Whitestone Teacher Cannot Win a Whistleblower Lawsuit Until All Remedies are Exhausted

Can a teacher, covered by a collective bargaining agreement maintain an action pursuant to Civil Service law 75-b, the Whistleblower’s Law?

Posted on November 28, 2013

Edlawfaqs
No. Michele Ehrlich, an ESL teacher at PS 79 in Whitestone until her probationary termination
in July 2011, complained to several DOE departments and some private advocacy groups about
a violation of an IEP of one of her students. After her termination she claimed she was covered
by the Whistleblower’s Law Section 75-b. (A federal claim concerning her free speech rights
was dismissed in a federal action that had been removed to that court by the DOE).

Acting Justice Ellen M. Coin ruled that Ehrlich could not maintain her action under the Whistleblower’s law since she was covered by the UFT contract and was required to exhaust
her remedies available under the grievance procedure before she could commence an action.

Ehrlich v. DOE (November 7, 2013, Decided)

Lest We Forget: NYC Education Corruption and the Case of James T. Stein and Jerry Olshaker

Cover-Up Charged in School Official's Sex-Abuse Case

By JOSEPH BERGER, NY TIMES
Published: October 11, 1991

LINK

In what investigators described as a cover-up by an "old boys' network," two current and two former officials of the New York City Board of Education were accused yesterday of conducting a cursory investigation of a colleague's conviction for sexually abusing a child and then letting him keep his job.

The two current officials are James T. Stein, who was dismissed by Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez as the $68,394-a-year head of the office that hears appeals by teachers disciplined for misconduct, and Howard S. Tames, the $95,000-a-year head of the office that tests and licenses teachers. Mr. Tames, who received a "severe reprimand" from Mr. Fernandez, heads the office that replaced the Board of Examiners last year.

Mr. Fernandez also dismissed Jerry Olshaker, a $71,000-a-year administrator of food supply who pleaded guilty in 1987 to sexually abusing a neighbor's daughter in Matawan, N.J.

A report by Edward Stancik, the Deputy Commissioner of Investigation for the city's schools, said Mr. Stein appointed a three-person panel that was made up entirely of associates of Mr. Olshaker to review the arrest. The report said the panel, loath to dismiss a well-regarded colleague, deliberately avoided seeking out the facts behind the sex charges. Mr. Stancik said the officials seemed "visibly shaken" when they later learned those details during the course of his investigation. 'One Big Happy Family'.

"They didn't want to know the truth," Mr. Stancik said, describing the officials as an "old boys' network." "The department of personnel acted like one big happy family. When someone got into trouble the family took care of it."

The record on the entire episode was secreted for four years in the top drawer of Mr. Stein's desk instead of being placed in the appropriate board file, the report said.

Mr. Stancik's office, part of the city's Department of Investigation, was created last year to be independent of the board after disclosures that the board's own investigatory arm was doing a poor job of policing corruption.

In January 1987, the 56-year-old Mr. Olshaker, then the administrator of support services in the Personnel Division, was charged with repeated acts of sexual abuse of his daughter's friend from the time the friend was 8 until she was 14. Most of the acts described in the report involved his placing of the girl's hand on his genitals.

Mr. Olshaker, a board employee since 1962, confided the arrest four months later to his immediate supervisor, Geri Morganteen, and said he intended to plead not guilty. The report said Ms. Morganteen, who resigned from the board more than a year ago, notified Mr. Stein. Mr. Stein, 56, and Edward Aquilone, executive director of the personnel division, decided, in accordance with board regulations, to convene a Personnel Review Panel to evaluate the case and recommend action. The panel was made up of Mr. Stein, Ms. Morganteen and Mr. Tames, all friends of Mr. Olshaker.

The panel, the report said, may have conducted no inquiry and, indeed, Mr. Stein, its leader, "chose not to ask" the specifics of the arrest. After seeing the Monmouth County indictment, which included no description of the acts of abuse, he had Mr. Tames and Ms. Morganteen sign a document recommending Mr. Olshaker's retention.

The report said the panel members and Mr. Aquilone, who has since retired, defended the handling of the case. The report said that Mr. Stein may also have falsified a document.

The board's regulations require a representative of the Chancellor to be part of the panel. So Mr. Stein, the report said, apparently wrote an identification next to Mr. Tames's signature that indicated he worked for the Office of School Safety, which he did not.

On June 9, 1987, Mr. Olshaker pleaded guilty and he was sentenced to three months' probation on the condition that he undergo psychotherapy. A second review panel, without any details of the plea, again recommended Mr. Olshaker's retention.

Mr. Fernandez defended his decision to let Mr. Tames remain by arguing that Mr. Tames merely went along with a process that was engineered by Mr. Stein with little knowledge of the charges at issue.

