Anyone who thinks that the solution to the problems of big-city school districts is putting the mayor in charge may be disheartened by a trio of articles in the most recent issue of Education Next. An essay by University of Maryland professor Jim Cibulka examines Washington, DC (where Mayor Anthony Williams won the ability to appoint four members of the nine member board in 2000) and Baltimore (where a long history of mayoral control over schools was ended in 1997 when the state stepped in to try to rehabilitate the dysfunctional system). It offers a fascinating look at the powers a mayor can marshal in an effort to reverse the fortunes of a big-city school district, as well as the limits of those powers. In companion articles, Patrick Ryan looks at what happened when the mayor took over the school district in Cleveland and Paul Hill weighs the whole idea of searching for a white knight, preferably one from outside the education establishment, to rescue a struggling school district. Three other pieces in the same issue of the journal look at how public schools and districts in Michigan, Arizona, and Milwaukee have responded to the challenge of competition. While the authors disagree about how much public schools will improve in response to competition from charter schools or private school vouchers, they all acknowledge that the kinds of choice we have today will not be magic bullets that solve all the problems of urban school districts. You can read articles by Jim Cibulka, Patrick Ryan, and Paul Hill under the heading of "Round and Round They Go: Can New Management Save Urban School Districts?" and articles by Rick Hess; David Arsen, David Plank and Gary Sykes; and Bob Maranto under "When Schools Compete: Does School Choice Push Public Schools to Improve" in the Winter 2001 issue of Education Next.
