The Brecht Forum meeting on Mayoral Control over Education

I attended this event at the brecht forum. Representatives from different organizations came together to discuss the issue of mayoral control over the NYC education system and the impact it has had on education. One group represented was the organization Time Out from Testing. Martha Foot represented this group, and explained that due to mayoral control, the focus on high stakes testing has really taken away a teacher's ability to promote active engagement in learning and to teach topics in depth with students' thinking and concept building as the focus rather than memorization and procedure based activities. The student is not at the center in this type of educational setting, and control from this high up trickling down takes away the chance for teachers and parents to be active participants in the education of these children.

Another group represented was the Center for Immigrant Families, who addressed the issues of inequality in education. They are unhappy with the current system of education and feel that their voices are not represented in their children's education, a problem caused by the corporatization of the public school system by the mayor. They feel educators and the community should be the ones running schools.

Edwin represented NYCoRE, a group very familiar to us from being in this class. They view the educator as a community worker, and value the importance of a collaborative effort between teachers, administration, parents, and the community in education. Teacher's should be accountable to their students and community, not to a test mandated from above that has little relevance to the individual students.

A fourth group represented was the Black New Yorkers for Educational Excellence. They feel that the voice of black people is stifled in education by mayoral control, which promotes a Euro-centric focus on education. They promote mandatory black history course taught in highschool, something they feel would never be possible under mayoral control.

Overall I found this forum to be enlightening on the issue of mayoral control, which I did not realize had such a negative impact. The media (naturally influenced more by the people in power) tend to glorify Klein and Bloomberg in their efforts to "fix" the school system. What many people don't realize is while the system might appear more organized and unified, students are not actually learning any more than they were. In fact, they are learning less because they are being subject to intense and unnecessary testing. While I believe standardized testing can be a valuable tool when used appropriately, when it interfere's with true learning and student's exploration of the world, it is harmful.

I think the other major issue aside from testing, is the basic principle we have learned throughout history, that having one person in power without any system of checks and balances leads to people not being represented properly. In 2009, I hope a new system with a balance of community input, teacher influence, and a universal board to oversee the effectiveness of schools, comes into place.