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ED REFORM ROLLBACK IN NEW YORK C IT Y MAYOR DE BLASIO'S EFFORTS REMAIN A WORK IN PROGRESS IN HIS CAMPAIGN FOR MAYOR o f New York City, Bill d e Blasio p o sitioned h im self as the candidate m o st d eterm in e d to bre ak w ith the legacy o f the outgoing Michael Bloomberg a d m in istra tio n . V oters re sp o n d e d enthusiastically, h a n d in g de Blasio a nearly 5 0-point m argin o f victory in th e N ovem ber 2013 election. De Blasio, a D em ocrat, in te rp re te d th e w in as a b ro a d m andate for change, calling in his inaugural address for “a new progressive direction” that would "p u t a n en d to econom ic a n d social inequalities th a t th rea ten to unravel the city we love.” P ublic edu c atio n , a to p p rio rity o f th e B loom berg a d m in is­ tra tio n , was o n e o f several areas w here de Blasio p ro m ise d big changes. D e Blasio has pledged to m a in ta in Bloom berg’s focus o n closing th e ac h ie v em en t gap, b u t h is ed u c atio n agenda has revised th e m eans: tu r n a r o u n d s in ste a d o f closures, heavyem p h asis o n add ressin g th e “r o o t causes” o f K -1 2 u n d e r p e r ­ fo rm a n ce th ro u g h p re -k in d e rg a rte n ed u c atio n a n d social ser­ vices, less an tagonistic relations w ith the U n ite d F ederation o f T eachers (U FT), a n d m o re-relax e d school-discipline policies.

But the results have been so m ething less th a n revolutionary.

D e Blasio’s first th re e years in office a tte st to th e significant c o n stra in ts progressives across the c o u n try will face in trying to roll back ed ucation reform , even w hen faced w ith no signifi­ c a n t political o p p o sitio n at the local level. These c o n stra in ts stem fro m state g o v ern m e n t’s role in edu c atio n policym aking, lim its o n available resources, a n d te n sio n s w ith in progressiv- ism itself. All o f th e m will likely c o n tin u e to fru strate de Blasio a n d o th e r progressive m ay o rs in th e ir a tte m p ts to develop an alternative to th e e d u c a tio n -re fo rm agenda.

by STEPHEN EIDE 2 6 EDUCATION NEXT / W I N T E R 2 0 17e d u c a t io n n e x t . o r g educationnext.org WINTER 2017 / EDUCATION NEXT 27 (la) During Mayor Bloomberg's second and third terms in office, the high school graduation rate in New York City rose steadily.

(1b) Leaving aside the years when the state recalibrated its evaluation framework, student achievement in the city also improved each year under the Bloomberg administration.

Percentage proficient in NYC public schools, grades 3-8 ■ Math English language arts NOTES: Data are presented by calendar year in which th e school year ends. In fig u re 1a, s ta rtin g in 2 0 0 8 , data include students atta in in g a high school degree by A ugust. New Y ork S tate revised its p roficiency standards in 2010 and in s titu te d exams aligned to th e Common Core in 2013, changes indicated in fig u re 1b w ith a v e rtic a l black line.

SOURCE: New York City Department of EducationA ccountability Gaps M ayor Bloomberg, a Republican- turned -in d e p en d en t, left an impressive record o f achievement o n school reform th at co n tributed substantially to New York City’s shedding its reputation as the “ungovernable city.” The graduation rate rose by m ore th a n 20 percentage points and, leaving aside the years when th e state re calib rate d its evaluation framework, student-achievem ent rates in the city improved annually (see Figure 1). From 2003-13, 4th- and 8th-grade N a tio n al A ssessm ent o f E ducational Progress (NAEP) scores rose in both reading and m ath at rates far outpac­ ing those o f the rest o f the state and, in som e cases, the n a tio n as a whole (see Figure 2). O n state tests, New York un d er Bloomberg gradually reduced the student proficiency gap between the city an d the rest o f the state in both English language arts (ELA) and math.

