36 THE QUEENS COURIER • KIDS & EDUCATION • DECEMBER 26, 2019 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
kids & education
Carranza boasts of mayoral school
control, hears critiques from lawmakers
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
City Council votes to approve bundle of special education bills
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
adomenech@qns.com
@AODNewz
Th e City Council Education Committee
unanimously voted Tuesday to approve
a handful of bills requiring deeper levels
of reporting from the Department of
Education on its compliance with special
education services.
In February, the council members pressed
representatives from the department of education
on the shortages of seats for Pre-K
students with disabilities, 40,000 students
going without special education services
and the challenges that parents and guardians
go through to navigate the system.
“We learned about a broken system in
need of transparency, we learned about the
extraordinary steps that parents and guardians
must take in order to get their children
the most basic of educational services,”
said chair of the City Council Education
Committee Mark Treyger.
About 224,000 New York City students,
or 20 percent all of the city’s students, have
a disability.
Treyger introduced a bill that would
require the DOE to report at the school
level on the agency’s compliance with IEPs.
“We will also have a better idea if there is
a pattern between failure to deliver services
and certain zip codes in New York,” said
Treyger. “We have seen that happen in other
areas of the DOE.”
Th e bill is tied into a second piece of legislation
introduced calling on the DOE to
release a report every year on preschool
special education and early intervention
services.
Th e other pieces of legislation introduced
would require the agency to increase the
number of times it reports on IEP compliance
rates from annually to three times
a year and for the DOE to to report its
response to parent requests for payment
for private school tuition or tutoring if they
don’t believe that their child is getting adequate
special education services in public
school.
Parent complaints to the DOE have
increased by 51 percent between 2014 and
2018, THE CITY reported, with a large
number of those complaints attributed to
parents requesting reimbursement from the
DOE for placing their students in the private
school system.
Th e committee voted 13 to 0 in favor all
the bills.
In 2018, only 78 percent of special education
students received their recommended
services, according to data from the DOE.
About 19 percent were receiving partial services
and 2.5 did not receive any. And as
Treyger pointed out during the committee
meeting, last year, only about 46 percent of
special education students graduated from
high school in four years.
Treyger added that he recognized that the
agency has made changes, it needs to make
sure it had the resources necessary to provide
parents and students with that right.
“We’re committed to meeting the needs of
our students with disabilities and to greater
transparency, equity and accountability
around these eff orts,” said DOE spokesperson
Danielle Filson.
File photo
adomenech@qns.com
@AODNewz
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza
advocated last week for mayoral control
of the city’s public schools, calling it “the
best system to drive success” for students.
He made the remarks during a state
Assembly education committee hearing
that was the fi rst in a series of public
forums to be held throughout the city
to determine the eff ectiveness of mayoral
control.
Earlier this year, the state legislature
approved extending mayoral control of
the New York City public school system
for another three years (June 20, 2022).
Legislators also added more members to
Community Education Councils, the cities
advisory education policy committees that
vote on school closures, contracts, approving
zoning lines and changes in district
building use.
Starting next July, the number of members
of each CEC will jump from 13 to 15.
One of the additional members is a second
parent representative, and the another will
be mayoral appointee.
“Mayoral accountability means accountability,”
said Carranza. Mayoral control, for
Carranza, means that it is easier for the
DOE to work with other city agencies and
bring about more eff ect change. He said it
also allows for better implement the Equity
and Excellence for All agenda, forces he and
Mayor de Blasio to be held accountable for
student success and allows for more parent
empowerment.
“Our success depends on a strong trusting
relationship with the families of our
students,” said Carranza. “Th at’s why the
mayor and I have been working diligently to
build and strengthen bridges between parents
much more effi ciently and eff ectively
than what would have been possible under
other government structures.”
But critics, including advocates and parents,
of mayoral control do not believe that
there is enough parental involvement and
the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP),
which consists of 13 Chancellor appointed
members, are just rubber stamps for the
Chancellor and Mayor’s agendas.
One person testifying at the hearing
mentioned that although PEP meetings
are meant to provide parents the opportunity
to express concerns directly to the
Chancellor, it is not guarantee that he will
attend. Th e Chancellor was absent from last
month’s PEP meeting at Long Island City
High School.
Despite the rounding endorsement for
mayoral control, some state Assembly
members pushed back against the notion
that it is actually the best system.
Assemblyman Harvey Epstein expressed
concern about the massive bureaucracy that
is the Department of Education, and suggested
that a school board system could be
easier for parents to navigate.
“Th ere could be opportunities in a diff erent
system that allow for much more parent
engagement and to elevate a parent voice,”
said Epstein. He added that parents oft en
do not attend CEC meetings because of the
belief that at CEC’s their voices don’t matter.
“You used the term mayoral accountability
over a dozen times, but I am really
concerned about the lack of accountability
particularly when it comes to the
money that we as legislators are putting
in the budget that goes to New York City,”
Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis told
Carranza. She mentioned the Mayor’s failed
$773 million Renewal program meant to
help the cities struggling schools.
Malliotakis also questioned other expenses
like the $750 million in school lunch contracts,
and a lack of compliance in executive
travel. In 2018, the comptroller’s offi ce
found that 93 percent of executive travel
expenses did not comply with the department’s
Standard Operating Procedures
Manual.
Photo by Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza speaks advocates for mayoral control of the New York City public
school system at a state Assembly hearing on Dec. 16.
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