Teacher Dennis Henderson Files A Lawsuit Against a Police Officer and Heats Up The Racial Pot

Teacher files federal lawsuit against Pittsburgh police officer after Homewood arrest

November 19, 2013 11:30 PM

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LINK
The June arrest of a teacher, which worsened police-community relations in Homewood, is now the subject of a civil rights lawsuit that its authors claim is as much about prompting change as procuring a check.

Dennis Henderson, the 38-year-old teacher from North Side whose run-in with Pittsburgh police Officer Jonathan Gromek is the subject of the lawsuit, said Tuesday that his arrest was tough to explain to his 9-year-old daughter as well as his students.

"I've worked hard to stay out of the system," Mr. Henderson said at a news conference announcing the lawsuit. "There just shouldn't be a reason my daughter should have to answer to her peers on why her dad was on TV in handcuffs."

He said he also had to explain it to his students, some of whom have heard him lecture them on how to behave in an encounter with police. He recounted that a student said to him, "You did everything you tell us to do, and you got slammed."

Mr. Henderson, with help from the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania and attorney Glen Downey, accused Officer Gromek of violating his rights to free speech, freedom from unlawful search and seizure and due process.

The Manchester Academy Charter School teacher said that he left a meeting at the Community Empowerment Association, which dealt with efforts to improve relations with police, to give his business card to journalist Rossano Stewart outside.

He said that Officer Gromek sped by, veering so close that the two "had to press ourselves against the car to avoid being struck by the vehicle." Mr. Henderson said he exclaimed "Wow!" and the officer turned the car around and "posed the question if I had a problem with his driving."

Officer Gromek, who did not respond to a request for comment, wrote in criminal court documents that he turned around because he saw Mr. Henderson shouting when he glanced in his rear-view mirror.

Mr. Henderson said he asked Officer Gromek for his name and badge number. He also said that he would record the encounter on his phone. "I refused to give him my phone, and at that point he said, 'Put your hands behind your back,' " said Mr. Henderson.

Mr. Henderson said he was handcuffed and told "if I don't get down, he's going to put me down," after which the officer swept him to the ground.

Officer Gromek wrote in criminal court documents that Mr. Henderson had been becoming "visibly angry" and "I believed he may have been trying to contact more people to come on scene which would prove to be a safety risk for me, so I instructed him to put away his phone."

Mr. Henderson said the reporter with him, Mr. Stewart, was briefly handcuffed but released when one of 10 to 15 officers who arrived later realized he was with the media.

Mr. Henderson was jailed for around 12 hours and charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and obstruction of highways -- all of which were withdrawn by Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. A spokesman for Mr. Zappala said Tuesday that the office has no plans to re-file the charges.

Mr. Henderson said he believed the white officer sought to intimidate him because he is black.

"If it wasn't racial, I don't know what it was then," Mr. Henderson said. "I don't know if that's the normal practice in Squirrel Hill or anywhere else."

"Simply being a black man in a black neighborhood doesn't give police probable cause to stop you, but unfortunately too many of our officers think it does," said ACLU attorney Sara Rose.

Sgt. Michael LaPorte, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 1, rejected that characterization.

"That is as ridiculous as the ACLU has come," Sgt. LaPorte said. "If you have a neighborhood that is 98 percent black, what type of people should you be pulling over, purple?"

Homewood is around 95 percent African American. Around 26 percent of Pittsburgh's population is black, and around 2.5 percent report more than one race.

Data released by the bureau indicates that in 2012, 51.1 percent of people subjected to field contacts or warrantless searches were black men, and 8.4 percent were black women.

"We pull over people based off violations of the law," Sgt. LaPorte said. "We don't do it based off arbitrary facts.

"I have no comment on Gromek in particular other than nothing that he did was unreasonable," he said.

Attorney Bryan Campbell, who often represents city police officers accused in civil lawsuits, declined comment.

The lawsuit seeks damages and attorney fees. The city is not named as a defendant, but Ms. Rose said the attorneys are "exploring whether any [bureau] higher-ups should be named."

The city typically pays settlements or verdicts against its officers. Acting police Chief Regina McDonald declined comment.

Ms. Rose said she hoped to talk with city leaders about policing in minority communities, although that might not occur until the mediation phase of the case. She said the existence of a partial audio recording of the incident should help to document the incident, taking it beyond the realm of he-said-she-said cases.

The city's Office of Municipal Investigations sustained accusations against Officer Gromek of conduct toward the public, conduct unbecoming and incompetency. A bureau disciplinary hearing is set for Tuesday.

The Citizen Police Review Board plans to set a date for a public hearing on the matter at its Dec. 3 meeting.

Officer Gromek, 30, joined the force in September 2005 and was scheduled to earn $59,587.42 this year. Since Mr. Henderson's arrest, he has been reassigned from Zone 5 to the bureau's warrant office.

"I don't want to see him on the streets," Mr. Henderson said.

