Senate Democrats Ready to Talk School Governance
July 1st, 2009
Senate Democrats are now very interested in addressing school governance. Today at a press conference Democratic leader Sen, John Sampson said he would like to start discussions with Mayor Michael Bloomberg about school governance legislation.
But yesterday, during their legally questionable voting spree, Democrats ignored the school governance measure, that had already passed in the Assembly. The Assembly bill would largely retain the Mayor’s general authority over schools.
What has changed in the last 24 hours to make Senate Democrats suddenly interested, even though the leadership struggle has yet to be decided? Oh, that’s right! Mayoral control of schools expired last night at midnight.
Sampson said today that he wants to “strengthen” the Assembly’s school governance bill and now clearly he feels he has more bargaining power to do that. At a press conference today, Sampson scolded a reporter, saying the proper term was not “mayoral control” but “school governance.”
A number of Democrats had been clearly preparing for the legislation to sunset, some seemed excited by the prospect. They called the June 30 deadline “arbitrary” and were clearly gearing up for post-control negotiations. Read the rest of this entry »
By David King on July 1, 2009, 3:48 pmIn category: Albany, Education, Eye on Albany
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