The city clearly has ro o m for im ­ provem ent, given its pockets o f deep u n d e rp e rfo rm a n c e : th e m o st re cen t ro u n d o f state-test results found that 15 percent or fewer o f the city’s students are proficient in ELA in 145 schools and in m ath in 271 schools. And New York’s NAEP scores place it only in the m iddle o f the pack am ong large urban school systems. But aside from a slight d ro p -o ff in NAEP 4th-grade reading an d m a th scores, the overall upw ard trends p u t in m otion u n der Bloomberg have continued through de Blasio’s first term. A February 2016 analysis by the Independent Budget Office found that New York’s district an d charter schools outperform the rest o f the state when e th n ic a n d ec o n o m ic variables a n d disability rates are accounted for. And in the spring 2016 ro u n d o f state test­ ing, the city’s 3rd th ro u g h 8th graders caught up to the rest o f the state in ELA, notching a 38 percent proficiency rate com p ared to 37.9 p e rc e n t statewide.

(In m ath, the respective num bers were close, at 36.4 percent an d 39.1 percent.) W h e n de Blasio to o k office, m a n y critics d o u b ted th a t his b ac k g ro u n d as 28EDUCATION NEXT / W I N T E R 2017educationnext.org D E B L A S IO E ID E an activist a n d m in o r local official h a d p re p a re d h im for the awesome adm inistrative challenges o f G o th am ’s mayoralty. De Blasio trie d to address his lack o f executive experience by rely­ ing less th a n B loom berg d id o n ou tsid ers to staff his a d m in ­ istratio n . De Blasio’s schools ch ancellor is C a rm e n Farina, a 50-year veteran o f New York ed ucation policy. T h o u g h Farina w o rk e d as a d e p u ty ch ancellor in the B loom berg a d m in is tr a ­ tio n , h e r m a n a g e m e n t p h ilo so p h y differs sh arply fro m th at o f B lo o m b e rg ’s cha n cello r, Joel Klein, in sig n ifican t ways.

She is far less d a ta -d riv e n , as a favorable profile in the N ew York Tim es p o in te d o u t, a n d she takes great p rid e in takinga collaborative a p p ro a c h to ru n n in g th e city’s D e p a rtm e n t o f E d u ca tio n (DOE).

Relations with the UFT have become far m ore collegial un d er de Blasio than they were under Bloomberg. According to the Wall Street Journal, UFT president Michael Mulgrew visited de Blasio m ore than any other registered lobbyist during his first two years in office. Six m onths after becoming mayor, de Blasio settled a new contract with the UFT, stretching from the last three years of the Bloomberg adm inistration past the 2017 mayoral election.

The de Blasio adm inistration neither attained n o r sought signifi­ cant concessions from the UFT o n fiscal m atters or workforce Closing the Gap between the City and the State (Figure 2) Under Bloomberg, 4th- a n d 8th-grade N a tio n a l Assessm ent o f Educational Progress scores rose in both reading and m a th a t rates f a r outpacing those o f the rest o f the state. The upw ard trend has continued f o r 8th graders so f a r un d er de Blasio, b u t 4th-grade scores have fallen.

Grade 4 m a th Grade 4 reading — NYC — Rest of NY S t a t e N a tio n a l Grade 8 m a th Q .

Ld < Z <290 285 280 275 270 265 260Grade 8 reading — NYC — Rest o f NY S ta t e N a tio n a l S O U R C E : New York City Department of Education educationnext.org W IN T E R 2017 / EDUCATION NEXT29 !" ru le s. I n c lu d in g r e tr o a c tiv e raises, teacher pay will increase by $9 billion over nine years. For the city, the net im pact will be billions more: u n der New York’s “pattern bargaining” approach to contract negotiations, the gener­ ous deal with the UFT, the city’s largest bargaining u n it by far, set the fram ew ork for the dozens of other m unicipal unions.

