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| Carmen Farina |
Fury at Fariña’s push for enhanced superintendent power
, NY POSTLINK
Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña announced a plan Thursday to restore a centralized system and give more power to superintendents that critics immediately slammed as lacking accountability.
“What is she and the mayor prepared to hold themselves accountable for, in terms of raising student achievement?” asked former Deputy Chancellor Eric Nadelstern.
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. There’s a lot of talk about accountability, but it seems to be a return to a time where there is little or no accountability.”
Fariña plans to dissolve school support networks by the end of the summer and shift their responsibility to 45 superintendents, who would report to Department of Education headquarters. Principals will retain control over hiring decisions , except in cases of struggling schools that will have a separate process.
The networks were established by the Bloomberg administration with the intention of dispersing power from central headquarters.
“Superintendents will be responsible for getting their schools the tools they need to succeed,” said Fariña at an Association of a Better New York breakfast.
Farina puts superintendents back in charge
Most of 55 networks created by Bloomberg given the boot
Miller Photography
Chancellor Carmen Fariña announces her restructuring plan during the Association for a Better New York breakfast meeting on Jan. 22.
"Beginning in the fall of 2015, superintendents will support and supervise schools, period," Fariña said during remarks at an Association for a Better New York breakfast meeting.
She also announced the creation of seven Borough Field Support Centers — two in Brooklyn, two in Queens and one in each of the other boroughs. The centers will be staffed with experts in instruction, operations, student services, and working with English language learners and special education students.
Principals, she noted, will retain control over their budgets and hiring.
The new support centers will open in the summer and the new system will launch in September.
UFT Michael Mulgrew applauded the restructuring.
"It's a welcome contrast to the previous administration, which left schools to sink or swim," he said. "Chancellor Fariña's initiative is designed to provide schools with the tools and advice they need to help them become and stay successful."
In the previous structure created by former chancellor Joel Klein, principals contracted with a network to provide an array of operational and academic support services. Schools from different boroughs often belonged in the same network, making coordination difficult. Many educators derided the networks for their inconsistency and their lack of accountability. The network system also sidelined superintendents, who had almost no staff and served mainly to evaluate principals.
In the new structure, each superintendent will have six staff members, including representative s responsible for family engagement.
Fariña said the new structure will give her a clearer picture of what’s working and what’s not, and superintendents will understand what is expected of them. The centers will also promote one of her key beliefs: Collaboration is better than competition to help schools succeed.
"The central element of our new approach is creating clear accountability and giving superintendents the authority and resources they need to improve what happens in our schools and in our classrooms," she said.
The move was long expected. Fariña has expressed her preference for clear lines of authority. In laying the groundwork for the change, Fariña had superintendents reapply for their jobs last summer, and all new superintendents must now have at least 10 years of teaching experience, with at least three years as a principal.
Not all the networks were banished. Fariña praised the nonprofit organizations that performed well, including New Visions for Public Schools, the Urban Assembly and CUNY, as valued partners that will continue providing support to their schools as affinity groups. But those groups will now report to the superintendent and be held accountable for results, she said.
1 comment:
While Chancellor Farina has made it clear that principals will retain control of budgets and hiring, does this apply to PSOs like New Visions for Public Schools, the Urban Assembly, and CUNY?
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