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Reform Will Only Happen Through a State Constitutional Convention


Cuomo Silver Skelos ethics reform

(photo: The Governor's Office)


Albany ended the legislative session without any government ethics reform and without any voting reform. Although there have been fewer arrests for corruption this session than last, no legislator should take this as a sign of improvement. And New York State voters should accept the truth that the Legislature itself will never seriously vote against its members’ self-interest to make progress on ethics or electoral reform.

The only opportunity for New Yorkers for real reform is on the ballot on November 7, 2017, where we will be able to vote “yes” for a State Constitutional Convention.

This year, some state legislators talked about passing voting reforms in our archaic, closed system, such as early voting, reducing the time required to switch parties, and same-day registration, but none happened. This legislative session we heard calls for closing the LLC loophole, fixing pay-to-play allowances, and eliminating “lulus” -- stipends that go to legislators, sometimes for work they don’t actually do.

The response to the news that almost all State Senators receive these lulus, or extra committee or conference leadership stipends, regardless of whether they are actually leading any committee, has been lackluster. The State Senate, for the first time in eight years, convened its ethics committee on June 15, less than a week before the end of the legislative session. It decided to table the lulu issue, who knows until when.

There will be a chance to make constitutional reform on the ballot this year aside from the Con Con. The one reform voters have the opportunity to enact is to revoke the pensions of legislators convicted of a crime, and that’s only because it was the singular outcome of legislators responding to the anger of voters over the corruption scandals that took down two legislative leaders in one year and have plagued the capital for decades.

One worthwhile result with a slew of problems brewing should not be taken as sufficient for voters in the state. Voters should enact the pension-stripping measure and also vote for a Constitutional Convention.

To be sure, a Constitutional Convention should not be a second way to legislate. Many different interest groups will try to use the Constitutional Convention to effect their legislative goals, such as the legalization of recreational marijuana, banning abortion, or creating a road to upstate secession. However, the one problem that a majority of constitutional delegates and eventually New York voters can agree on is that the years of legislative sclerosis are a systemic problem that the State Constitution could fix. Moreover, legislators themselves will not legislate their way into solving those problems, even if there is a switch in partisan power.

Saying yes to a Constitutional Convention is worth the fight. The delegates could draft a new and improved version of the state’s democratic system, which would then be put to the voters. New York voters are smart enough to reject changes that merely reinforce the status quo or do damage to our civil rights. The opportunity to vote yes for a Constitutional Convention every 20 years is a deliberate acknowledgment from the state Constitutional framers that politics will sometimes overwhelm the legislative process. The lawmakers will not fix the problems on their own, the people must do it.

On November 7, vote “yes” for a Constitutional Convention.

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Richard Semegram is tenant lawyer based in Brooklyn. On Twitter at @richagram.

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Mayoral Control Debate Ignores Need for Community Control


mayor bdb

Mayor de Blasio (photo via The Mayor's Office)


Since Mayor de Blasio’s cries about the dire consequences of the State Legislature not granting him an extension of mayoral control over the city’s public schools didn't seem to work, this perhaps provides us with a little space to have a more open and less hysterical discussion about possible alternatives. What I find striking about the mayoral control debate is the false assumption that there exists a wide consensus on the need for it.

A May 2017 Quinnipiac Poll, consistent with other polls on the subject, found that “Only 21 percent of New York City voters say Mayor Bill de Blasio ‘should retain complete control of the public schools,’ while 68 percent say he should ‘share control of the public schools with other elected leaders.’” However, this has not been acknowledged by the mayor or taken seriously by the media. This probably goes to show the power of the corporate-educational alliance so brilliantly forged by former Mayor Bloomberg in his takeover of the schools back in 2002.

When I listen to Mayor de Blasio decry the corruption and chaos of the old local elected school boards, I see it as an attack on the ability of communities of color to run their own affairs.

The idea that decentralization of a bloated school bureaucracy and local community control of neighborhood schools is presented as a given unfairly cuts off any serious discussion of what really happened with the community control movement and how it was made dysfunctional. It cuts off any serious discussion of the role of parents and communities of color in determining educational policy in a city and school system in which people of color are in the majority.

Because of the lack of serious inclusion of people of color in educational policy, the charter school movement as a form of community control has arisen. Under Bloomberg and de Blasio the role of parents in school governance has basically disappeared. The Panel for Educational Policy is basically a rubber stamp for the Mayor and the Chancellor, and the parent coordinators in the schools are there largely to manage the parents, not increase their participation.

By decrying the corruption and chaos of the past, the mayor is essentially saying that this was inherent in bringing communities of color into the school governance process. If one extended this argument to, say, the state government, then we should be giving gubernatorial control of the entire state government because of the many ethics violations committed by state legislators.

The problems plaguing the decentralized school system before mayoral control were avoidable if there had been will to do so. For example, some thoughtful, careful restrictions on who could participate on local boards could be one remedy. There could also be rules limiting the role of the teachers unions in school board membership and elections that did so much to corrupt the system.

