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Last year Ed talked to Kent Barwick ($), who is past president of the Municipal Art Society, the major organization working on creating a livable city.
Ed says Mr. Barwick set him straight on all kinds of things.
For one, Ed had always thought public works projects were easier to get off the ground in France because the French government is so powerful.
Wrong.
Barwick told him that the Public Authorities in New York state are far more powerful than any government. The Authorities have few political or democratic checks on their actions.
Apparently they do what they want to do, and they don't have to answer a lot of questions while they do it.
Caro on Moses
Barwick also told Ed that the book to read if you want to understand local politics - any local politics, large or small - is Robert Caro's 1344-page biography of Robert Moses.
Ed did read it, and the book was a revelation.
In a nutshell, in local politics the various "actors" - banks, governments, unions, political machines, and so on - typically have a converging interest in extracting more money from taxpayers to use as they see fit and to manage their relationships with one another.
In the case of Robert Moses, there were 5 Actors: Moses, the banks, the labor unions, construction companies, and the Democratic machine.
Moses wanted to build parks, highways, and bridges; banks wanted deposits of funds to pay for parks, highways, and bridges; construction companies and unions wanted contracts to build parks, highways, and bridges; the Democratic machine wanted jobs on Moses' parks, highways, and bridge projects to dispense to members of the Party. (Moses was himself a Republican.)
Taxpayers weren't asked whether they wanted or needed all of these things; in some cases the projects Moses undertook were not only unwanted by voters but were actively opposed.
These entities—Moses, the banks, the unions, the construction companies, and the Democratic machine—weren’t the same entity; they had the potential for conflict. What prevented conflict—what kept operations smooth and conflict-free—was money.
Taxpayer money.
The people who were footing the bill were the one entity that did not have a voice.
how does this work in public schools?
Probably like this.
In my own town there are three Actors:
- administration
- school board
- teacher's union
Many of these purchases are items parents don't want; in some cases, e.g. TRAILBLAZERS, these purchases are actively opposed by parents.
The expenditures we do want - another Earth Sciences teacher so everyone in the 8th grade can take Earth Sciences instead of the 48 children allowed to do so now, say - may or may not happen, depending on whether the District happens to want these things, too.
what does this mean?
I don't know!
I've come to believe, however, that it's essential to get your analysis as right as you can make it, which is why I now reject the "Washington consensus." (That's a story for another day.)
Once you see that entities we take to be competing or conflicting (school board "versus" union) have converging interests, things make more sense.
It makes sense that, in the recent athletic fields bond vote here, the union would vote for further public indebtedness, would publicize its vote, and would telephone the "parent leading the committee to defeat the bond"* to pressure her.
Public indebtedness threatens a district's ability to meet pension obligations and to raise taxes for salaries & classroom supplies, so in theory the union ought to have mixed feelings about a new bond proposal.
That it did not can be explained by the union's converging interest in collaborating with the board and the administration to carry on increasing taxes for all projects and obligations large and small.
what can citizens do about converging interests?
Thoughts anyone?
Apparently there is a Straphanger's Union in the city that has actually managed to make subway riders into an Actor to which attention must be paid.
I can see where a Parents' Union might work.....
What I can't see is how a Parents' Union might be created.
That's about as far as I've gotten.
* there was no committee
robertmoses
8 comments:
"Many of these purchases are items parents don't want; in some cases, e.g. TRAILBLAZERS, these purchases are actively opposed by parents."
Very interesting convergent-interest analysis. The other element is ideology.
Here in Chicago, junk like TB is perversely being forced on failing schools in the form of something called CMSI. (I call it institutionalized idiocy).
The number of failing schools is huge and I don't see how they will ever make NCLB-mandated progress when their failing status automatically triggers the administration of massive amounts of poison.
My challenge here is to figure out how this institutionalized idiocy comes about. Who holds the power to make these insane poicy decisions and why? A little bit of a poli-sci task.
oh yes, ideology is huge
Who holds the power to make these insane poicy decisions and why?
As far as I can tell at the moment, these things are a case of "round up the usual suspects."
State Departments of Education are run by the same people who teach in state university Departments of Education.
Let me go find Andrew Wolf's column on Eliot Spitzer's education advisors & post.
I see that a spammer got in here.
I had a big spammer problem at my blog. It went away when I introduced the word verification feature. It's an inconvenience to those posting comments, but a necessity if the spammer problem gets out of hand.
