Quinnipiac on the Schools

The Quinnipiac poll of New York City voters last week couldn't have been better for Mayor Bloomberg. New Yorkers, by a wide margin, think he is doing a terrific job. When asked whom they want as their mayor when Mr. Bloomberg's term expires at the end of 2009, they want Mr. Bloomberg again, even though term limits make him ineligible to run. New Yorkers believe that Mr. Bloomberg is a better mayor than his predecessor. And even as Mayor Giuliani has emerged in national polls as the Republican presidential front-runner, voters reckon Mr. Bloomberg would be a better president. It just couldn't be better for the mayor — save for one area. It turns out that where voters find him disappointing is on the issue the mayor would like to see define his legacy, education.

The findings are dramatic. The mayor's overall approval rating, even after the botched clean-up after the Valentine's Day snowstorm, the brouhaha over revising school bus routes in the dead of winter, and the jaunt down to Florida in the immediate aftermath of the South Bronx fire, is 73% in his favor. Yet on schools, by 58% to 31%, voters would prefer a return to the old system of the schools being run by an independent board. The parents of children in the New York City public schools are even more unhappy than the public at large, preferring 61% to 29% to return to an independent board of education. Among Democrats, who could well take over the mayoralty after Mr. Bloomberg, the preference is 64% to 26%. The approval ratings of the chancellor, Joel Klein, have slipped to a record low. Only 33% of New Yorkers approve of the job he is doing, while 43% disapprove.

Mr. Klein's approval ratings have never been particularly high. He reached a peak in February 2003, shortly after his Children First reform package was announced. At that time 46% of the voters approved of the job he was doing while just 27% disapproved. The latest poll was taken after the recent announcement of another reorganization at the Department of Education, not to mention the revolt over the bus schedules. Voters disapprove of the mayor's handling of the school bus changes by 62% to 12%, with a negative figure that, among only parents, balloons to 72%. But Mr. Klein wasn't brought in to compete in a popularity contest. His assignment has been precisely to take the heat so that the mayor can make a start on repairing a school system that all agreed was, at the time he was elected, failing all New Yorkers, including the most vulnerable.

The message of these polls is not about any individual but about the politics ahead. When the mayor was handed control of the schools nearly five years ago, the new law contained a provision that this was to be a temporary arrangement. On July 1, 2009, absent the Legislature acting to continue the current structure, the old Board of Education and the 32 local community school boards will rise, like a phoenix. Allies of the teachers unions such as the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, and the Senate majority leader, Joe Bruno, would be happy enough to facilitate such a calamity. But there could be no worse development for the city's schoolchildren. While mayoral control may not be perfect, the old, no-one's-in-charge system was bereft of both accountability and energy. It wasn't even truly "independent." Contrary to the poll's loaded question, the individual commissioners were political appointees.

The unions that run Albany have reason to long for a return to the old days. Mr. Klein is breaking up the monopoly the unions have had on education, opening up scores of innovative new charter schools and leading the effort in Albany to open up more. These schools are, at least for the moment, generally liberated from teachers unions and the managerial leg irons that come with them; the charters have been running circles around traditional public schools, setting a path toward a new model for public education. Meanwhile, Messrs. Bloomberg and Klein have been using their time at the helm of the public system to drive a better bargain with the United Federation of Teachers, demanding greater accountability for more pay, such as making it easier to fire incompetent teachers and giving principals more authority.

We don't sneer at parental complaints. The bus-route changes have been maddening for many. The end of social promotion has been painful for some. But the system has been moving in the right direction, toward choice and accountability. And one Quinnipiac poll doesn't make an election. We have no doubt Mr. Bloomberg's 2005 landslide was due in part to the sense that progress was, at last, being made on the schools. If the most common complaint about the public schools is that parents have too little input, the worst remedy would be to re-empower the teachers unions. Mayoral control and Mr. Klein's charter-school experiment add up to the second-best option, which is no small achievement. The best strategic option would be a strategy of parental choice based on letting the money follow the students through a system of vouchers that can be used in any accredited institution.