Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña announced a plan Thursday to restore a centralized system and give more power to superintendents that critics immediately slammed as lacking accountability.
“What is she and the mayor prepared to hold themselves accountable for, in terms of raising student achievement?” asked former Deputy Chancellor Eric Nadelstern.
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. There’s a lot of talk about accountability, but it seems to be a return to a time where there is little or no accountability.”
Fariña plans to dissolve school support networks by the end of the summer and shift their responsibility to 45 superintendents, who would report to Department of Education headquarters. Principals will retain control over hiring decisions, except in cases of struggling schools that will have a separate process.
The networks were established by the Bloomberg administration with the intention of dispersing power from central headquarters.
“Superintendents will be responsible for getting their schools the tools they need to succeed,” said Fariña at an Association of a Better New York breakfast.