Thursday, July 23, 2009
Just Asking
To all those who argue mayoral control of schools is bad for democracy, isn't it a good thing that schools are the issue in this year's New York City mayoral race? There's an incumbent mayor up for reelection using his success running the schools as his major claim, and now we have a challenger disputing those claims, issuing audits, and questioning the data. Someone please explain to me how schools could be more accountable to the public.
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2 comments:
In Canada we have school boards, and members of school boards are elected directly.
Since we are electing specifically for boards that manage education, it is expected that candidates will have some knowledge of the field (though admittedly some don't). This makes it better than electing a mayor, whose qualifications typically have nothing to do with education.
Talking about school reform is only good if the talk is realistic, and the problems well-defined. Since neither of these conditions are met, not even close, I cannot agree that it is a good thing schools are the issue. They are not.
Poverty is the issue. The sooner we all get on board that train, the sooner we will be able to address the symptoms of the disease, like the achievement gap...
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