Mayoral Control of Schools: A Mixed Record
Posted By The Editors | March 17th, 2012 (41 seconds ago) | Category: Education | No Comments »
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By Kenneth J. Cooper
Giving the mayor control of a city’s public schools, once touted as a promising education reform, has not delivered on its promises of improving student achievement and eliminating politics from school decisions.
Several years ago, researchers at Rutgers University examined nine major cities with mayoral control of schools, including New York, Boston and Washington, D.C., and concluded there was no demonstrable evidence that the “reform” structure was responsible for any improvements in student achievement that may have occurred.
“Our statistical analysis does not provide convincing evidence to suggest that mayoral involvement has a causal positive effect on achievement or on other demographic and educational measures,” the 2010 study found.Researchers from the Institute on Education Law and Policy at Rutgers-Newark also reported that having mayors in control, rather than elected school boards, lessened community input into educational decision-making. That outcome should have been predictable—it’s harder to get a big city mayor’s ear than those of a number of school board members with different outlooks and constituencies.
Putting mayors in charge did have some benefits, mostly in terms of better management, according to the study. School systems used resources more efficiently, stability increased as superintendents stayed longer and funding
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