The New York State Education Department officially wrapped its series of public hearings this Monday that reviewed Mayor Eric Adams’s mayoral control of New York City schools. Most advocated for a change in how the schools are run.
Black parents, educators, and elected officials showed up to school auditoriums to passionately make their case for or against mayor control. Most overwhelmingly railed against the system of mayoral control and not necessarily Adams himself, while many others pointed to his budget cuts to education as a prime example of why public schools shouldn’t be solely in the hands of one person and his appointees.
Some wanted to talk about race and the fact that Adams is the city’s second Black mayor and the first to have mayoral control. And a few wanted to keep the current system going.
“The decentralization of schools is the best way to educate children within our communities. One thing which has been consistent has been my support to end mayoral control in the City of New York,” testified Assemblymember Latrice Walker, who attended the city’s public schools.
Walker has been vocal in advocating for parent and community control of public schools, as well as building an “education bill of rights” that includes appropriate class sizes, staffing, suitable curricula, adequate resources for students with disabilities and English language learners (ELL), book supplies, fully funded libraries, access to labs and technology, and safe buildings.
“This would be an independent and stand alone bill, which mayoral control should be as well, instead of balancing the budget on the backs of our babies which is dead wrong,” said Walker, “but it happens each and every year.”
Senator Jabari Brisport, who attended a Brooklyn hearing but didn’t testify, said that he hasn’t heard any support to extend mayoral control from his constituents. He definitely recognizes that there are local communities that have differed with the Mayor over things like virtual learning and educational policies.
“I know some people want to center the report that’s coming out. I’m centering the voices of my community,” said Brisport.
New York City’s public school system has been under mayoral control for more than the last two decades, beginning with Michael Bloomberg in 2002. It gave Bloomberg the power to appoint the city’s schools chancellor and members to the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP). The Department of Education (DOE) said the role of the PEP is to “advise the chancellor on matters of policy affecting the welfare of the city school district and its pupils.” Under the current law, the PEP approves certain items proposed by the Chancellor that affect the city school district (such as contracts and proposed school closures), said the DOE. Before the 1990s, the city’s schools were run by 32 community-elected school boards and the Board of Education.
Brisport supports going back to a form of elected school boards, since New York City is one of the only outliers in the country that doesn’t use that system. He believes that fears of corruption crippling the education system are more so “Bloomberg talking points.” He noted that it was important to remember that Adams has also made persistent education budget cuts and hasn’t implemented the state’s law to reduce classroom sizes.
A handful of testimonies addressed the issue of race at play, claiming that the driving factor behind why people want mayoral control to end is because Adams is Black. Dr. Shango A. Blake, aka the Hip Hop Principal, president of the Black Edfluencers-United (BEU), was adamant about Black studies, Black teachers, disenfranchised communities, and Black students. He admitted in his testimony that within his own group there were opinions about mayoral control that ranged from keeping it to ending it.
“There are others that believe there are special interest groups attacking Mayor Adams because he has an equity agenda when it comes to the procurement of contracts. In addition, there is a feeling that this intense desire to remove mayoral control of NYC schools is rooted in racial politics,” said Blake. “Black Edfluencers-United has decided to support the extension of mayoral control. However, mayoral control must be restructured in a way that parents and community can participate as real power partners.”
Others insinuated in their testimony that Bloomberg’s initial implementation of mayoral control was “racist” to begin with and therefore should end.
“This isn’t right,” said advocate Eon Huntley at a Brooklyn hearing. “Mayoral control cannot persist because we know it’s racist in origin. New York City and other municipalities that have mayoral control implemented have done so as a reactionary response to Black and brown community power. We have been dealing with this undemocratic imbalance for over 20 years and it hasn’t made anything less corrupt.”
It’s clear that the underlying theme of the live testimonies given was a demand and a need for some type of reform on the Mayor’s part.
Adams maintains that most of the people who testified at the hearings are speaking about what happened under former mayors. He also said that the limited numbers at the hearings weren’t a realistic sample size of the school’s parents and therefore not accurate.
“We have a public school reared chancellor, we have a public school reared mayor. We have transformed the school system with what we are doing,” said Adams at this Tuesday’s presser. “If we were failing, then we have to deal with the negative outcomes but we are winning. We are succeeding in what we are doing.”
Adams noted some of his administration’s initiatives as wins under mayoral control, such as the Summer Rising youth employment program he recently reversed cuts to, career development programs, healthy foods in schools, implementing dyslexia screening, and narrowing the city’s racial learning gap for Black and brown students when it comes to math and ELA test scores.
Governor Kathy Hochul effectively cosigned extending mayoral control for another four years in her executive budget. The state budget refers to mayoral control as the New York City School Governance, which is currently scheduled to expire on June 30, 2024.
The state’s final report is set to be released by Mar 31, 2024 , after all testimony, in-person and written, is reviewed.
[updated Fri, Feb 2]
Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about politics for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.