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Opinion
editorial

It’s time to end Albany’s destructive micromanagement of NYC schools

By
Post Editorial Board
Published April 10, 2024, 5:55 p.m. ET
Legislature leaders have rejected Gov. Hochul's push to renew mayoral control in negotiations for the state budget.
Legislature leaders have rejected Gov. Hochul's push to renew mayoral control in negotiations for the state budget. Andrew Schwartz / SplashNews.com

A year after being tasked with studying the effectiveness of mayoral control of New York City’s public-school system, the State Education Department delivered a 300-page report undermining it — and so leaving no one accountable for school-system failure.

Plus, SED’s $250,000 study calls for setting up a commission to look for more ways to mess things up.

The Legislature’s leaders rejected Gov. Hochul’s push to renew mayoral control in negotiations for the state budget, when she has maximum leverage to resist watering it down, as they did two years ago by reducing how much of the Panel for Educational Policy Adams appoints.

And they clearly hope to undermine it some more this year — because they’re in the pocket of the teachers unions, which strongly prefer a system prone to behind-the-scenes manipulation, like the old Board of Education.

Note that it’s the Legislature (mainly Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie) that chooses the state Board of Regents, who govern SED: So, in sniping at mayoral control, SED simply did what its masters wanted.

Notably, the report mainly cites the input of “activist” parents who mainly parrot city United Federation of Teachers talking points.

Hmm: When parents wanted the COVID lockdown to end and schools re-opened, the unions argued otherwise.

When city parents rallied to retain Gifted & Talented programs and protect high-performing schools, the UFT and its pawns worked to undermine them.

The SED report is just another play in the sordid Albany game of rewarding special interests while spreading out the blame so voters can’t hold anyone accountable — in this case, to impose that same dark design on the city Department of Education.

Taxpayers, parents and students be damned.

Kudos to Assembly Education Committee Chairman Michael Benedetto (D-Bronx) for opposing this drive, saying, “We should keep what we have and hold someone accountable and that would be the mayor.”

Every other school system in the state has a settled system of governance; only New York City is subjected to this periodic micromanagement (mismanagement, actually) from Albany.

This obscene, venal farce must end: Mayoral control should be made permanent.

Let New York City run New York City schools.