D.C. mayor-elect wants to manage city's school system

Fenty’s proposal would turn the city’s school board -- which now has an elected president, four elected members, four members appointed by the mayor, and two student members -- into an “advisory panel.”

In the coming weeks, Fenty plans to take city council members to New York City to tour schools and meet with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

Bloomberg won control of the city’s schools in 2002 through state legislation that abolished the city’s 32 elected community school boards and gave the mayor’s office authority to oversee most of the school system’s day-to-day business.

Other urban districts that have seen mayoral takeovers in recent years include Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently appealed to the California legislature to allow him to take control of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The D.C. school district’s problems are well publicized -- its students have posted some of the lowest test scores in the country, numerous schools have failed to meet benchmarks under the No Child Left Behind Act, and many school buildings are decrepit and inadequate.

In the past three years, enrollment has dropped from 65,000 to 58,000, with many students transferring to charter schools.

Fenty announced plans to create a new position of “deputy mayor for education” and named school board member Victor Reinoso to the post. Reinoso would use the mayor’s office as leverage to use resources from other agencies to help the school system. In return, the mayor’s office would be held accountable for student progress.

Robert C. Bobb, a former administrator for the D.C. government who was elected school board president Nov. 7, has said that he welcomes the mayor’s involvement and wants to collaborate on education reforms. Bobb can’t comment on the proposed takeover, however, because he has not seen a specific proposal, said his spokesperson, Natalie Williams.

Bobb’s “focus is on student achievement,” Williams said. “If the proposal that Mayor-elect Fenty is talking about in the end increases student achievement across the board, he would not stand in the way of it.”

NSBA opposes mayoral takeovers and believes a local community should decide the governance structure of the school system.

“Mayoral takeovers, in the short time that they’ve existed, have not been a silver-bullet solution,” said Katrina Kelley, director of the Council of Urban Boards of Education, a component of NSBA’s National Affiliate program.

“The majority of urban school systems that have successfully turned around low-performing schools are not mayorally controlled,” Kelley said. “It took hard work and a commitment of time to realize change, regardless of the governance structure.”

In cases where school districts under mayoral takeover have made progress, the improvements stem from a variety of factors, not simply because the mayor controls the system, she added.