Before Mayor Michael Bloomberg was elected, “most observers agree that the school system was a big mess,” Stuyvesant’s Parent Coordinator, Harvey Blumm said. “Nobody had control or accountability.”

The members of the Board of Education (BOE) were picked by the mayor and each borough president. And then the BOE picked a chancellor. However, this system meant that members had separate and often conflicting loyalties, and “nothing really got done,” Blumm said. There was a need for change, and Bloomberg, as he indicated throughout his 2002 election campaign, was determined to remodel the New York City education system, addressing issues such as the lack of a system-wide curriculum, corruption and low graduation rates.

Bloomberg’s solution was to establish the Department of Education (DOE). The Chancellor would be the leader but the mayor would have overall control. This idea won wide support because of the city’s desire to regain control of the school system. In 2002 this wish was granted, with legislation passed before the State senate to give the mayor full control over New York City public schools.

Bloomberg, now up for reelection, is running his current campaign on the basis that his changes to the system have been hugely successful. And while this opinion is open to debate, there is no doubt that Bloomberg has changed the school system significantly.

Graduation rates are up, as are standardized test scores, and schools are generally safer. Teacher salaries have gone up 43 percent since Bloomberg became mayor. Bloomberg ended social promotion so that now kids who are not at grade level are held back and given extra help. He also created the position of Parent Coordinator, a position that is “a big plus for parents; before there was no one whose sole job it was to help them,” Blumm said.

To increase awareness of his achievements, Bloomberg has launched a very costly advertisement campaign boasting thesuccess of the school system. Bloomberg also has the support of Arnie Duncan, the Secretary of Education for the Obama administration.

“My personal opinion is that many changes have been good,” Blumm said. “It is so hard to change policy for a school system with one million kids in it. It’s like turning around a battleship. They had eight years. If they waited for consensus for all the things from A-Z, they only would have gotten to D. You can’t always wait.”

Chemistry teacher Jeffrey Kivi agrees. “I haven’t lived here that long, so I don’t know what it was like before, but I keep hearing that nothing ever used to get done. The good thing about Bloomberg is that he’s not afraid of making decisions. And even if these turn out to be the wrong decisions, sometimes doing the wrong thing is better than doing nothing at all. I’m inclined to think that it [mayoral control] is a good thing overall.”

However, many are unhappy with the way the mayor has enacted his reforms. A recent NY1 poll showed that 61 percent of New Yorkers want Bloomberg to share control of the public school system. Mayoral Control’s opponents include Stuyvesant Parent’s Association (PA) co-president Paola de Kock. She criticizes his unilateral authority, which “has lead to arbitrary and capricious government,” she said.

De Kock cites the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP), as a prime example of the mayor’s unilateral control. The PEP was
created in place of the BOE to advise the chancellor, Joel Klein, on school issues. However, the majority of the PEP’s members are appointed by Bloomberg himself, which means that most members back his decisions, and those who do not can be fired at the mayor’s will. In 2004, a large number of members of the PEP were fired because they didn’t support Bloomberg’s plan to change the third-grade promotion policy.

The issues go beyond the PEP, however, and down to the fundamental problem of having one man controlling an entire million-student school system. Critics of mayoral control equate it to “one man rule,” and express frustration over their inability to play a role in determining education policy.

“Everyone else feels powerless [and] they shouldn’t, because public education belongs to the citizens,” de Kock said. “Bottom line: unless there are real ways to overturn a mayor’s decision he still has absolute control. It’s going to continue to be like Bloomberg is to the school system what the principal as to his school: king.”

Bloomberg’s efforts to achieve greater consultation began two years ago, when he sent surveys to every child’s home to be filled out by parents. The surveys ask parents to assess their child’s school, and then to send the survey in to the DOE. However, de Kock questions their significance. “To [Bloomberg and Klein], the learning surveys are consultation, but what do they do with them?” de Kock asked.

Organizations throughout New York City share this opinion. The Campaign for Better Schools, a coalition of community groups, and the Parents’ Commission, a group of parents from every borough who represent many school communities within New York City, are both actively working to reduce mayoral control.

The PA has endorsed a proposal for change that was put forward by the Parents’ Commission, which calls for a restructuring of the public school system to allow for greater representation, accountability and a constitution for city schools.

“We believe that enacting our recommendations will form the basis of a dynamic, responsive and responsible form of school governance for New York City,” the proposal said.

Mayoral control has had dramatic effects on the everyday lives of Stuyvesant students as well.

“On the question of why it matters to Stuy, mayoral control has enabled Klein to go stuff kids into Stuy without regard to capacity, against the vehement opposition of Principal Teitel. Mayoral control has allowed DOE to spend millions—maybe billions by now—on no-bid contracts and unwanted and unproven initiatives without putting any more resources into the classrooms,” de Kock said. Principal Stanley Teitel acknowledged that the DOE is responsible for the increased incoming class sizes, but otherwise does not see that mayoral control has a direct effect on students.

“We are fortunate in that we have a stable school in terms of population and teachers, so it [mayoral control] does not dramatically affect us. Internally, students probably see no different between how it was before 2002 and how it is now,” Teitel said.

On Monday, May 18, the monthly PEP meeting was held at Stuyvesant. De Kock attended because she “wanted a chance to ask the chancellor why he doesn’t allow the PA to have access to the addresses of our school’s parents because he says it’s prohibited by law, but he gives these names to charter schools,” she said.

The meeting began quietly, with a discussion of issues such as the swine flu. “Then midway through the meeting, protestors stood up en masse and interrupted the meeting and read a statement opposed to mayoral control,” Blumm said. The protesters then marched out of the theater, shouting “one man rule has got to go.”

In a video of the protest posted on the NY1 website, one man went to the front of the auditorium and addressed Klein directly after most of the protesters had left.

“Yo Chancellor!” the man said. “What did you prove? 90 percent of your audience left! You have to have a meeting in front of nobody so you can say what you want to say instead of hearing what the majority had to say? Who won? Its not about us, its about the kids.”

The raucous meeting served as an acute reminder that people, especially parents, are not happy, and want change. As de Kock said, “What if it was the president [of the United States] doing this? We wouldn’t stand for it.”