<!--StartFragment-->To the extent that parents' voices are represented in the New York City education system these days, Community Education Councils are charged with representing them at the school district level. The Community Education Council of District 3 passed a resolution last June on mayoral control, saying that the system would be greatly improved with more transparency, checks, and balances.

CEC3’s specific recommendations -- reflecting weeks of hearings, surveys, and discussions with parents and other community members in our district -- include: more disclosure, transparency, and independent analysis of DOE data; a stronger and more independent Panel on Education Policy, with members appointed to fixed terms; and more high level decision making roles filled by professional educators, including a mandate that either the Chancellor or the top official in charge of teaching and learning be an experienced educator.

Other parent groups are also working on recommendations on how to improve the mayoral control law when it comes under review next June. The Parents' Commission on Mayoral Control & School Governance, a group consisting of two dozen parent activists, has been working all fall on a legislative proposal set to be released next month.

Unfortunately, some seem to be taking a "with-us-or-against-us" stance on the law, rather than welcoming discussion on how it might be improved. Last week both the Postand the Daily News guffawed in a bullying manner at State Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver for saying that the mayoral control law will need to be “tweaked.” Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters pointed out that the attacks, in which both papers made nearly identical points on the same day, seemed coordinated by City Hall.

The experiences of my children provide a sanity check for me on how well the system is working. The seventeen (17) school days on which my child will be taking standardized tests this year seems excessive. (The teachers and administrators at our school agree.) Our afterschool program funding for next year is uncertain. The amazing staff at our school put on a talent show last month. They danced and sang and told jokes to raise money to compensate for some of the mayor's midyear funding cuts. I don’t know what they will do for an encore when further cuts are implemented next fall. We can hope, wish, and pray that the Department of Education spends less money on its testing bureaucracy and ensures that sufficient operational funding gets to the kids, but we have few avenues to influence these decisions. If the mayoral law is amended in a thoughtful manner, the system might be improved for all its participants.<!--EndFragment-->