De B lasio’s re lu c ta n c e to barg ain h a r d e r w ith the U FT was p a rtly political, b u t also likely r o o te d in his ideologi­ cal sym pathies w ith organized la b o r (a lth o u g h th e U FT d id n o t e n d o rs e de Blasio in the Democratic primary). W hatever the motives, collegiality comes at a cost. Satisfying u n io n d e m an d s will lim it th e resources available for progressive priorities in education an d other areas.

For example, de Blasio argued th at universal full-day pre-K, his m arquee education initiative, would be m ore secure if locally funded. De Blasio could easily have paid for the $ 3 4 0 m i l l i o n pre-K expansion in the p ro g ra m ’s first year, an d m o st o f the ongoing cost in subsequent years, by re q u irin g teachers an d o ther city workers and retirees to contribute 10 percent to their health insurance prem ium s (am ounting to nearly $ 5 5 0 million, according to the Independent Budget Office). Instead, he tried to raise city incom e taxes—a move blocked by G overnor A ndrew Cuom o. Thanks to the health o f the local econom y, the de Blasio adm in istratio n has been able to paper over this tension between labor harm ony and the expansion o f governm ent services, b u t th at does n o t make it any less real.

Farina and de Blasio’s collegial approach to m anaging the DOE, an d th eir lack o f interest in d ata-o rien ted policymaking, have caused th em to weaken a c c o u n t­ ability fram ew orks th at Bloomberg p u t in place. In 2007, the Bloomberg ad m in ­ istration rolled o u t a system o f “School P ro g re ss R e p o rts ”—r e p o r t ca rd s forschools that assigned A -F letter grades. But as p a rt o f the m ay­ o r’s plan to “lower the stakes on testing,” the de Blasio a d m in ­ istra tio n re p la ced th e re p o rt cards w ith a “School Q uality R eport” system, w hich is based o n similar metrics b u t does n o t give schools a letter grade. In a re cen t analysis, m y colleague M arcus W inters com pared the final b atch o f School Progress Reports w ith the 2014 de Blasio School Q uality Reports to see if F-quality schools notched as m uch progress w ithout the letter grades as w ith them . He found th a t “im p ro v e m e n t dissipated immediately after sum m ary letter grades were dropped.” This conclusion com ports w ith research about the m otivating effects o f school report cards that W inters an d others had published long before de Blasio an d Farina m ade their decision to eliminate the Progress Reports.

T h e p e rc e p tio n th a t de Blasio h as m a d e th e D O E less accountable m ay have c o n trib u ted to his failure to gain a m u l­ tiyear extension o f m ayoral co n tro l o f th e schools. I n general, m ayoral control enjoys b ro a d su p p o rt in New York City: even th e m a y o r’s m o s t s tre n u o u s critics d o n ’t advocate a r e tu r n o f th e pre-B loom berg B oard o f E ducation, w hose m em b ers were n o t directly elected b u t ap p o in te d b y o th e r local officials.

But m ayoral co n tro l m u st be re a u th o ­ rized by the state legislature, an d twice de Blasio has b ee n forced to settle for o n e -y e a r ex ten sio n s o f th is a u th o rity ra th e r th a n th e p e rm a n e n t a n d seven- year extensions he sought in 2015 and 2016, respectively. M an y observers view de Blasio’s losses o n m ayoral co n tro l as m otivated by political payback by state senate Republicans, whose dom inance in the legislature’s u p p er cham ber de Blasio trie d unsuccessfully to e n d d u rin g the 2014 election cycle. Scott Reif, spokes­ m a n fo r Senate M ajo rity L eader John De Blasio and his schools chancellor Carmen Farina (right) have weakened accountability frameworks as p a r t o f a p ia n t o “lower the stakes on testing.” Under Bloomberg, schools were assigned A -F letter grades, a system that helped motivate improvement.

