State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver — whose opinion could make or break Mayor Bloomberg’s bid to keep City Hall in charge of the public school system — yesterday praised mayoral control as a “good system.”
“Nobody wants to go back to the old system of community schools,” Silver said.
The lower Manhattan Democrat’s frank support comes less than a week after his community board voted overwhelmingly to eliminate mayoral control, and amid criticism of the educational policy from some rank-and-file members of his own party.
The powerful pol’s backing — which came with some conditions — could be crucial in convincing the Democratic-controlled Assembly to sign off on the plan before it expires in June.
Silver, who spoke to reporters after the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association breakfast, indicated that he wants to tinker with the current policy.
“This is a good system in place,” he said.
“It could ultimately be made better without losing the principals for which it was originally contemplated. The question now is whether they [parents] have the opportunity to be heard.”
He said the Panel for Educational Policy — a 13-member board mostly appointed by the mayor — “was intended to air issues, to provide transparency.”
But since establishment of the panel in 2002 — after the elimination of the old Board of Education — “the transparency and the input has not been as originally contemplated,” he said.
His call for more parental input closely echoed Gov. Paterson’s comments regarding the educational policy on Thursday.
Paterson — speaking on the same day the state announced that English test scores had shot up 11.2 percentage points for students in grades 3 through 8 — praised the six-year-old system.
“If we get that [parental input] cleared up, I think that will go a long way toward passing mayoral control,” said Paterson.
Bloomberg, who opposes any limits on his school power, yesterday said: “Not one of the reforms that were done in the last seven years would have been done without mayoral control.”
Additional reporting by David Seifman