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At City Council Hearing, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz Urges School Governance Reforms to Ensure Accountability and Maximize Parent, Educator and Community Involvement in the Schools

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz proposed today that the Mayor appoint members of an expanded Board of Education, giving the Mayor a majority and "vesting him with ultimate accountability for the performance of our schools."

In testimony before the New York City Council Committee on Education today, the Borough President said that borough appointees to the Board of Education are needed to "provide another and necessary point of access to the educational system" and to help ensure that borough educational needs are heard and acted on.

Borough President Markowitz also called for replacing the City's community school boards with new district advisory boards that would be appointed in the same manner as the City's community planning boards -- half the members by the borough president and half by the local City Council member.

He said that half the seats on the new advisory boards should be held by parents with children in the district's schools, one-quarter of the members should be educators, and the remaining one-quarter should be community residents and local business leaders who have a special interest in the quality of the local schools. The Borough President explained that district superintendents would be required to brief the advisory boards before adopting the district's official educational plan, appointing or removing a principal, changing school zone lines or approving construction plans.

Borough President Markowitz additionally recommended that borough president appointees to the Board of Education be required to appear at a series of public hearings in their borough before their appointment becomes final and that mayoral appointees be required to answer questions at public hearings throughout the City. He also proposed that specific Board of Education eligibility standards for a majority of the members of the Board be written into State law: "Some or even most of the members of the Board of Education should be experts in fields like education finance, pedagogy, school administration, and school construction."

The Brooklyn Borough President cautioned that mayoral direct control of the schools through an education commissioner "runs the very real risk that future mayors will reward those communities that supported them the most on Election Day at the expense of communities where support was lighter." He said that effective borough representation on the Board of Education is necessary to help ensure that all communities are treated equitably in allocating scarce resources.

"When it comes to our schools and our children, we need more democracy, not less," the Borough President Markowitz remarked. He said that under his proposed governance structure, borough presidents would be held accountable to the public for the quality of their Board of Education appointees and borough presidents and City Council members would be accountable for their district advisory board appointees.

"Whatever new school governance structure is ultimately established should be designed to maximize parent involvement -- which is key to improving our schools -- and to heighten public accountability and improve citizen access to decision-makers," Borough President Markowitz concluded: "My proposals... would go a long way toward meeting these requirements."