A recent op-ed of mine appeared in one of the big Michigan papers, the Detroit News, not too long ago. It’s about why mayoral control—a bad idea in the first place, I believe—is an even worse idea in a city like Detroit. Education Secretary Arne Duncan came to the Motor City in May to peddle his mayoral-control message to Detroit Public School leaders that, quite frankly, are so shellshocked at this point they might buy into anything for their crumbling city and schools.
Hold on, though. Mayoral control? In Detroit? The city coming off one of the worst mayor-related scandals in recent memory?
My op-ed—which makes these points and more—is republished below in full. Comments, please!
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Commentary
Mayoral control isn’t the answer for Detroit schools
Andy Kroll
On a recent visit to Cody High School in southwestern Detroit, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan reiterated one of his key talking points on how to improve the nation’s underachieving urban public school districts: Put mayors in charge of big-city public schools.
Transferring authority over urban school districts from school boards and superintendents to mayors, Duncan explained in March at the Mayors’ National Forum on Education in Washington, D.C., will ensure greater stability in the leadership of school districts. Duncan pointed out that mayors usually hold office longer than the average school superintendent.
The secretary of education also said that mayors make stronger leaders at the helm of public schools.
“Part of the reason urban education has struggled historically is you haven’t had that leadership from the top,” Duncan told The Associated Press. “That lack of stability, that lack of leadership is a huge part of the reason you don’t see sustained progress and growth.”
Despite Duncan’s lobbying, mayoral control is not all it’s cracked up to be. And it’s not the solution to turning around Detroit’s struggling public schools.
For starters, Detroit is hardly a city that’s enjoyed stability and reliability in City Hall. The last 15 months of the Kwame Kilpatrick scandal have transformed the title of “Mayor of Detroit” from an honor to a punch line. Only 15 percent of Detroit’s eligible voters cared enough to vote in May’s special election that saw Dave Bing take office. And this November, Detroiters will again go to the polls to elect a new mayor to a four-year term.
This is stability?
Elsewhere, mayoral control has had a decidedly mixed record in other struggling urban school districts.
In Chicago, where Duncan previously served as CEO of the city’s schools, Mayor Richard M. Daley has used his control over the public schools to implement a controversial program in which underperforming or low-enrollment schools are shut down and new, smaller, “entrepreneurial” schools replace them.
Titled Renaissance 2010, Daley’s program largely shuts out the Chicago Teachers’ Union from the new, reopened schools. It weakens the influence of local school councils, made up elected parents and community leaders, much to the ire of Chicago citizens. Instead, a small board comprised of Chicago’s business elite oversees much of Renaissance 2010 and works closely with Mayor Daley to craft the city’s school reforms.
In other words, Chicago’s most powerful business leaders — not the citizens, school councils or even the mayor — have authority over the city’s public schools. Is that what Detroiters want for their public schools?
The case of New York City’s public school system is equally telling.
In the Big Apple, business mogul and Mayor Michael Bloomberg and one of his appointees, New York schools chancellor Joel Klein, control the city’s schools. And while some have praised New York’s use of charter schools to boost student achievement, even louder are the criticisms that Klein is inaccessible and shows little accountability as the head of New York’s schools.
At a February hearing of the New York State Assembly’s Education Committee, William Thompson Jr., the New York City comptroller, said Klein had failed to involve parents in the process of crafting education policy, creating the impression that Klein’s office was “arrogant and out of touch,” the New York Times reported.
“With its top-down approach, the current administration has sought to avoid debate and public scrutiny, while fundamental decisions regarding reform have been made by executives with no education background,” Thompson said.
Not surprisingly, New York state legislators are discussing giving a governing board for New York City’s schools veto power over the mayor’s authority — a significant break from the nearly unilateral power Mayor Bloomberg currently has.
“Dictatorial rule does not work,” a New York state senator recently told Klein, according to the Times. “Mayoral control has been a disaster for parents. It has not gotten better.”
Getting back to Detroit’s schools, there’s no question drastic action is needed. Painful job cuts, school closings, a budget deficit in the hundreds of millions of dollars — all these problems and more confront Detroit’s educational leaders.
And while there’s no clear solution to these problems, we all can agree that improving Detroit’s schools must be a group effort bringing together the most talented minds the city has to offer — not consolidating control of Detroit’s schools in the hands of one man.
Andy Kroll, an Ann Arbor resident, is a journalist who has written widely on education policy.
