Top News Stories

UFT rips Tweed’s attempt to phase in new governance law

by Cara Metz

Oct 1, 2009 10:27 AM

Educators and parents worked too hard to improve the new school governance law to now see it delayed or not properly implemented, UFT President Michael Mulgrew told a City Council education committee hearing on Sept. 23.

“This law is meant to be effective immediately — there’s no one-year phase-in,” Mulgrew said, in response to testimony from Department of Education officials that described a one-year period before certain aspects of the law would be implemented.

It’s particularly important that the law is implemented correctly at the school level, Mulgrew said, “which is where education happens.”

The law gives expanded power to school leadership teams and Community Education Councils in areas such as budget and school closings and restructurings, yet those bodies are already holding their kick-off meetings for the new year and “haven’t received their written guidance” from the DOE on their new responsibilities, he said.

Another area of concern, Mulgrew said, is that district superintendents, who are now supposed to be accountable to parents in their district and to hire adequate staff to handle parents’ questions and concerns, are still being assigned to multiple schools in districts throughout the city, diluting their accountability.

The DOE’s executive director of public affairs, Micah Lasher, testified that district superintendents would not be responsible for schools outside their district by the end of the year.

That time frame is not in keeping with the law, which took effect immediately, Mulgrew said. “If we get this done now, it will help stabilize the schools so they run properly,” he said.

There are other signs that the new law is off to a bumpy start.

City Council Education Committee Chairperson Robert Jackson was at first barred from attending the September Panel for Educational Policy board meeting, which is supposed to be open to the public.

“I was confronted by a security officer who told me the Tweed building was closed,” Jackson said.

After phone calls to get inside, Jackson was told that there wasn’t enough seating available, and columns blocked his view when testifying. “If I can’t see them, they can’t see me,” he said. “If it’s really public, they need a larger space.”

Other areas of concern that came up during the hearing included:

• no funding, to date, for the parent training center to be run by CUNY;
• a lack of representation to date for parents of English language learners and special needs students, despite the law calling for their representation on the Community Education Councils; and
• concerns about the lack of a system in place to independently review the DOE’s budget and contracts, as called for by law.

“I believe that the DOE will receive nothing but collaboration and cooperation from all interested parties if they move quickly,” Mulgrew said. “It is incumbent upon them now to get this done.”

Read the testimony on Implementation of New School Governance Law.