Mayoral Control of Schools

Mayoral control of schools is a model of governance in American schools in which the mayor of a city replaces an elected board of education (school board) with an appointed board. The mayor may also directly appoint the head of the school system, called the chancellor or superintendent.^[1] Also known as “integrated governance”, mayoral control of schools is a formal structure of governance that replaces a structure in which “an elected board insulates schools from formal mayoral influence”.^[2]

Mayoral control is only found in a small number of medium-to-large districts. According to a survey of school board members compiled for the National School Board Association, 96 percent of respondents report that membership on their board is determined by election.^[3] As of October 2011, evidence of existing or attempted mayoral control was found in less than 20 major districts around the United States.^[4] Perhaps the most high profile case of mayoral control is New York City where Mayor Bloomberg won the right to appoint the head of schools in June 2002.^[5]

Despite limited reach, there are a plethora of mayoral controlled governance structures. In Washington, DC, though the mayor has power to directly select the chancellor, a hybrid school board exists, with five elected members and four appointed members who then must be confirmed by the city council. New York’s mayor also has the power to select the head of schools, in addition to appointing eight of thirteen school board members. In Boston, the mayor’s powers extend only to appointing a committee from a list of nominees. It is this appointed board that is entrusted with the job of selecting a superintendent of schools.^[6]

History of mayoral control of schools

According to scholar Deborah Land of Johns Hopkins University, the origins of a system in which lay individuals were given the authority to govern their local schools dates back more than 200 years.^[7] From the inception of school boards, there was skepticism about the ability of distant politicians to see and meet the needs of local neighborhoods when it came to education. As a result, boards of education were morphed over time to ensure maximum local control of schools. It was believed that separating governance of schools from state and local elected officials was the best way to realize the Progressive Era vision of schools protected from politics.^[8] The trend toward mayoral control represents a reversal of this trend, with arguments for and against discussed in a later section.

While mayoral control in some cities such as Jackson, Mississippi, has existed since the mid-20th century,^[9] most shifts from elected to appointed school boards took place after 1990.^[2] Starting in the 1990s, mayoral control was viewed by its supporters as a way to address the chronic underperformance and jumpstart reforms in medium to large urban districts. The first major urban district to move toward mayoral control of schools was Boston, where, in 1991, the Massachusetts governor and legislature approved a petition allowing the mayor to appoint a seven-member board, which then appointed a superintendent of schools.^[9] The latest high profile urban district to move under mayoral control was Washington, DC, where Mayor Adrian Fenty won the right to select the chancellor of schools in 2007.^[10] The table below shows the school districts that are now under the governance of mayor-appointed boards and, in some cases, mayor-appointed heads of schools.

Location	Year of mayoral control
Jackson, Mississippi	1950’s (pre-dates current trend)
Boston, Massachusetts	1991
Chicago, Illinois	1995
Baltimore, Maryland	1997
Cleveland, Ohio	1998
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania	2000
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	2001
New York, New York	2002
Providence, Rhode Island	2003
Washington, DC	2007

Other locations where mayoral control is being considered or has existed in the past include: Los Angeles, California; Oakland, CA; Indianapolis, IN; Detroit, MI; Milwaukee, MN; Minneapolis, MN; districts in New Jersey; Albuquerque, NM; Rochester, NY; Memphis, TN; Dallas, TX; and Seattle, WA.,^[9][4]

Notably, not all attempts at achieving mayoral control have been successful. Mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa sought to bring the Los Angeles Unified School District under his management in 2006, only to be challenged in court where the move was ruled unconstitutional.^[11] In Detroit in the late 1990s, a reform board appointed by the mayor and governor replaced the elected board of education in response to allegations of mismanagement. This reform was reversed in city referendum in 2005 which reinstated an elected school board.^[12]

Arguments for mayoral control

Proponents of mayoral control point to two major reasons for shifting from an elected to appointed governance structure: the benefits of a single point of accountability and the power of sustained, aligned leadership. On the point of accountability, supporters of mayoral control point to the extremely low turnout for often off-cycle school board elections as evidence of the lack of school board accountability and relevance.^[13] Expounding on this point, Finn and Keegan point out that in districts under mayoral control, “there is now a single, publicly accountable official in charge, rather than nine wannabe mayors immobilizing the school system with their petty squabbles, power grabs, and turf protecting. If citizens are unhappy with the schools, they can now vote the mayor out of office. This does not eliminate democratic control over the schools; it rechannels—and strengthens—it”. US Education Secretary Arne Duncan has made his support for mayoral control of schools clear, offering his help to mayors who push to gain sole leadership of the schools within their cities.^[14] His support is also rooted in a belief that one point of accountability—the mayor—is far more effective than accountability spread across an elected board of education model.^[15]

