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NYC School Takeover Inspires Fenty, but Critics Abound
At Bronx Lab School, one of six small schools sharing a building in New York, Kari Ostrem helps Christopher Rodriguez with a Chinese lesson.
(Helayne Seidman -- TWP)
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Many of the moves have angered teachers and parents, who complain that the Bloomberg administration operates schools like a corporation with heavy-handed, top-down management.
Elected community school boards that had helped shape decisions in vastly different neighborhoods were abolished. Teachers who were once free to develop creative lesson plans were told to teach a uniform curriculum that focused on reading and math at the expense of history, art and science.
In a move that drew particular ire, students were banned from bringing cellphones to school, to the chagrin of many parents who wanted to be able to reach their children in an emergency.
"I truly believe it has been a terrible experience," said Leonie Haimson, a parent activist who led the letter-writing campaign to parents in Los Angeles. Bloomberg and Klein "have used the takeover to have complete dictatorial powers over our schools. They do not listen to anyone. They are not accountable to anyone."
Bloomberg compares running the school system to directing other city agencies, such as police or health care, where decisions do not require approval from advisory boards or parent committees. The parent coordinator Klein hired for every school is enough, he said.
"Parents know about their kids, but they're not professional educators," he said.
"There is no reason to think they should be designing a school system or running a school system. Do you want parents to make medical decisions? I don't think so."
The potential loss of parental input was a major reason the 2004 bid by D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) to take over schools failed. But Fenty believes he has a mandate.
"In all eight wards [of his primary campaign], people said, 'Fenty, do something about the schools,' " he said.
In New York, Bloomberg and Klein, who lead the Justice Department's victorious antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, wasted no time. Klein took over in August 2002 and began major reforms after studying the system for four months with consultants.
"The incrementalists and status-quo-ists are not going to get us where we need to go," Klein said. "The way it worked under the old structure, everybody's for change, everybody wants to improve the school system, but a lot of people don't like this change or that change because their ox is gored."
When they met resistance, Bloomberg and Klein hardly slowed down. In 2004, they proposed ending social promotion -- the practice of moving unprepared students to the next grade level in the hope that peers would keep them engaged.
