More Financial Oversight of Education Dept. May Be Sought

The first major report on the way the city's public schools are run — by a commission put together by Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum in response to a request by Democrats in the state Assembly — is expected to be released today.

People who have been briefed on the report's contents said it supports the principle of mayoral control while recommending some changes, including more financial oversight of the city Department of Education and more parental input.

The report is based on many hours of testimony from several dozen researchers, elected officials, union leaders, and community activists. Some of the testimony — including opinions delivered by Comptroller William Thompson Jr., the teachers union president, Randi Weingarten, and the Partnership for New York City president, Kathryn Wylde — is collected in a transcript that was obtained by The New York Sun, and it offers an idea of what the commission may recommend.

Ms. Wylde, who represents the city's business community, communicated a strong opposition to changing the law, or even opening it up for revisions by the state Legislature.

"Once the law is opened up, the politics of New York State will come into play, and those are not necessarily controllable," Ms. Wylde said, according to a transcript of her testimony.

She said the worst possibility is that the Legislature would not come up with an alternative agreement, the law would sunset, and the city would go back to having a Board of Education and elected community school boards.

"That's a horrifying prospect," Ms. Wylde said. "And I would venture to say that if that happened, it would trigger a mass exodus of corporations from New York City."

Mr. Thompson in his testimony said he supports mayoral control but complained about an inability to track the education department's spending.

"If you look at the lack of financial and fiscal transparency at the Department of Education, it is astonishing," Mr. Thompson said.

Ms. Weingarten said mayoral control succeeded at making education a higher priority and attracting more funding to the public schools, but she said it needs "checks and balances," and she suggested specifically an independent body that would review data on the schools — an idea brought up by several other people in testimony.