30 EDUCATION NEXT / W IN TE R 2017 educationnext.orgPHOTOGRAPH /ASSOCIATED PRESS; SUSAN WALSH (BOTTOM), ASSOCIATED PRESS; ANDREW HINDERAKER (TOP) D E B L A SIO E I D E D e Blasio on Discipline (Figure 3) A fter increasing throughout much o f Bloomberg’s term, suspensions declined during his last years in office.

The de Blasio administration has placed fu rth e r restrictions on their use.

N u m b e r o f s u s p e n s i o n s in N Y C p u b lic s c h o o ls D a t a a r e p r e s e n t e d b y c a l e n d a r y e a r in w h i c h t h e s c h o o l y e a r e n d s .

S O U R C E : N e w Y o r k C i ty D e p a r t m e n t o f E d u c a ti o n Flanagan, disputes this analysis: “The decision to provide a one-year extension of mayoral control was based solely on the merits and nothing else,” Reif said. “At the end of the day, our only motivation is what’s in the best interest of the 1.1 million students who attend New York City schools and their parents.” S ch ool D iscip lin e Reform De Blasio has also weakened school discipline rules and pro­ cedures. W ith the vocal encouragement of the Obama adm in­ istration, de Blasio, like other urban progressives across the nation, has recently put forth a raff o f changes aimed at ending the so-called cradle-to-prison pipeline. Suspensions had already been on the decline during the last three years of the Bloomberg administration (see Figure 3), but de Blasio’s DOE has placed further restrictions on their use. For example, in April 2015, the de Blasio administration changed the DOE’s discipline code to require principals to get approval from central administration before suspending a student for defiant or disobedient behavior.

This move runs counter to the notion of principal autonomy, a long-sought goal of many education reformers. But from another perspective, a progressive school-discipline policy is the logical extension of education reformers’ achievement-gap philosophy. While below-proficient students are believed to benefit the most from a lower suspension rate, those who havethe most to lose are the above-proficient, low-income strivers.

Opposition to de Blasio’s innovations on school discipline has centered around the empirical question of whether schools are getting safer under the “restorative justice” regime. The administration has heralded a 29 percent drop in school crime over four years, but the organization Families for Excellent Schools has put forth other studies based on state data that have shown rising levels o f violent incidents in city schools (See Figure 4). An August 2016 announcem ent that the n u m ­ ber o f “Persistently Dangerous” schools, a state designation, had dropped by 85 percent to only four citywide was met with skepticism by the head of the school-safety agents union, who pointed out that not a single high school had m ade the list.

In May 2016, the New York Post reported that school-safety agents and police officers had confiscated 26 percent m ore weapons from students during this past school year than over the same span in 2014-15. (Phasing out metal detectors, first installed during the late 1980s crack epidemic, is a priority of the de Blasio adm inistration’s school-discipline task force.) The school discipline discussion has paralleled the wider debate in urban America over “broken windows” or “qual­ ity o f life” policing, which entails aggressive enforcement of low-level crimes if they threaten to disrupt the social order— vandalism, turnstile jumping, public drinking, and the like.

In schools, the analog to such policies is a “zero tolerance” e d u c a t i o n n e x t . o r g W IN T E R 2 0 1 7 / E D U C A T I O N N E X T 3 1 ! "# $% # & Turnaround Strategies Closing down large, chronically low-perform ing schools and replacing them with a greater n u m b er o f smaller, new schools was central to Bloomberg’s expansion o f school choice an d his overall approach to the achievem ent gap. Dismissing studies th at found that it had benefited students, de Blasio characterized Bloomberg’s closure policy as “an excuse n o t to address ways Are Schools Really Getting Safer? ( F i g u r e 4 )to help struggling schools improve and meet o u r expectations th at all students graduate ready for college o r a career.” Instead, he has invested in two overlapping tu rn a ro u n d programs: the C om m unity Schools Initiative and the School Renewal Program.

