Felix Culpa

Congratulations to all our borough presidents. You have each shown Unity in the face of disaster!

Now it is time to show the mayor that the inclusion of the borough presidents in the decision process for educational reform has great benefits.

A SIMPLE 12 STEP PROGRAM
1) It is time we admitted that our school system has become unmanageable.

Each borough president’s office can serve as the troubleshooter for matters of education policy. Each borough president’s office can serve as the troubleshooter for matters of education policy.
Your offices could cite programs that are working in your boroughs hand help them be replicated throughout the system.
Initiatives such as those taken by Helen Marshall, Queens BP, which have dramatically reduced class size and reduced overcrowding in her borough will become even more effective as the other borough presidents take on this issue with unified action.

2) Strength comes from united action. However, unity is strongest when there is a diversity of opinion! And it might just restore us to sanity!
Ideas become strengthened as people of differing views see a common need and work in unity to achieve these goals.

3) While each of you might agree on general principles such as one put forward by the Brooklyn BP “Parents must have a say in their children’s education. It will not only strengthen public participation ⎯ it will ensure that we continue to improve student outcomes”!

4) There will be different assessments on implementation. There should be!
For example Marty Markowitz believes that “one of the most successful accomplishments to come out of mayoral control is school-based parent coordinators”.

5) Others while seeing the establishment of school-based parent coordinators as a step forward might still see shortcomings.An investigation by Scott Stringer, Manhattan BP, has revealed, for example, that the Department of Education has failed to provide the legally-mandated support and training for parents serving on Community Education Councils.

6) So by airing differences the Board might eventually follow Scott Stringer initiative, and exert pressure to provide the CECs with the resources and training which will allow them to do their work.


7) Despite the placement of a parent coordinator in every school, the creation of CECs, and the hiring of a Chief Family Engagement Officer, the Manhattan BP sees that there continues to be wide-spread sentiment that parental and public involvement is not a priority.

8) I would go even further and suggest that the borough presidents look for innovative ways that students can have a stronger voice in their education. I remember that there was a very effective student board that used to meet regularly with the previous chancellors to work toward the goals the students saw as a common need.


9) Each and every school in New York City could be turned into a Green House of Democracy. By learning to help make the decisions that shape the culture of a particular school, students will learn skills that will carry over to later life. As the years go by, students will learn the joys of taking on real responsibilities and working with others to achieve realistic goals.

10) They will learn the communication and networking skills they will need to advance in the 21st Century job market. They will actually be creating communities of shared values. People worry about the students “lack of respect” but what respect do we show them - if all the decisions are handed down to them from on high? How can we expect them to develop self-esteem if they are not trusted to have a say in how their schools are run.

11) And what might we learn from these students… well, we might just learn how to run a school. Recent studies show that even in elite private schools up to 70% of a teacher’s time is actually taken up with maintaining order and keeping the class under control. Truth is I have seen better ratios in some of our system’s schools – even with hard to manage populations. But we never hear of these successes, worse we never get a chance to have them replicated.

12) Believe me, the students know what works. And if they had a chance they’d help us set up systems that work. Besides the waste of so much valuable teaching time – can you remember how boring it is to have teachers who have to spend so much time trying to maintain order???

Using their social networking skills and their tech savvy today’s students could help transform schools from factories of learning to thriving communities. BUT, only if they are let in on the action!

The borough presidents must fight for greater transparency.

There may well be wide-spread agreement by the Board to follow through on the demand by Brooklyn BP, Marty Markowitz, for the creation of an independent education office that will provide non-partisan reporting and analysis of the combined $18 billion capital and operations budgets, and also provide a complete analysis of student outcomes

I would also suggest that it is NOW the time to return to an independent Department of Investigation for our school system.

For years I have tried to get Richard Condon’s office to look into a long-standing scandal in the school system. It involves corruption, patronage and outright malfeasance. But these charges keep getting sidetracked even as the betrayal of the public trust spreads.

You office could serve as a funnel for information the mayor and the chancellor need to know, but might not otherwise make it to their desks.