Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio is more committed to inclusive democratic processes and a broader concept of education than outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been.

Nowhere is such commitment as needed than in the selection of our next school leadership—the chancellor and Panel for Education Policy (PEP). Their decisions will directly affect millions of students and parents and will profoundly impact the quality of life for our entire city.

The direction for education policy during the coming years is in need of substantive assessment and discussion. Polls of the primary constituencies—public school students, parents, teachers and principals—reveal great disagreement with much of what has been done in the past 12 years. Simultaneously, the basis for decisions during this period is being seriously challenged by education scholars, such as former Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch, who has termed it the “Reign of Error,” because of its wrongful diagnoses of the causes of inadequate student performance and the incorrect prescription for fostering improvement. Others, including the nationally renowned Linda Darling-Hammond and Richard Rothstein, also speak of the need for a more comprehensive approach, one that expands on the principles of the unfulfilled 20-year Campaign for Fiscal Equity.

Such constituencies and scholars should be involved in the process of helping to choose those who will determine the direction of education policy during the next administration. We call for establishment of a mayoral-appointed search committee as part of the transition team that will solicit public discourse and advise on the following: the vision that is to undergird our school system; the job qualifications desired in the Panel for Educational Policy and Board of Education that will establish policies to fulfill that vision and a chancellor to help shape and execute those policies; and potential candidates who can implement that vision.

This search committee should thoroughly and vigorously engage for the next three months to delineate the principles for the conduct of the school system and to identify the best personnel to embody those principles. During this period, interim appointees made by the mayor for the positions of chancellor and PEP representatives would work to revoke the egregious “midnight” decisions of the past few months, especially regarding school closings and colocations, in order to allow their successors to define a new direction for the schools of our city. New York is home to some of the most knowledgeable and experienced urban educators and parent advocates anywhere. They should be prominently represented in the search committee and/or be asked to serve in the positions that will enact the vision they recommend.

By conducting appointments in this way, Mayor-elect de Blasio would demonstrate commitment to democratic procedures that are respectful of those who provided the overwhelming mandate for progressive change that he has just received.

  • Esmeralda Simmons—Former New York City school board member
  • Luis Reyes—Former New York City school board member
  • Dr. Donald H. Smith—Former chair, the New York City Board of Education’s Commission on Students of African Descent
  • Josh Karan—Former president, District 6 Community Education Council
  • Sam Anderson—Retired professor of mathematics and Black history
  • Ellen Raider—Independent Commission on Public Education

Job description for chancellor and interim Board of Education for New York City
A progressive chancellor to end the ‘Tale of Two Cities’ in education

A fundamental change of direction and leadership for New York City’s public school system is long overdue. The business model favored by Mayor Michael Bloomberg has undermined public confidence in this fundamental institution of democracy and greatly exacerbated racial and class inequities. Business elites are running the school system for “other people’s children,” often for their own anti-democratic political and privatization agendas. The effect has been devastating. Students, even elementary school students, are stressed and bored by the testing regimen; parents are worried and confused by constant changes and choices that are equally unsatisfactory; educators are demoralized by these constant changes and the little support they receive; and communities are seeing their neighborhood anchors being taken over by outside groups and their youngsters scattered elsewhere.

The next mayor of our city needs to begin a new era for public education modeled along progressive lines in both process and substance. Selection of the new schools chancellor and members of an interim (until 2015) Board of Education is an important opportunity through which we can make this happen.

The process of selecting the next schools chancellor and mayoral appointees to the Board of Education should be public, transparent and inclusive. It should involve hearings before a short list is drawn up and after the short list is announced but before final selections are made.

These leaders of the public education system should exemplify the highest ethical standard and should hold themselves accountable to the public they serve.

The schools chancellor for New York City should have a progressive vision of public education and many years of successful experience as a teacher, principal and superintendent of a major urban school district.

A progressive vision of public education

These new leaders of the city’s education system should be able to articulate a vision of public education that does the following:

  • Supports its fundamental role in a democratic society to both educate children and model democratic behaviors. It should demonstrate opposition to corporate education reform, including privatization, high stakes testing, school closings, charter schools and topdown decision-making.
  • Supports schools as neighborhood anchors that can serve as centers for learning, including adult education, culture and recreation for all ages.
  • Values education as a fundamental human right that can be implemented in all educational policies and practices.

Experience and track record in urban education
The schools chancellor and members of the interim Board of Education should have track records in urban education that demonstrate the following:

  • Knowledge of and support for child-centered and culturally relevant curriculum and pedagogy that develop children in a holistic manner: their skills, aesthetic sensibilities, their intellects, their social and emotional growth, their mental and physical wellbeing and their awareness of their emerging civic responsibilities.
  • Recognition that the students from impoverished communities have been denied much of the richness of the early childhood and preschool training that their more affluent fellow students have had, and that it is the obligation of the school community to remedy this situation by providing a multitude of supplemental academic support and partner with other city agencies to provide wraparound social services in compensation.
  • Commitment to second language acquisition as part of children’s basic education, which supports development of the children’s mother tongue (dialect and heritage) while developing the second language.
  • Commitment to aligning special education programs toward meeting the cognitive and neurological needs of children rather than the practice of social control in service of the school-to-prison pipeline.
  • Dedication to working closely with those most affected by decisions made at the school and district levels to develop educational programs and policies responsive to their needs and values and support for mechanisms for meaningful participation in the educational decision-making process by teachers, parents, students and local communities so those most affected by decisions have sufficient information and the strongest voice.
  • Commitment to the use of portfolios and projects to assess student learning where appropriate to the integrity of the subject matter and student learning style.
  • Dedication to the use of successful initiatives to end the school-to-prison pipeline with “positive discipline/interventions” practices that include restorative justice rather than punitive “justice/character building” practices.
  • Intent to implement successful initiatives to close the resource and achievement gap and to design educational equity into the school system.
  • Intent to institute high-quality professional development for teachers and developing programs for high-quality classroom life for students and teachers alike, as both are key factors in student academic and social growth.

Leadership and advocacy

The new leaders of New York City’s education system should be advocates for:

  • Major increases in school funding so class size can be smaller, support services can meet student needs—especially for English language learners, special education students and students with disabilities—and appropriate educational resources can be made available.
  • Restructuring the New York City school system in accordance with human rights standards of participation and to maximize the school system’s effectiveness with other local bodies, like the 59 community planning boards and their community service councils, to connect schools to other city agencies.
  • Working with local colleges and universities committed to this progressive vision of education to greatly improve the professionalism of teacher preparation and support for prospective and beginning teachers, with an emphasis on recruiting and supporting teacher candidates early on in their K-12 programs who reflect the diversity of New York City neighborhoods.
  • Taking responsibility for school safety away from the NYPD and returning it to school communities as a whole.
  • Providing inclusive and comprehensive early childhood education.
  • Re-establishing career and technical education for all high school students in order to offer career and technical education pathways for students choosing to enter the trades, encourage the entry of young women into nontraditional employment and maintain the arts, sports and after-school programs.
  • Ending no-bid contracts and making more accessible the competitive contracting and bidding process to small businesses, especially those whose owners are Black, Hispanic/Latino, female and/or community-based.
  • Downsizing of top-heavy networks and clusters that drain the budgets of small schools or schools that are potentially “phased out” and eliminating the excessed absent teacher reserve pool (former rubber rooms).

Singed by:

The Independent Commission on Public Education : www.icope.org

The Coalition for Public Education : www.forpubliceducation.org

Black New Yorkers for Educational Excellence: www.bnyee.org

The Mothers’ Agenda New York (The MANY): www.wearethemany.org

For more information, call 718-499-3756