuomo's entering the education fray. In a radio interview, Silver said he did was "not sure" he saw the need for the commission to intervene in the evaluation dispute. “John King, the commissioner, and the entire Board of Regents have been very focused on these issues and have been working hard to bring resolution about,” Silver said.
On the more general issue of students needing a lobbyist, Silver told a rally called by the alliance, "The most powerful lobbying group for our students is their parents. … When it comes to our state government, no group of leaders has been a more effective lobbying group for the children in our classrooms and for young children needing early education than … the members of the majority of the New York State Assembly."
A number of groups joined Silver to rebut the notion that no one speaks for students. "Teachers, in partnership with parents, have always been lobbyists for what children need," New York State United Teachers said in a statement.
The New York State Schools Boards Association also has expressed skepticism. "How he [Cuomo] is going to be a lobbyist for children remains to be seen," said Timothy Kremer, executive director of the association. "I think we do a pretty good job of this."
"The shocking thing is that no where in that long speech did he say the word 'parent'," Mona Davids of the New York City Parents Union told Gotham Gazette. "We are our children's lobbyists, we are our children's advocates."
Under the current system she said, parents do not have a voice. The Board of Regents, according to Davids, makes "things very difficult for the parent."
And, she noted, that while Cuomo said teachers and bus drivers had lobbyists, he did not mention hedge fund managers, representatives of testing and technology companies, and privatization advocates, all of whom have weighed in on education and who have lobbyists. Instead, she said, he singled out "working class people" such as bus drivers.
King, who could find the commission infringing on his turf has told reporters he has "no problem" with it. "There's plenty of work to do to raise student achievement. We're happy to have additional advice and input," King said
The final verdict, of course, will hinge on who Cuomo names to the commission and what type of commission he establishes. On this the administration remains tight-lipped. A number of people contacted said they had not received any indication from the governor of what he might do.
Kremer said the commission could help if it is "populated by people who are smart" and who will take an honest, objective look at what resources districts need, at performance measures and at some of the state's mandate that affect local districts. He also would like to see it "come up with ways to engage parents and communities."
Some predict Cuomo will look beyond the usual suspects for commission members. "It will be something that's quite national, people from outside New York," an anonymous source speculated to GothamSchools.
While Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said he wanted a commission that is "actually going to look at the research," on the other side of the ideological fence, Elizabeth Ling of Democrats for Education Reform told GothamSchools Cuomo "should select people who can move his agenda forward to make real progress on behalf of students, and not the hacks who have only thrown up roadblocks time and again."
Bob Lowry of the New York State Council of School Superintendents has said the governor should not dismiss insiders. "You also need to have people who know what things work now and what things don’t work now," he has said.
In their public responses this month, Bloomberg and Cuomo have generally praised the other's statement on education.
"Both the mayor and I agree that this starts with implementing a teacher evaluation system that holds teachers accountable for their performance
Asked about the governor's commission, Bloomberg said, "We could do a better job in New York City, and they certainly can do a better job in the rest of New York state. The state, taken as a whole, is not where we want to be. The country taken as a whole … is nowhere near where we want to be, and the governor’s focus on education is spot-on. That’s exactly what he should do, and any help he can give us we’d be happy to take the help."
Cuomo's language on Martin Luther King Day was reminiscent of comments Bloomberg has made in the past on education. Like Bloomberg, Cuomo invoked civil rights when speaking about schools.
“The great equalizer that was supposed to be the public education system can now be the great discriminator," the governor declared, "because if you happen to go to public school in a failing public school, you may never catch up. You may be left behind and never catch up."
He also vowed to put in place an evaluations system that represents the students first,” echoing Bloomberg who has called his agenda for public schools"Children First."
Supportive words aside, Cuomo and Bloomberg clashed repeatedly over education last year, notably on funding and on the mayor's effort to end last in, first out, which requires that seniority determines which teachers get laid off, with the most recently hired teachers the first to go. Altering that system requires state approval.
David Seifman of the Post has written that the single biggest cause of the yawning rift between Cuomo and Bloomberg was the dispute over teacher layoffs. According to Seifman, "The feeling among Cuomo loyalists is that the governor … was blindsided when the mayor asked him to obliterate the law in the face of fierce union opposition. ... The feeling among Bloomberg loyalists is that LIFO would be a distant memory by now if Cuomo did the right thing."
The issue this time around could again be whether Cuomo will take the fight against the union as far as Bloomberg would like -- and whether Cuomo has other targets as well.
While Bloomberg generally limit his brickbats to the unions, Cuomo has targeted what he calls "the education bureaucracy" -- including superintendents, principal, teachers -- and maybe bus drivers. It is too early to know whether that difference in rhetoric is just that -- rhetoric.
The issue of getting results commensurate with money spent could also prove problematic for the mayor. Education spending has increased substantially under Bloomberg -- from about $12.7 billion in 2002-2003 to an anticipated $19.5 billion in 2012, excluding pensions and fringes. The mayor would no doubt say this has brought major results -- he most frequently cites an increase in graduation rates, but critics point to indicators that would say otherwise, including relatively flat test scores and the small percentage of city graduates who are prepared to do college level work.
As he has in the past, Bloomberg once again sees his education goals and his fight against the teachers union in Albany's hands. With the mayor's power fading as his time in office draws to a close, he has reason to hope -- and now, maybe even expect -- that this time Cuomo will be on his side. The teachers union must hope with equal fervor that he won't be.
Gail Robinson, the former editor of Gotham Gazette, writes on education and other policy issues.