Spitzer’s Education Advisers
Andrew Wolf
November 24, 2006
NY SUN
If New Yorkers were hoping that on day one of Governor Spitzer’s first term everything would change, a close inspection of the membership of his transition committees — named last week — will surely quell their hopes, particularly regarding education.
If this education panel emerges as an influence on the new administration, expect education reform in the Empire State to lag. New York spends too much for meager results in its K-12 programs, pays lip service to academic standards, and is home to a state university that barely registers on the national academic radar screen.
The membership of the panel comprises, for the most part, those who have brought the state to the point we are at now. If there were ever to be the equivalent of a trial for the failed educational establishment, many of these individuals would be the defendants.
The four co-chairmen of the committee include a former member of the Board of Regents, Carl Hayden, who served nine years as chairman. Mr. Hayden believes in all the right things, such as high standards and rigorous testing, but under his watch, the state never seemed to get there.
Another is the president of ultraprogressive Bank Street College of Education, Augusta Kappner. The ideas put forth by institutions such as the one Ms. Kappner heads have led the trek to mediocrity. Ms. Kappner’s prior service as a mayoral appointee on the city’s Panel for Educational Policy offers a glimpse into her philosophy. When the mayor and chancellor announced the program to require that third-graders demonstrate minimal skills on standardized tests in order to be promoted to the next grade, Ms. Kappner opposed this effort to end “social promotion.”
A third chairman is the former president of Cornell University, Hunter Rawlings III. While at Cornell, Mr. Rawlings showed little interest in ridding the school of political correctness. Progress at Cornell is now measured by the number of “Diversity Arches” erected on campus. Perhaps his vision for improving the state university is to bring these red arches to SUNY campuses as well.
Rounding out the “diversity” among the chairmen is the superintendent of the Rochester schools, Manuel Rivera, who will assume the top job in the Boston school system next year. Rochester’s schools are not anywhere as good as New York City’s or even those in Yonkers, but better than those in Syracuse or Buffalo. Only 26.3% of eighthgraders in Rochester are reading at grade level, as compared to the awful 36.6% here in Gotham. Good luck to the students in Beantown. If Mr. Rivera’s record in Rochester is any indication, they are on the fast track to nowhere.
Unable to achieve academic progress for Rochester’s students, Mr. Rivera’s vision is to use schools to provide social services.Toward that end, he has established the Rochester Children’s Zone to create “a community network that supports children and families around the clock.” The educational establishment, which will do anything to divert attention from its failures, loves this kind of stuff. The American Association of School Administrators named Mr. Rivera the 2006 National Superintendent of the Year, despite the fact that nearly three-quarters of his eighth-graders are illiterate.
The other members of the committee include Richard Beattie and Robert Hughes, two officials of the group I have often identified as the epicenter of the “permanent government” of New York City’s education system, New Visions for Public Schools. They have exerted a measure of control over the ideological direction of city schools through the administrations of Chancellors Green, Fernandez, Cortines, Crew, Levy, and, yes, Klein.
Another familiar name is that of Anthony Alvarado, the former chancellor and district superintendent who promoted such now discredited, but still utilized, pedagogies as whole language and fuzzy math, before failing dismally with the same agenda in San Diego. It is his mistakes we need to fix.
If there is one man responsible for the mess in the way the state runs the schools, it is James Kadamus, the recently retired state deputy superintendent for elementary, middle, secondary, and continuing education. On his watch, the state’s testing program has deteriorated into a Keystone Kops operation known for it misprints, mistakes, miscalculations, and missed deadlines.This is the office where Mr. Spitzer needs to begin any reform. Bringing in Mr. Kadamus sends the wrong message.
There are some bright persons among the members of the committee, but the common thread is that they are all members of the current establishment.There are few innovative voices for change here.
New ideas are precisely what Mr. Spitzer needs, particularly in light of the fortuitous decision regarding school funding handed down by the Court of Appeals. Rather than simply throwing money at the schools, the new governor now has an opportunity to focus on how that money is spent. Don’t expect any new ideas from this crew.
awolf@nysun.com
Wolf is a terrifically helpful political columnist. I'm going to be posting as much of his writing as I can.
Thanks for posting the Wolf article. I love his tough, informed and insightful articles. Another education writer I value enormously is Sol Stern.
To answer my own question about insane policies, I think part of the answer is the foul air the powers that be breathe. That foul air is emitted by myriad consultants, advisers, letter soup organizations and what have you.
What is a letter soup organization?
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