New School System: Unfinished Business
By Assemblyman Steven Sanders

On July 1, a new system of governance for the New York City public schools was begun. This marks a truly historic new beginning for public education.

The legislation, which I negotiated and which was passed into law by the State Legislature, gives to the Mayor the power to appoint a majority of the members to a recast central board of education–now to be known as the Panel for Educational Policy. It also allows the Mayor to unilaterally select and hire a Chancellor.

Each Borough President retains an appointment to the Panel, but each of those five appointments must be a parent of a student currently attending a public school in the city.

Moreover, the new Panel–or central board, as many will still call it–retains important decision-making authority as it relates to adopting a school budget each year, a capital budget and any budget modifications. It must vote on any important policy issue, including key contracts, matters dealing with privatization and systemwide curriculum issues.

Gone are the days of a central board of education’s micro-management of the system and interference with the Chancellor’s responsibility to run the day-to-day operations of our vast school system of 1,100 schools and 1.1 million students.

Very significantly, the new law will prevent the Mayor from making cuts in education so as to balance the city budget, as was the all-too-often-used practice by previous mayors of both parties. And state school aid increases to the city will not be available for poaching–they can no longer be nullified by reductions in the
city’s own total-dollar public schools appropriation.

Two matters of great importance still remain to be resolved. Currently, the U.S. Justice Department is reviewing the power given to the Chancellor to unilaterally appoint community district superintendents. This review is necessary because any change in the powers of the elected school boards (which previously nominated candidates for superintendent subject to the Chancellor’s final say) are governed by provisions of the Federal Voting Rights act.

In addition, later in the year, I will chair public hearings in every borough of the city to consider how the current school boards should be replaced when they are phased out on June 30, 2003. What system should be instituted, community–or boroughwide–to provide essential parental and community input into educational policy? It is very important that the entities that are developed to replace these school boards be representative of the people who live in the various neighborhoods across the city, and that they enjoy a much greater degree of credibility than most of the elected community school boards, now on their last legs.

I am determined to insure that the parents, students, teachers and all concerned citizens are given an opportunity to not only shape the future of local education decision-making, but also to actually participate, meaningfully, in the reforms we will eventually adopt.

A schedule of these hearings will be posted on this page in future editions.#

Steven Sanders is chairman of the NYS Assembly Education Committee. You can contact him at 201 East 16th Street, New York, NY 10003 (e-mail: sanders@assembly.state.ny.us; tel.: (212) 979-9696).