Rich Lord: rlord@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1542 or on Twitter @richelord. Liz Navratil: lnavratil@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1438 or on Twitter @LizNavratil First Published November 19, 2013 12:53 PM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bank of America Fined $2.2M in Racial Discrimination Case

 LINK 

The bank must pay back wages and interest to 1,147 black job applicants for race-based hiring discrimination.

 

(Photo: Chuck Burton, AP)

 

 

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Bank of America must pay the job applicants back wages and interest
• Department of Labor finds that bank applied unfair and inconsistent selection criteria in hiring
• Bank must extend job offers to 10 individuals as positions become available

 

 

 

 

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Bank of America has been ordered to pay nearly $2.2 million in restitution for discriminating against more than 1,100 black job seekers.

Judge Linda S. Chapman of the U.S. Department of Labor has ordered the bank to pay 1,147 African American job applicants $2,181,593 in back wages and interest, for race-based hiring discrimination at the company's Charlotte, N.C., facility.

The Department of Labor's ruling awards $964,033 to 1,034 applicants who were rejected for jobs in 1993, and awards $1,217,560 to 113 applicants rejected between 2002 and 2005.

STORY: Bank of America accused of misleading investors
STORY: Bank of America to pay $39M in gender bias settlement

The ruling also orders Bank of America to extend job offers, with appropriate seniority of position, to 10 individuals included in the class action, as those positions become available.

The judge determined that the bank had applied unfair and inconsistent selection criteria in the hiring process, which resulted in the rejection of qualified black applicants for teller and entry-level clerical and administrative positions in the company.

"Judge Chapman's decision upholds the legal principle of making victims of discrimination whole, and these workers deserve to get the full measure of what is owed to them," said Patricia A. Shiu, director of the Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs initiated routine compliance reviews in November 1993.

Those reviews revealed systemic hiring discrimination affecting black job seekers in the Charlotte location, and following efforts of conciliation that went nowhere, the Solicitor of Labor filed an administrative complaint against the company in 1997.

STORY: BofA settles with Fannie Mae for $10 billion

The filing stated that Bank of America had violated an executive order, which prohibits federal contractors from discriminating in employment practices on the basis of race.

Bank of America, as a federally-insured financial institution that provides a variety of services and products, is a federal contractor and falls under the purview of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

The Department of Labor alleges that Bank of America repeatedly challenged the contract compliance programs' authority.

"Our investigators and attorneys prevailed despite decades of stalling tactics," said Solicitor of Labor M. Patricia Smith.

DOL’s ‘Major Victory’—BOA Will Pay $2.2 Million for Race Discrimination

Topic: FLSA/Wages

Bank of America Corp. (BOA) will pay 1,147 African-American job applicants $2,181,593 in back wages and interest for race-based hiring discrimination, says the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), declaring “a major victory.”

Here are some details about the BOA case and other backpay/discrimination lawsuits that sound a warning to all employers to take extra care to avoid discrimination and offer a reminder about the tenacity of federal agencies.

Suit Began in 1993!

The ruling in the BOA case awards $964,033 to 1,034 applicants who were rejected for jobs in 1993 and $1,217,560 to 113 individuals who were rejected between 2002 and 2005. It further orders the BOA to extend job offers, with appropriate seniority, to 10 class members as positions become available.

After hearing from experts on both sides, the judge agreed with the government's positions on every issue in dispute. Notably, she rejected the bank's arguments for a lower award on the grounds that they could not take advantage of missing records that they had failed to keep.

In an earlier ruling, the judge determined that the bank applied unfair and inconsistent selection criteria resulting in the rejection of qualified African-American applicants for teller and entry-level clerical and administrative positions at the company's Charlotte facility.

Case Spanned Nearly 2 Decades

“The ruling represents a major victory in a case that has spanned nearly two decades, during which Bank of America repeatedly challenged the authority of the department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs,” says the DOL.

‘Where Doors Are Closed, We Will Open Them’

"Wherever doors of opportunity are unfairly closed to workers, we will be there to open them—no matter how long it takes," said OFCCP Director Patricia A. Shiu. "[This] decision upholds the legal principle of making victims of discrimination whole, and these workers deserve to get the full measure of what is owed to them."

On November 24, 1993, the OFCCP initiated a routine compliance review that revealed indications of systemic hiring discrimination affecting African-American jobseekers at the Charlotte facility. After conciliation efforts failed, the Solicitor of Labor in 1997 filed an administrative complaint against the company for violating Executive Order 11246, which prohibits federal contractors from discriminating in employment practices on the basis of race.

"Our investigators and attorneys prevailed despite decades of stalling tactics," said Solicitor of Labor M. Patricia Smith. "This case demonstrates that the department will not be deterred in our pursuit of justice for jobseekers."

The BOA may be regretting its decision to continue to fight this battle, especially because we’re guessing that over the 20 years this case went on, the lawyers’ fees and other costs and distractions have added substantially to the total costs the BOA has sustained.