The latter supplem ents struggling schools’ per-pupil outlays, funds additional teacher training an d sum m er school, an d will ad d an o th e r h o u r to the school day. In some extrem e cases, Farina has counseled o u t ineffective teachers, and three schools, plagued with rapidly declining enrollment, have been closed. The C om m unity Schools Initiative proposes to boost student achieve­ m en t by providing struggling schools with w raparound social services via city-sponsored partnerships with neighborhood orga­ nizations. (There are 94 Renewal schools and 130 C om m unity schools. All Renewal schools are C om m u n ity schools but n o t all C om m unity schools are Renewal schools.) T he de Blasio t u r n a r o u n d p ro g ra m s have suffered fro m a certain lack o f urgency, a n d th e ir scope is b o th to o b ro a d and to o n arrow . As th e ed u c a tio n new s w ebsite C h alk b ea t has d o c u m e n te d , it to o k 10 m o n th s for th e initial a n n o u n c e m e n t o f the program s, m a n y schools received only c u r ­ sory assistance d u rin g the 2 0 1 4-15 school year, a n d pro g ress m etrics w ere n o t released to the public u n til D ecem ber 2015. Initial estim ates o f the three-year cost have swelled from $ 150 million to $400 million. This is a significant sum , b u t the H arlem C h ild ren ’s Zone, a m u c h -a d m ire d m odel fo r C o m m u n ity Schools, ru n s its tw o P ro m ise A c ad em y schools a n d th e re la te d n e tw o r k o f c o m m u n ity services o n an annual b udget o f $100 m illion (see “H ow Family B ackground Influences S tu d e n t A c h ie v e m e n t,” features, S pring 2016).

R ather th a n a scaled-up v ersion o f the H arlem C h ild re n ’s Zone, de Blasio’s tu r n a r o u n d efforts resem ble dozens o f m u c h m o re m o d est versions o f the m odel. At th e sam e tim e, as th e re fo rm - advocacy group StudentsFirstNY has p o in ted out, m a n y city schools th a t are very lo w -p e rfo rm in g based o n the a d m in is tr a tio n ’s ow n m etrics are n o t even in clu d ed in th e tu r n a r o u n d pro g ram s.

T h u s, de B lasio’s t u r n a r o u n d e ffo rts are h am p ered by m o re th a n ju st unforced erro rs o f execution. C o n c e n tra tin g resources is likely to be m o re effective, b u t spreading resources m o re widely will enjoy m o re political support. Either way, a focus o n “ro o t causes” is expensive, and u rb a n A m erica’s resources will be quite limited for the foreseeable future. A 2015 re p o rt by the N ational League o f Cities fo u n d th at the revenues o f cities across the c o u n try had yet to fully recover since the end o f the recession. Revenue grow th has been outpaced by rising expenditures associated w ith cities’ trillion-dollar-plus retire m en t benefit The de Blasio adm inistration has heralded a decline in the n u m ­ ber o f school safety incidents over f o u r years, b u t state data show a spike in the num ber o f violent incidents in the city’s schools.

— ■ ” N Y S t a t e d a t a o n t o t a l v i o l e n t i n c i d e n t s in N Y C s c h o o ls N Y C D O E d a t a o n t o t a l i n c i d e n t s in N Y C s c h o o ls N O T E : D a t a a r e p r e s e n t e d b y c a l e n d a r y e a r in w h i c h t h e s c h o o l y e a r e n d s . N Y C D O E d a t a o n t o t a l i n c i d e n t s i n c l u d e m a j o r f e l o n y c r i m e i n c i d e n t s , o t h e r c r i m i n a l - c a t e g o r y i n c i d e n t s , a n d o t h e r i n c i d e n t s .

S O U R C E : Families for Excellent Schools 3 2 EDUCATION NEXT / W I N T E R 2017 e d u c a tio n n e x t.o rg feature DE BL A SIO EIDE Charter schools expanded by more than 6 0 0 percent during Bloomberg's tenure, facilitated by co-location, the practice of giving charters unused space in d istrict school buildings.