The second major rationale used to support mayoral control is the power of sustained, aligned leadership. The average tenure of urban superintendents is less than four years—an unfortunate consequence of the frequent turnover in board membership and the shifting winds of local interests.^[16] In cities where the mayors provide job stability for superintendents and focus the energy of the public and private sectors of a city on designated education priorities, the theory goes that more will be accomplished in areas ranging from improving student achievement to ensuring sound fiscal management.^[17] In Boston, for instance, it is reported that mayoral control “engendered continuity in leadership and a new focus on learning”.^[6]

Arguments against mayoral control

Opponents of mayoral control typically cite two major issues with the shift. Most importantly, mayoral control represents an affront to democratic, public participation in school governance. Many worry that taking popular elections of school board members out of the school governance formula prevents local neighborhoods from having any say in how their interests are represented.^[2] As Hess admits, “some voices are likely to be silenced or marginalized under an appointed board”.^[16] A related complaint focuses on the lack of transparency that accompanies appointed boards. Comparing appointed school boards to the board malfeasance in private sector companies such as Enron points to the danger of having a single-minded board take control of any entity.^[16]

Overall, the question of whether to elect or appoint boards of education requires a thoughtful consideration of the “appropriate balance between responsiveness and responsibility.^[16]

Impact of mayoral control on student outcomes

Perhaps the most important piece of evidence in the debate between the proponents and opponents of mayoral control is whether mayoral control has measureable impacts on student achievement. On this point, the jury is decidedly out. After collecting and analyzing the research on school board effectiveness produced over the past twenty-five years, scholar Deborah Land concluded that there is “not yet convincing evidence that appointment of school board members produces…greater academic achievement.” ^[7] Similarly, while unwilling to dismiss the connection between strong mayoral involvement and student achievement outright, researchers at the Institute on Education Law and Policy at Rutgers University— Newark “were unable to establish conclusively that the change in governance had any causal relationship to improved performance, or that, using nationally-normed test data, our [mayoral controlled] cities had greater improvements than anywhere else”.^[18]

References

1. ^ Resmovits, Joy. “Taking Schools Into Their Own Hands.” Wall Street Journal, 16 Aug. 2010. Web. 28 Oct. 2011.
2. ^ ^{a b c} Wong, Kenneth K., et al. The Education Mayor: Improving America's Schools. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2007. Print.
3. ^ Hess, Frederick M., “School Boards at the Dawn of the 21st Century: Conditions and Challenges of District Governance.” Alexandria, VA: National School Boards Association, 2002.
4. ^ ^{a b} Education Commission of the States. "Local School Boards." Accessed October 28, 2011. http://mb2.ecs.org/reports/Report.aspx?id=170.
5. ^ "New York City Board of Education." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 18 March 2011. Web. 30 Oct. 2011.
6. ^ ^{a b} Viteritti, Joseph P., ed. When Mayors Take Charge: School Governance in the City. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2009.
7. ^ ^{a b} Deborah Land, “Local School Boards Under Review: Their Role and Effectiveness in Relation to Students’ Academic Achievement,” Review of Educational Research 72, no. 2 (2002): 230.
8. ^ Henig, Jeffrey R., and Wilbur C. Rich. Mayors in the Middle: Politics, Race, and Mayoral Control of Urban Schools. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2004.
9. ^ ^{a b c} Favro, Tony. “US Mayors are Divided about Merits of Controlling Schools.” citymayors.com. Citymayors, 2 Feb. 2007. Web. 27 Oct. 2011
10. ^ "Adrian Fenty." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 1 Oct. 2011. Web. 30 Oct. 2011.
11. ^ "Los Angeles Unified School District." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 19 Oct. 2011. Web. 30 Oct. 2011.
12. ^ "Detroit." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 30 Oct. 2011. Web. 30 Oct. 2011.
13. ^ Finn, Chester E. and Lisa Graham Keegan. “Lost at Sea.” Education Next 4.3 (2004): 16.
14. ^ Duncan, A. “Mayors Should Run Schools.” 31 March 2009. NBC Chicago. Retrieved from http://www.nbcchicago.com/ news/local-beat/arne- duncan-mayors-schools- 033109.html
15. ^ “Does Mayoral Control Provide a Governance Structure that is well suited for our Schools?” Coffinseducationcenter.com. Coffins Education Center, n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.
16. ^ ^{a b c d} Hess, Frederick M. “Assessing the Case for Mayoral Control of Urban Schools,” American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research Education Outlook, no. 4 (2008): 4.
17. ^ Gutstein, Eric and Pauline Lipman. “Should Chicago Have an Elected Representative School Board? A Look at the Evidence.” University of Illinois at Chicago. Feb 2011.
18. ^ Moscovitch, Ruth et al. “Governance and urban improvement: Lessons for New Jersey from nine cities.” New Brunswick, NJ: The Institute on Educational Law and Policy, Rutgers University, 2010.

External links

• www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2010/10/13/study_challenges_mayoral_control_of_schools
• http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704268004575417301793522096.html
• http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/01/first-kill-all-the-school-boards/6579/
• http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/education-secretary-duncan/ravitch-mayoral-control-means.html