Post-Bloomberg Accountability Starts

Architects of school grades concede errors as overhaul looms

by Geoff Decker, at 6:59 pm

Gotham Schools

Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky

LINK


Warren Simmons, of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, speaks during a panel discussion about New York City’s accountability system.

Two architects of New York City’s controversial school progress reports acknowledged on Tuesday that the accountability system they developed needs to change.

Law school professor James Liebman, who devised the A-F grading system “from scratch” in 2007, said the school grades were initially useful as a “powerful motivator of educators to take responsibility” for student learning in their schools.

But after six years of relying on a narrow set of data — primarily state test scores and graduation rates — to hold schools accountable, Liebman said now is a good moment for “toning down on performance management.”

Liebman’s suggestions, which hewed closely to recommendations offered Tuesday by the Department of Education’s chief academic officer Shael Polakow-Suransky, come as an overhaul looms for the controversial grading system. Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio has said he would do away with the school grades, although he hasn’t yet said whether he would maintain the underlying data that contributes to them.

Liebman and Polakow-Suransky appeared on a panel discussion hosted by the CUNY Institute for Education Policy, a think tank run by former state education chief David Steiner, at which Polakow-Suransky released a report called “What’s Next for School Accountability in New York City?” The report outlined six areas for de Blasio to consider when he takes over in January.

The report is the latest effort by officials at the Department of Education, in their final weeks in charge, to influence how their favored policies fare once de Blasio and his chancellor takes over. Two weeks ago, a city-commissioned report on the way the system’s 1,800 schools are supported similarly detailed both strengths and weaknesses.

The issues that Polakow-Suransky, who is rumored to be seeking a position in the de Blasio administration, raised were in line with oft-cited criticism of the system. The department has tended to dismiss that criticism as attacks “by special interests” on the Bloomberg administration’s education reform policies, but Polakow-Suransky took a different tone on Tuesday.

“We do know where we struggle,” said Suransky, who declined to comment on speculation of his interest in working for de Blasio. “And we do know where the challenges and weaknesses encountered are.”

One weakness, Polakow-Suransky said, is that the city’s progress reports emphasize test scores, particularly in the elementary and middle schools. The emphasis, when combined with traditionally “weak” state exams, could have negative consequences in the classroom.

“If you have weak exams and if they send a signal to teachers that all you need focus on is the basic skills, then what you get is a narrowed curriculum,” he said. “And in the weakest classrooms, in the weakest schools, you get a focus on drilling to get to achievements just on those exams, which actually ignores the broader needs of students and often leads to a situation where kids are disengaged and aren’t actually learning the things that they need.”

He recommended factoring other data points, such as the department’s quality reviews and quarterly report card grades, into schools’ progress reports. Not including the quality reviews in the first place was “a mistake” that Liebman said he regretted.

The focus on a relatively small set of data has stifled creativity at stronger schools, Polakow-Suransky said, adding that some schools now avoid introducing new programs because they fear a negative impact on their grades. The concern is compounded by the fact that progress reports reflect only a single year’s performance, reducing principals’ incentive to pursue longer-term initiatives, he said.

The progress reports are also meant to inform parents about their children’s schools, but Polakow-Suransky and Liebman both acknowledged that the reports have not always achieved that purpose. In particular, a common criticism is that the grades are confusing to parents when they see that two schools at entirely different student performance levels — a school serving mostly high-need students compared with screened school that only has high performing students — can end up with the same letter grade if their students make similar progress.

“It may not give the info that, say, a parent is looking for when they’re trying to find a school,” Polakow-Suransky said, adding that a balance was needed to retain a way to credit schools that served more challenging students.

“Part of the solution, I think, to that is figuring out a way to represent this data in different forms for different audiences, where you actually create tools for parents that are different to the tools that you create for folks that are supporting and managing the schools.”

Liebman said he learned a valuable lesson about parent participation in education policy under the Bloomberg years. He said he presumed that better results for the system as a whole — pointing specifically to higher graduation and college-readiness rates — would be good enough for parents in the school system.

“The idea was that if you give parents better results, better service — 311 sorts of things — and more choice, then you don’t need politics, they don’t need participation, they don’t need to be involved because they’ll get what they want as a consumer,” Liebman said. “And I think that’s true for some things, but it turns out that public education is something that parents really, deeply want to be involved in.”

 

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With old concerns still unresolved, six schools get new grades November 27, 2012 1
For first time, college readiness factors into high school grades November 26, 2012 5
City to release progress reports with new formula, lower grades September 29, 2010 1
High school report cards won’t be covered in “A’s,” officials say October 30, 2009 6

Colman Genn, The Gill Commission, And School Corruption In NYC - Let's Never Forget

Many people remember Colman Genn, a man who courageously exposed the corruption of the NYC Board of Education. The Gill Commission was set up, and Ed Stancik became the lawyer who finally went after educators who violated their mandates and responsibilities as public employees. The Special Commissioner of Investigation office was changed by Mayor Bloomberg so that Rose Gill Hearn, James Gill's daughter, and family friend - and not an Attorney - Richard Condon  ("Dick") could be put in place after Stancik died. Then, everything changed, and SCI became a tool for destroying the careers of teachers (see here, here, and here). We need to do another "investigation of the Investigators".