Throughout the state local school boards are elected, while in New York City, in which neighborhoods are the size of small cities in and of themselves, New Yorkers do not have the same right. This right to full and substantive participation in school governance adds to the civic health of the city, and in the past has included the right of non-citizen parents to be part of the process.

How is it that any of these points have not entered the current discourse on the need or not for mayoral control of the city schools? As an increasing majority of the city’s population has become people of color, this type of top-down governance is part of what I call trickle-down progressivism, which must be challenged.

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Angelo Falcón is President of the National Institute for Latino Policy (NiLP), based in New York City. He is a co-editor of the book 'Latinos in New York: Communities in Transition,' 2nd Edition from the University of Notre Dame Press.

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Balanced Approach Awaits Lapse of Mayoral Control


Bloomberg Walcott school visit

Mayor Bloomberg at a school (photo: Spencer T. Tucker)


Mark Twain’s reproach against “Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics” could easily be reformulated against Lies, Damn Lies, and Statutes.  Such are the many inflammatory statements against reversion to the old Board of Education made by Mayor de Blasio and his allies as they seek renewal of mayoral control of New York City’s public schools. This fear-mongering against a return to the old system, so-called school decentralization or community control, employs caricature rather than truth to advance its purpose. In fact, a close reading of the old law – about to be resurrected if mayoral control lapses at the end of this week -- reveals a surprisingly cautious approach to balancing central, district, school, and parent interests. The true picture is a sharp contrast to the administration’s doomsday scenario.

The mayor has described “chaos and corruption under the old school boards.” The Chancellor predicted, “Our system is headed for disaster,” calling a lapse of mayoral control “devastating.” The president of Bank Street College, a former DOE official, further injured the former institution’s reputation by recalling “the system we had” when “in certain districts there was a going rate” for sale of administrative positions by local school boards. This unusually heated rhetoric is at odds with the professional experience of each since the mayor, chancellor, and Bank Street president all flourished -- apparently uncorrupted -- under the old system as a community school board member, superintendent, and principal, respectively.

But more importantly, the stereotype of community control they describe was long gone by the time mayoral control was implemented in 2002. Instead, the new system replaced a reform law enacted in 1996 that took pains to eliminate opportunities for corruption and substantially increased central power under the Chancellor while providing for important local roles. It’s that statute that will replace mayoral control if the state Legislature and governor fail to act.

Contrary to mayoral myth harking to earlier iterations of the law, the once-and-possibly future statute bans community school board members from most personnel decisions, subjecting them to removal by the Chancellor “for willful, intentional or knowing involvement in the hiring, appointment, or assignment” of school employees. The 1996 statute explicitly states that “community boards shall have no executive or administrative powers or function.” Instead they are confined to exercising “powers and duties to establish educational policies and objectives” consistent with policies of the central board and Chancellor.

The central board, now made up of seven members -- one each appointed by the Borough Presidents and two by the Mayor, thus without a mayoral majority -- is also limited to a policy role, similar to the original responsibilities of the mayoral control board, called for that reason the Panel for Educational Policy or PEP. (Its duties have since been somewhat expanded to allow for public decision-making on contract and siting matters.)

The exception to community school board members’ limited personnel role is in securing their own superintendents. But the law only provides for boards to recommend a list of candidates to the Chancellor under a model contract and regulations promulgated centrally.  Even the process by which the list is assembled is subject to sunlight, with the Chancellor empowered to establish an inclusive public process for the recruitment, screening, selection, and review of candidates.

The law, to take effect July 1, is very strong on educational accountability. Each Community Superintendent, once appointed by the Chancellor, is required to take action against the principals of failing schools. If not, the Chancellor may “remove a community superintendent who fails to comply with” all applicable laws, including “performance standards addressed by administration and effectiveness, and any requirements for continuing education and training.”

Presaging the Bloomberg-era emphasis on principal empowerment, the law reserves important powers to schools consistent with central and district policies. These include the authority to design and implement budgets; staff selection recommendations; curricula and syllabi; “teacher and staff development relevant to increasing pupil achievement, support extended day programs, school reform programs, and public support services;” make or arrange for minor building repairs; and purchase equipment and supplies if more inexpensive than system purchasing arrangements.

Parents, too, gain under the old statute which contains a number of explicit provisions making parent powers another key force in holding educators accountable and motivating them to act.  Parent involvement is one of three major criteria for evaluating principals’ performance, student achievement and school discipline being the other two.

I have my reasons for favoring mayoral control with changes. Part of the problem with the current debate over extension is its all-or-nothing posture. But advocates for mayoral control typically do a disservice to civic discourse by ignoring or mischaracterizing the reality of what would occur if mayoral control lapses. In its place would be a reform statute, curing many of the system’s previous ills, and setting forth a reasonable formula for educational accountability and effective management.

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David C. Bloomfield is Professor of Educational Leadership, Law, and Policy at Brooklyn College and The CUNY Graduate Center. Much of this analysis is based on his earlier study, co-authored with Bruce S. Cooper, “Re-Centralization or Strategic Management? A New Governance Model for the New York City Public Schools (Teachers College, Columbia University, 1998).

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