Albany just chose to play politics with NYC schools — at our kids’ expense

Despite the smiles and backslapping that accompanied the completion of New York’s state budget, it includes a truly disgraceful provision that weakens a law crucial to New York City’s future: mayoral control of the school system.

Making matters worse, the new law hands more control to the group that has long pulled the Legislature’s strings, the United Federation of Teachers.

It’s a shameless betrayal of the city’s nearly 1 million students that will undermine the progress the city’s schools have made and harm the next generation, leaving them without the skills they need to succeed in future careers — and leaving too many trapped in poverty and tempted by crime.

In 2002, the Legislature abolished the New York City Board of Education, which had long been a poster child for government incompetence and educational failure, and gave control of the school system to the mayor.

Our administration had just taken office and pushed hard for the change.

Over 12 years, we made major gains, raising graduation rates by 42%, opening 654 new schools, reducing the racial achievement gap by nearly a quarter and nearly doubling the college-readiness rate. 

When we took office, not one of the state’s 25 highest-performing elementary or middle schools was in New York City.

When we left office, 22 of the top 25 were in New York City.

At the time, the union was a partner in much of this work. 

My successor in City Hall and I didn’t agree on almost anything, but we both strongly supported mayoral control.

No matter what a mayor’s political orientation, the public needs to know who’s in charge of the schools in order to hold them accountable.

Yet the Legislature and governor have refused to make mayoral control permanent.

And since the law has to be reauthorized every few years, they have steadily chipped away at it.

Now, under the latest scheme, it’s hanging by a thread.

The new law eliminates the mayor’s authority to appoint the chair of the Panel for Educational Policy, the group that must approve the mayor’s policies.

Instead, the lawmakers and the Board of Regents (which is controlled by the Legislature) get to hand the mayor a list of three possible candidates.

If the mayor doesn’t like any of the choices, the mayor can request a new list, though the Legislature need not provide it.

In other words: The mayor can choose the chair, so long as it’s someone the Legislature has preselected.

It would be hard to devise a more cynical scheme. 

If the mayor is on good terms with the Legislature — and tensions are common, given Albany’s desire to dictate to the city — perhaps lawmakers will agree to include the mayor’s choice on its list.

But maybe not.

And it may require the mayor to make costly political concessions.

Regardless, make no mistake: The Legislature will now decide the chair, not the mayor.

The mayor still has the power to appoint 12 of the panel’s 23 members — a majority, but just barely.

And the mayor no longer has the authority to replace members who turn against the administration’s agenda, increasing the chances that special-interest groups will succeed in applying pressure to flip a mayoral appointee.

Gov. Hochul has supported mayoral control and sought to reauthorize it through the budget negotiations, where she has the most leverage.

She said she wanted to “stop the whole politicization” of mayoral control.

That was great to hear.

Unfortunately, she allowed the opposite to happen — going along with lawmakers’ effort to inject even more politics into the process.

It’s the governor’s job to be an advocate for kids, not a mediator between the city and the union.

It’s fair for parents to ask: How could the city let this happen?

The victims, after all, are their children, who still have not recovered from the learning loss they suffered during the pandemic.

There are many steps the state could have taken to help them — such as expanding summer school and tutoring programs, and allowing for the creation of more charter schools — but instead, the state chose to play politics.

It’s no wonder the school system has lost nearly 200,000 students in recent years, as families have been voting with their feet. 

Parents, children and everyone who cares about education should be raising hell and demanding the Legislature revisit this issue before the end of the school year.

If the legislators don’t act, there is something else we can do: support those who challenge them — and vote them out in November.

Michael R. Bloomberg was mayor of New York from 2002-2013. Adapted from Bloomberg.com.