Term-Limiting Chancellors

The Council of School Supervisors and Administrators is backing a continuation of mayoral control of the city public schools, which comes up for renewal next year in Albany.

This is not a ringing endorsement of the Bloomberg administration's performance on education, judging by the fact that the CSA conditioned its position on a change in the criteria a Schools Chancellor would need. Its insistence that the person filling the job have a background in education and the necessary credentials in the field to earn a school superintendent's license would rule out Joel Klein or others lacking those prerequisites.

Our primary problem with the union's proposal is its call for Chancellors to be given just a four-year term. Although CSA President Ernie Logan called for a slight change in the Panel for Education Policy's makeup that would reduce the Mayor's sway over its decisions, its ability to review the Chancellor's performance would not extend to vetoing a mayoral option the union proposes that would allow him to reappoint the Chancellor at the end of that period.

It's not clear that the change has any real teeth, or that having some would be desirable. Ultimately, if the Mayor is going to be held accountable for schools' performance, he needs to be able to keep his Chancellor on for as long — or as short — as he deems advisable.