Iren. , h hI • 1 ; f 1 1 1 U / | 1 l l > ■ 111 .m m 1 iWfLi.

1 /m ; ,‘ii \m Bill de Blasio m ade a campaign pledge to s ta rt charging rent to charter schools, but in October 2013, weeks before the mayoral elec­ tion th a t fa ll, thousands o f children and adults marched across the Brooklyn Bridge in protest.

liabilities. (Unlike federal officials, mayors are subject to local balanced-budget requirements.) It is not remotely practical to authentically replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone model for every struggling school. To the extent that the progressive alternative to education reform relies on increased spending, it will always be a work in progress.

Cuomo, Pre-K, and Charters Though the 2017 election cycle has yet to kick into high gear, de Blasio has already m ade clear that he believes he deserves a second term largely on the strength of having estab­ lished “universal, high-quality, full-day” pre-K in New York.

W hen de Blasio took office, about 20,000 children had access to governm ent-funded full-day pre-K. In the 2015-16 school year, th a t nu m b er has grown to 69,000. Like C om m unity Schools, pre-K focuses education policy away from elementary and secondary school classrooms toward root causes. W ith an achievement gap in num eracy and literacy already evident bythe time children begin kindergarten, progressives nationwide believe that a massive investment in preschool will compensate for disadvantages related to students’ poverty status and family background. In making pre-K universal, de Blasio has here, too, opted for a broad distribution o f resources over a more concentrated one. In an interview with Politico New York, Richard Buery, the adm inistration’s lead on pre-K, justified the need for universality by arguing for the im portance of “diversity” and claiming that “from a political perspective, universal programs are easier to maintain over the term, [and] there’s a broad constituency for early childhood education.” Bruce Fuller, professor o f education and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, questions this argument.

He points to research he and others have done showing that children from low-income families are the ones who derive the m ost benefit from public pre-K. “Given scarce resources,” he tells me, “governm ent should fund kids in the families where the effects are discernible-to-large, and that means focusing on poor kids.” Fuller has pu t out a series o f reports about the de e d u c a t io n n e x t . o r g W I N T E R 2017 / E D U C A T I O N N E X T 3 3 D E B L A S IO EIDE Though de Blasio may lack effectiveness as an executive, the challenges he has faced in rolling back education reform are also partly attributable to the role of the state, budgetary limitations, and an inability to say no to union demands.

Blasio p ro g ram , finding, am o n g o th e r things, th a t new pre-K seats have b ee n d isp ro p o rtio n a te ly c o n c e n tra te d in affluent n eig h b o rh o o d s. H e estim ates th a t 12,000 c h ild re n in p o o r n e ig h b o rh o o d s still lack any access to a public pre-K program .

T h e state has played an im p o rta n t, if q u estio n ab le, role in b rin g in g universal full-day pre -K to N ew Y ork City. De Blasio’s initial p ro p o sa l was to exp a n d p re -K b y im p o sin g a 0.5 p e rc e n t s u r ­ ch a rg e o n in c o m e s above $500,000.

A b o u t fo rty th o u s a n d tax filers w ould h a v e seen t h e ir a n n u a l bills go u p b y an average o f $12,000. B ut N ew Y ork’s taxing pow er, like all o th e r cit­ ies’, is re g u la ted by state g o v ernm ent.