Betsy Combier

Colman Genn

July 17, 2004
New York Times
LINK

Colman Genn Is Dead at 68; Exposed School Corruption

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS

Colman Genn, a career educator who exposed corruption in New York City schools by secretly recording conversations about political and ethnic considerations in filling jobs, died on Thursday night at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset. He was 68.

The cause was respiratory failure, said his son, David.

Mr. Genn was the superintendent of Community School Board 27 in southeastern Queens when, in the fall of 1989, he became the star witness in hearings to investigate allegations that elected school board members had awarded dozens of unnecessary jobs to friends and political supporters at a cost of more than $1 million a year.

Mr. Genn became celebrated as the Serpico of the public school system after volunteering to wear a recording device and tape hours of conversations over a period of eight months in his office, at board meetings, in cars and restaurants and on the phone for the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public Schools, informally known as the Gill Commission, appointed by Mayor Edward I. Koch in 1988.

''I'm a political leader; that's why I'm here,'' James C. Sullivan, a member of the community school board and former Republican district leader, was heard telling Mr. Genn on one such recording. At another point, discussing jobs ranging from assistant principal to school aide, Mr. Sullivan complained that Mr. Genn's predecessor had ''hired out of the synagogue,'' to the detriment of Irish-Americans, and instructed that any black person hired had to be ''pliable,'' and not ''a Mau-Mau.''

The city's 32 community school boards grew out of a 1969 state law aimed at giving community leaders and parents, especially in minority neighborhoods, a voice in the running of public schools. The conversations recorded by Mr. Genn, who became the highest-ranking official willing to discuss corruption publicly, led gradually to state legislation recentralizing the school system over the last few years.

In January 1991, Mr. Genn, then 56, retired from his superintendent's job with two and a half years remaining in his contract. He said he was smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day, his asthma had worsened, his weight was fluctuating and he was under police guard for fear of retribution.

''I'm tense and worried that I've made a lot of enemies, that people whose toes have been stepped on will come at me in one way or another,'' he said at the time.

He said he found comfort in riding his motorcycle on the beach.

He found a sanctuary of sorts with a friend and former colleague, Seymour Fliegel, who had helped create small, experimental public schools in East Harlem and who invited him to become a senior fellow at a research institute supporting public education, now known as the Center for Educational Innovation-Public Education Association. The group was initially part of the Manhattan Institute, the conservative research center, but later split to become independent.

Mr. Genn was born on Dec. 11, 1935, in the Bronx. His father, Bernard, was a ritual slaughterer preparing kosher meat, a diamond cutter and later the director of a children's camp. His mother, Fannie, was a homemaker who never finished high school but was well-read in Talmud. Mr. Genn, one of five children, was educated at Yeshiva Etzchaim and Yeshiva University High School in Brooklyn, where he recalled spending a lot of time on the street looking for fights with a gang of youths in Bensonhurst, and being a ''very poor'' student.

He earned a bachelor's degree in health and physical education from Brooklyn College, then a master's degree in the same fields from Michigan State. He got his first job, teaching math at Brownsville Junior High, in 1958, then went on to teach physical education and social studies in East Harlem. During the 1970's and 80's, working with the local superintendents, Anthony Alvorado and Carlos Medina, and the deputy superintendent, Mr. Fliegel, he helped start three alternative schools in East Harlem: the Academy of Environmental Sciences, the Harbor School for the Performing Arts and the Manhattan Center for Science and Math.

Mr. Genn became the superintendent of District 27 in July 1987, and realized from his first months on the job that something was amiss, as board members inquired about hiring and promoting friends and cronies.

Just two weeks before Mr. Genn died, he traveled to Israel to help create a school for immigrant children, Mr. Fliegel said.

In addition to his son, David, of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., Mr. Genn is survived by his wife, Brenda, of Hewlett; a daughter, Shari Shapiro of Lawrence; three brothers, Reuven, of Israel; Mordechai, of Mount Vernon, N.Y.; and Manny, of Tenafly, N.J.; and four grandchildren.


SCHOOLS AND POLITICS: CHANNELS OF POWER - A SPECIAL REPORT: New York Schools and Patronage: Experience Teaches Hard Lessons

By JOSEPH BERGER with ELIZABETH KOLBERT, Special to The New York Times
Published: December 11, 1989

LINK

Guy Velella

Two decades after the New York City school system was decentralized to encourage local participation, many school boards are allied with neighborhood political clubs and exploited by politicians seeking power and patronage.

Many teachers and administrators say their colleagues, eager to get ahead, are compelled to join the clubs and give their time and money to election campaigns because politicians' allies on the school boards have the power to grant promotions.

