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So, apparently people have a lot of them. I was in a meeting until 11AM and I come back to check my email and I see there are oh…let’s say 155 to add to the Pet Peeves blog. I need an intern. And then I go over to our friends at SFist to see what’s going on and there is a post about Act Locally SF taking Pet Peeves to the street.
What else, we’ve got a new article about city schools and giving the Mayor the ability to open public charter schools — using Indianapolis as an example, by David Harris and Andrew J. Rotherham:
…despite the centrality of public schools to a city’s civic health, few mayors have any formal statutory authority over the public schools located in their city, as school systems in most states are run by independent local school boards. It is a paradox that vexes many mayors.
Mayors determined to reform education must either find ways of supporting school districts or take them over. Efforts to support school districts include building relationships with superintendents, advocating for resources, and publicizing successes. These efforts tend to keep mayors out of trouble (in other words, on the front page and off the op-ed pages) but with a few noteworthy exceptions, such efforts are low-impact in terms of improving outcomes for students.
Other mayors have assumed direct control over school systems, or sought control by supporting entire slates of school board candidates. But the prospects of truly reforming any large, entrenched institution are not good. Stanford’s Michael Kirst, who has extensively studied mayoral takeovers concludes that “it is difficult to link these governance shifts to improved instructional practices or outcomes.”
But there is a third way that gives a mayor a way to truly impact education while sidestepping the treacherous politics and problems of takeovers: Mayors can open their own public schools. Doing so does not mean walking away from other struggling public schools, but it does mean providing more high quality seats for students and introducing healthy competition into the public sector.
Okay, I need to get some of the Pet Peeves up on the blog. FYI — If you are looking for yours and it’s not up there yet. It’s my fault. I had to eat lunch. Here I go.
-Brian
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