Joseph Viteritti on the success and room for improvement of mayoral control over public schools
The ideas espoused within editor Joseph Viteritti’s When Mayors Take Charge: School Governance in the City offers an innovative solution to the problem of public school governance. The Teachers College Record, a journal of analysis and research published by Columbia University’s Teachers College, recently produced a video in which Viteritti went into greater detail about the claims found within the book. According to Viteritti, the advent of mayoral control over public schools has begun to gain popularity, but many cities must now judge whether those who have already taken the step have proven successful. Using New York’s public school system as a case study, Viteritti outlines in the video the findings of a study conducted in preparation for the state legislature’s June decision to either renew or eliminate the 2002 law that handed the city’s schools over to its mayor. Viteritti’s conclusions show that mayoral control, while effective, does require certain checks and balances on the mayor’s power and increased accountability between the mayor, schools, and citizens.
Joseph Viteritti is currently Blanche D. Blank Professor of Public Policy at Hunter College, CUNY and chairman of the Department of Public Affairs.
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