And despite recent efforts in Albany to build barriers between education and politics, a seat on a local school board is often seen as a stepping stone for budding politicians.

In dozens of interviews, politicians, school board members and educators agreed that they are creatures, and sometimes victims, of the elective system created by decentralization.
The lessons that New York is learning about this perilous mixture of education and politics are of national significance because cities like Chicago and Miami have begun experimenting with various forms of decentralized schooling.

Decentralization gave control over the hiring of administrators in the city's elementary and junior high schools to 32 local school boards. It was prompted by concerns in the 1960's that the central adminstrative staff was not responsive enough to teachers, students and parents.

Self-Interest and Reluctance

There is wide agreement that the local boards have failed the city's 940,000 schoolchildren. More than a third of these bodies have been shaken by allegations of corruption and mismanagement. Seven board members have been indicted in roughly a year. But the boards have become so enmeshed in the city's political web that many educators say they are skeptical that the 83 state legislators who represent parts of New York City can make dispassionate decisions about reform.

''Political self-interest,'' said Robert F. Wagner Jr., president of the Board of Education, has made many legislators ''reluctant to deal with the issue.''
The injection of politics into running the schools, he added, ''shifts the focus away from kids to the political agenda of individual politicians and there are times that decisions, rather than being made on merit, are made on political connections.'' Other critics note that teachers who refuse to get involved in politics are passed over for promotions and can grow demoralized.

Dr. Fred Goldberg, superintendent of District 10 in the northwest Bronx, said that among teachers and administrators, ''there was a perception that it was an asset to be a member of a political group to enhance the probability of being considered'' for promotion.
Political affiliation has become so important in advancing an educational career that in certain parts of the city, teachers and school administrators are as common as lawyers at meetings of local political clubs. Teachers and administrators are considered intelligent campaigners who have afternoons and summers off to do political work.

Voters decide who the nine members of a school board will be; political clubs may field or back candidates. But because turnout is low, the number of votes needed to win is sometimes no more than several hundred. So the influence of political clubs on the contests can be significant.

Buying 'Insurance'

During the mid-1980's, the board of District 10 was divided between factions connected to Stanley Simon, then the Bronx borough president, and G. Oliver Koppell, a Democrat State Assemblyman from the Bronx.

At least eight people appointed assistant principals in District 10 were affiliated with one of two political clubs. A community newspaper, The Riverdale Press, found that 25 of the 48 principals and assistant principals who were appointed between 1982 and 1986 were affiliated with political clubs or were relatives of politicians.

In almost every case, the administrators were regarded as highly qualified. But, district officials say, the administrators believed they needed to ''buy insurance'' for their promotions through political club support.

In an interview, Mr. Koppell said he had been compelled, as a matter of political survival, to ''support a few people for assistant principals and principals.''
''The whole school establishment was being used to try and defeat me,'' he said. ''There were people on the streets campaigning against me. They carried petitions. They were standing on street corners handing out fliers at polls urging people to vote on primary days. Many of these were teachers and assistant principals.

'' How It Works 'How You Build Loyal Troops'

The widespread impact of politics on the school system has been documented by a survey of school personnel conducted by the Gill Commission, headed by James F. Gill, a lawyer. The commission was appointed by Mayor Edward I. Koch to investigate school board corruption. In what commission officials believe are understated results, 41 percent of the 1,099 respondents said that political affiliation is a factor in the hiring of principals.

A major focus of the commission was District 27 in southwest Queens. At the commission's request, Coleman Genn, the district's superintendent, wore a concealed tape recorder and recorded the school board's treasurer, James C. Sullivan, asking him to hire 11 friends and political supporters to unnecessary jobs as paraprofessionals. This was at a time Mr. Genn was seeking a one-year extension of his contract from the board.

In a recent interview, Mr. Genn asserted that one principal and three assistant principals in his district were active in a local Republican club and had been promoted to their positions through Mr. Sullivan's influence.

''He built an entourage,'' Mr. Genn said of Mr. Sullivan. ''That's how you build loyal troops.'' When Mr. Sullivan ran an election or a fund-raiser for a candidate, Mr. Genn said, ''these people responded. If he had to get signatures on petitions or campaign literature, they responded.''

Mr. Sullivan and Samuel Granirer, the board's vice president, were indicted on Dec. 1 and accused of improperly using their influence to force Mr. Genn to hire their choices. Mr. Sullivan pleaded guilty to mail fraud and coercion. Mr. Granirer pleaded not guilty.

'On My Own Time'

In District 4 in East Harlem, according to a confidential 1988 report by the Board of Education's Inspector General, most of the district's 20 principals and several top-level district officials attended a fund-raising party in 1985 for Robert Rodriguez, then the school board president, who was trying to regain the seat he once held as City Councilman. The report also said Carlos Medina, the district superintendent, had been seen at the Board of Elections helping Mr. Rodriguez fend off challenges to his City Council petitions. The report said that created a conflict of interest because Mr. Rodriguez would be voting on Mr. Medina's contract.

