Reality-BasedTM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot
Electoral Math
Reality-BasedTM Political Numbers from Nicholas Beaudrot
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There's a mini-trend to have the Mayor's office re-take responsibility for managing the public school system from local school boards. The theory goes something like this: voters have a hard time paying attention to the umpteen local races, so we might as well put responsibility for the issue that matters most--education--with the election that matters most (this is ironic, since in many cases school boards exist to protect the mayor & city council members from the volatile ups and downs of the school system). In addition, ambitious mayors will be happy to take control of and credit for improving schools, and unpaid or poorly paid school board members may be happy to give up their night jobs. Mike Bloomberg in New York City is the biggest example of this trend, but new DC mayor Adrian Fenty seems to be trying to be the next one in line.
According to this article published in Act Locally SF (and later at the DLC-based Progressive Policy Institute's website), it's not clear that changes in government on their own lead to a better outcome. Intuitively this makes sense; the mayor has to have a substantial commitment to improving school quality; he (or she) still has to herd cats to push through whatever reforms he thinks will help; and he (or she) has to find reforms that will work. None of those are guarantees.
The wonks at PPI suggest giving the mayor chartering authority, which will (a) ensure that the mayor only charters schools that are high quality lest the scandal of a poor school kill his re-election bid, and (b) increase competition and hopefully prod the school board, and (c) give everyone a pony. Okay, I was kidding about the pony part. But seriously, part (b) seems suspect; urban school districts must already compete with suburban districts. So, color me skeptical on the magical powers of charter schools in this case; we'd be better off overhauling the school district's bureaucracy and keep the schools publicly managed.
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updated by Nicholas Beaudrot on 10:29 04 April 2007
