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When Mayors Take Charge: School Governance in the City

Posted on: Thursday, 26 February 2009, 10:04 CST

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Large urban school systems have been the weakest link in American education, driving middle-class families into the suburbs and contributing to a learning gap between the races. Activist mayors in several major cities have responded by taking control of their public schools. The new Brookings Institution Press book When Mayors Take Charge is the most up-to-date assessment available on the governance of urban schools and the role mayors can play in running these systems.

Editor Joseph Viteritti, who recently served as the executive director of the Commission on School Governance in New York, brings together the leading experts on mayoral control to analyze the factors and people driving this trend, its achievements and shortcomings, possible ways to improve its design and implementation, and its prospects for the future.

Part One of When Mayors Take Charge assesses the results of mayoral control nationwide, including cities such as Cleveland and Washington, D.C. The second section details the experience in three key cities: Boston and Chicago, the major prototypes for mayoral control, and Detroit, where mayoral control ended in disaster. The final section provides the first in-depth examination of New York City, where the law installing mayoral control sunsets in 2009. Viteritti's opening essay and postscript frame the analysis, illuminating both the significance and limitations of governance reform.

Viteritti finds that capacity for change is the most significant advantage of mayoral control. Although the ability to get things done may be welcome in systems that have been historically inert, quickness of action generates the risk of establishing erroneous policies and disrupting the balance of power. Viteritti argues that balance and accountability are the keys to successful school governance plans involving mayoral control: schools must be directly answerable to the mayor and the mayor must ultimately answer to the people.

The Editor

Joseph P. Viteritti is the Blanche D. Blank Professor of Public Policy at Hunter College, CUNY. He previously served as special assistant to the chancellor of schools in New York and as senior adviser to superintendents in Boston and San Francisco. He recently served as executive director of the Commission on School Governance in New York.

The Brookings Institution is a private nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and innovative policy solutions. For more than 90 years, Brookings has analyzed current and emerging issues and produced new ideas that matter -- for the nation and the world.

When Mayors Take Charge: School Governance in the City

Edited by Joseph P. Viteritti

Published by Brookings Institution Press

6 x 9 - 255 pages

cloth - ISBN 978-0-8157-9044-0 - $49.95/ 28.99 pounds Sterling

paper - ISBN 978-0-8157-9043-3 - $22.95/ 13.99 pounds Sterling

Contributors: Clara Hemphill (New School University), Jeffrey R. Henig (Columbia University), Michael Kirst (Stanford University), John Portz (Northeastern University), Diane Ravitch (New York University), Wilbur C. Rich (Wellesley College), Robert Schwartz (Harvard University), Dorothy Shipps (Baruch College), Kenneth K. Wong (Brown University)

CONTACT: Brookings Office of Communications, 202-797-6000

SOURCE Brookings Institution

Source: PR Newswire

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