In an interview, Mr. Medina said he admired Mr. Rodriguez for his support of district programs, which have been widely praised for their innovation and, in some schools, notable success. He acknowledged having appeared at the Board of Elections, but said he did so ''on my own time'' because ''as superintendent it was important for me to know who was winning and who would be the people in my district.''

Mr. Medina was discharged as superintendent on Nov. 8 by the District 4 school board after an arbitrator found that he had created an improper ''special projects fund'' from district money, and used it in part to lend $6,788 to subordinates and to contribute small amounts of money to political fund-raisers.

Mr. Rodriguez, 38 years old, argued that principals should be involved in a variety of community activities, including council races.

In District 9, a veteran social studies teacher said that when he applied for a much-coveted summer-school job in 1988, a district official asked him to spend several days helping collect petitions for candidates in local races. The teacher, who agreed to perform those chores, asked not to be identified because he is now seeking a job as an assistant principal.
In District 19 in the East New York and Bushwick sections of Brooklyn, political factionalism stalled the selection of a superintendent and seven principals and assistant principals for several months and delayed the approval of the budget. When Politics Divides A District In Trouble District 10 is the largest in New York City, roughly equivalent to Buffalo in student population. Taking in both the elegant homes of Riverdale and the burned-out tenements south of Fordham Road, it has 36,050 children in 35 schools.

From 1980 to 1986, two successive boards were divided into factions -one connected to the Riverdale Democratic Club, led by Mr. Simon, the Borough President, and the other to the Benjamin Franklin Democratic Club, whose founder was Mr. Koppell.
The Simon loyalists, board members said, were: Jeffrey Litt, who was director of community boards in the Borough President's office; Arnold Kideckel, then executive director of the State Insurance Fund and a close Simon adviser, and Robert Shaw, then a counsel to the city's Transportation Commissioner.

There were four Koppell loyalists at various times. They included James P. Sullivan and Evelyn Karfiol. Mr. Sullivan, who is no relation to James C. Sullivan in District 27, was the brother of Timothy Sullivan, Mr. Koppell's administrative assistant. Mrs. Karfiol is an aide to Mr. Koppell.

Target of 'a Cabal'

The political division was reflected in the choice of school administrators, district officials said. Mr. Kideckel said that he never favored an administrator because ''they came out of Simon's club per se, but if they came out of Simon's club and I may have known them and known their character, that may have been a factor.''

Under the decentralization law, school board members must appoint principals and assistant principals from among candidates recommended by the superintendent. Dr. Goldberg, the superintendent, said that in the early 1980's he was generally able, because of the split in the board and his popularity with independents, to gain support for almost all of his choices. But in 1982, when he refused to recommend as an assistant principal Alexander Castillo, a teacher in District 9 backed by Mr. Litt and Mr. Simon, he suddenly found himself the target of what he called ''a cabal.''

Dr. Goldberg said the Simon faction responded by joining the Koppell faction in closed session and voting to strip him of his powers to hire or transfer personnel, modify the budget or even talk to the press.

''The district could not function,'' said Sandra Lerner, Dr. Goldberg's deputy.

Appealing to Parents

A 1987 report by a Bronx grand jury that inquired into school board politics said the District 10 factions agreed to allow each member to choose one assistant principal.
But Mr. Litt said the factions united because they believed the superintendent was not giving members enough information to make decisions. He has never once, he added, ''been pressured by a political club or its leadership to make an appointment.'' Mrs. Karfiol and Mr. Kideckel were not members of the board at the time.

In response to the district paralysis, Dr. Goldberg, widely considered one of the system's best superintendents, said he was forced ''to consider a strategy that would enable me to run the district for the benefit of the children.'' He continued to recommend people he thought were best qualified to be administrators. He also included candidates whom board members might favor, but he worked to rally parents in support of his choices, and the board members heard from those parents.

''I became more sensitive to the dynamics of the board,'' he said.

Winning Almost All of Them

In almost every case, Mr. Goldberg said, the people he preferred were selected. Still, he added, many teachers and administrators interested in promotions continue to believe membership in a political club could bolster their efforts.

Among those who received appointments as assistant principals in District 10 were four officers or members of the Benjamin Franklin club: Michael Spivak, Emanuele Fontana, Alex Fermanis and Nadia Pagan.

Among those who worked in Mr. Simon's campaign in 1985 or were active in the Riverdale Democratic Club were Barbara Lofthouse, Robert Levy and Candido deJesus, who were named assistant principals; and David Parker, named a principal.

In interviews, Mr. Fermanis, Mrs. Lofthouse and Mrs. Pagan said they joined their clubs not to advance their careers, but because of their interest in community activities. Several agreed, though, that many of their colleagues believed political affiliation was needed for advancement.

Coming to People's Attention

''You had to be more politically involved with certain individuals,'' said Mr. deJesus, now the principal of P.S. 85. ''You wanted to come to people's attention. But I didn't like the climate and decided to get out.''

By the time of the next school board election in 1986, Mr. Simon came under investigation by the United States Attorney's office and, district officials say, he refrained from actively supporting school board candidates. In 1988, he was found guilty of racketeering and conspiracy in the Wedtech scandal and sentenced to five years in prison. The Riverdale club dissolved. Mr. Koppel said that with Mr. Simon's removal he, too, pulled out of school politics.

The Benjamin Franklin Club, which took over the Riverdale club's headquarters at 231st Street near Broadway, decided four years ago not to endorse candidates, but two club members are school board members. They are Richard Sanz Gonzalez and Sandra Ramos-Alamo, who made an unsuccessful bid for the State Assembly last year.

In many cases, the connections between school boards and New York City politicians are direct. Several school board members, for example, work in the offices of city and state legislators. In other cases, the ties are more subtle. Some board members often serve as unofficial proxies for political leaders on school boards, casting the votes that allow supporters to be hired.

Conflicts of Interest

Politicians defend these connections as inevitable, even desirable. It makes sense, they say, that people who are politically minded participate both in school board business and in local government.

In most cases the connections are within the law, but in many cases, they create the potential for significant conflicts of interest.

A law passed last year in Albany has eliminated some of the most obvious conflicts. The law makes it illegal for school board members to serve as political district leaders or to hold other elective office.

But the spirit of the law has proved easy to evade. Brothers and Husbands in Posts
In District 27 in Queens, the district investigated by the Gill Commission, Mr. Sullivan relinquished his Republican district leadership but arranged to have his brother succeed him. And in District 32 in Brooklyn, a Democratic district leader, Elba Roman, gave up her seat on the board but was succeeded by her husband.

The law does not prohibit spouses of political officeholders from serving on school boards. In the spring, Elizabeth Miller, the wife of the Assembly Speaker, Mel Miller, was elected to the board of District 22 in the Flatbush and Flatlands sections of Brooklyn. Campaign finance records show that Mr. Miller's Assembly campaign committee contributed $2,000 to his wife's campaign, and members of Mr. Miller's Assembly staff took off time from work to campaign for her.

Both actions were legal. Mr. Miller, Democrat of Brooklyn, said his wife had no political motive for running, and that he would have no influence over her decisions.
''My wife, this is her life,'' he said. ''She was a teacher in a district. Our two children went through public schools. It doesn't help me; she'll do what she wants.'' 'I Financed Her Campaign'

The law does not prevent politicians' staff members from serving on local school boards, and several do. They include Ernestine Washington, a member of school board 29, who is office director for Assemblywoman Cynthia Jenkins, a Queens Democrat; Maria Irizarry, a member of school board 19, who until recently served as a city liaison to Assemblyman Thomas F. Catapano, Democrat of Brooklyn, and Elinore Mandell, also a member of board 19, who is an administrative assistant to Assemblyman Anthony Genovesi, Democrat of Brooklyn.

Mr. Genovesi said he ''unabashedly'' supported Ms. Mandell's school board candidacy to prevent other politicians like Con gressman Towns from wielding control over the schools within Mr. Genovesi's partly overlapping assembly district.

''She wanted to quit this year,'' said Mr. Genovesi of Ms. Mandell. ''I financed her campaign. It's the only way I know what's going on. It's not a coincidence that she's there. That's why she runs. Ellie is the way I take them on,'' he said, referring to rival politicians. Political Careers School Boards As Stepping Stones By virtue of being elected, school board members are political officials, and it is not surprising that they frequently run for higher office.

Politicians who began their careers as school board members include Assemblyman Al Vann, State Senator Howard E. Babbush, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery and Assemblyman William F. Boyland. All four are Brooklyn Democrats. Assemblywoman Aurelia Greene, Democrat of the Bronx, is a former member of school board 9, and was indicted earlier this year on felony charges springing from her involvement in the board.
City Council members Sal F. Albanese, Priscilla Wooten and Ruth W. Messinger are also former board members.

At least five former assemblymen and councilmen were once school board members. Three of these, Sam Wright, Israel Ruiz Jr. and Vander Beatty, were later convicted on charges of corruption -Mr. Wright for soliciting a $5,000 payment from a educational materials company, Mr. Ruiz for falsifying a bank loan application and Mr. Beatty for tax evasion.
Politicians who have served on school boards say that, far from being a disservice to the district, the desire for higher office insures that school board members will respond to their constituents' concerns.

''If anything, I see it as a positive sign,'' said State Senator Guy J. Velella, Republican of the Bronx, who was president of School Board 11 in between serving in the State Assembly and the State Senate.
''You don't want to destroy somebody's ambition,'' Mr. Velella added. ''If you do a good job, you'll be qualified for higher office.''