G o v e rn o r C u o m o rejected de Blasio’s ta x p ro p o sa l, in s te a d lo c a tin g fu n d s in the state b u d g e t to fu n d th e pre-K expansion. Thus, while the cost o f u n i­ versal p re -K in N ew Y ork C ity is $863 m illion, local revenues cover only $ 112 m illion, a c co rd in g to a re c e n t analy­ sis by the n o n p ro f it C itizens Budget C om m ission. As m e n tio n e d earlier, th e m o st o p tim a l fu n d in g sce nario w o u ld have seen de Blasio cut sp en d in g elsew here in o rd e r to fu n d pre-K . T he sec o n d -b est choice w o u ld have b e e n fo r th e city to raise taxes citywide to pay fo r th e service expansion. C u o m o ’s a p p ro a c h allowed N ew Y ork City to get so m eth in g for n o th in g , a n d m a y have diverted a tte n tio n from th e relative benefits o f “un iv ersa l” versus ta rg e te d pre-K.

O n ch a rter schools, C u o m o has played a m u c h m o re c o n ­ structive role. D u rin g Bloomberg’s three term s, ch a rter schools expanded by m o re th a n 600 percent, a rate six tim es th a t o f the n atio n as a whole during the same tim e span. Because real estate is at such a p re m iu m in renaissance N ew York, the Bloomberg- era charter expansion was facilitated by co-location, the practice o f giving charters u n u se d space in d istrict school buildings.

O n th e cam paign trail, de Blasio criticized this policy, saying, “T h ere’s n o way in hell Eva M oskowitz sh ould get free re n t,” re ferring to M oskow itz’s Success A cadem y ch a rter netw ork (see “W h a t Explains Success at Success Academy?” features, S um m er 2015). De Blasio does n o t question c h a rter schools’ rig h t to exist a n d has a n u m b e r o f perso n al co n n e ctio n s to in d e p e n d e n t ch a rter operators. But because o f th eir am bitious plans for grow th a n d th eir connections to Wall Street, charternetw orks seemed to be o n a collision course with the de Blasio adm in istratio n shortly after the 2013 election.

Surprisingly, though, thanks to the intervention o f state gov­ ern m e n t, access to facilities fu n d in g for N ew York City ch a rter schools is now m ore secure th a n ever. D uring the FY’ 15 budget cycle, C uom o a n d the state legislature passed a law requiring the city to either accom m odate new or expanding charters in district buildings or provide th em w ith rental assistance.

L obbying played an im p o r ta n t role h ere, n o d o u b t. P r o - c h a r te r g ro u p s have in som e years o u tsp e n t the U FT a n d N ew Y ork State U n ite d Teachers, longtim e d o m in a n t forces on the state scene. A n d increased political su p p o rt has b een an effect as well as a cause o f c h a rte r school expansion. A ccording to the New York City C h a rte r School Center, ch a rter school en ro llm en t now to p s 100,000 stu d e n ts, w ith a n o th e r 43,000 o n waitlists. In H arlem , c h a r­ ters now enroll m ore th a n a th ird o f all youngsters in public schools. But since the city’s progressive ruling class rem ains tep id at best o n charters, it to o k th e in te r­ vention o f C uom o an d the legislature to translate this political s u p p o rt into policy.

W hat Lies Ahead?

I t ’s early y e t—B loom berg h a d 12 years in office, a n d de Blasio has th u s far been in charge for only two full school years. H ow ever, th o u g h de Blasio m a y lack effectiveness as an executive, the challenges h e has faced in rolling b ack education re fo rm sh o u ld n o t be a ttrib u te d o n ly to th e gap b etw een his progressive ideals a n d his a d m in istra tiv e com petence. T he role o f th e state, b u d g e ta ry lim itatio n s, a n d an in ability to say n o to u n io n d e m a n d s will lim it progressive m a y o rs’ p o w e r over e d u c a tio n p o licy in th e fu tu re , b o th in N ew Y o rk a n d in o th e r cities. A viable progressive alternative to B loom berg’s ed u c a tio n -re fo rm agenda h as yet to emerge.

Stephen Eide is a senior fellow at the M anhattan Institute.

His work focuses on public administration, public finance, political theory, and urban policy. Thanks to state government intervention under Governor Cuomo, access to facilities funding fo r New York City charter schools is now more secure than ever.

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