Teachers' union leaders talk of changes to mayoral control
Teachers' union leaders Michael Mulgrew and Randi Weingarten offered only partial support for mayoral control of public schools on Thursday, saying that they want to see changes to one of Mayor Bill de Blasio's key initiatives in Albany. Mayoral control, passed during Michael Bloomberg's first term, is due to expire at the end of the month.
The union leaders spoke after hosting de Blasio at a press conference at the headquarters of the United Federation of Teachers, during which the mayor made a pitch in favor of mayor control. The union leaders made their remarks after de Blasio left.
Mulgrew, president of the U.F.T., told reporters that the "position of our union is we support mayoral control but not in its current version."
The U.F.T., Mulgrew said, wants the mayor to have less control over the Panel for Educational Policy (P.E.P.), the governing body of the Department of Education. A majority of the 13-member panel is appointed by the mayor, and critics charged that it acted as a rubber stamp for Bloomberg. The P.E.P. has shown a streak of independence recently by rejecting co-location proposals and further complicating Mayor Bill de Blasio's relationship with charter leaders.
"The thing is, in New York, everyone thinks it's mayoral control or nothing," Mulgrew said. "That's not the case. Every city that has mayoral control has different versions of it but the idea of mayoral control, yes, we do not want to go back to the school boards and the Board of Education."
Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, also said mayoral control should be subject to changes, a notion that de Blasio opposes. She did not offer specific changes she would like to see.
"Everybody knew [the sunset of mayoral control] was coming due," she said during the same press conference on Thursday. "If you want to make changes to it, you do it months and months and months in advance, not at the very last minute."
"Are there things that should be done? Of course," she added, "but you don't do that at the very last minute."
In their remarks, Weingarten and Mulgrew chose to criticize Albany rather than praise mayoral control.
"Albany is starting to look like Washington, D.C.," Mulgrew said.
He and Weingarten specifically objected to a proposal advanced by Republicans in the Teachers' union leaders talk of changes to mayoral control | Capital New York: