You Can Like Mayor Duffy, and Still Agree With Dr. Cala That the School Board Should Be Elected, Not Politically Appointed

You can like the Mayor personally, wish him well, and still agree with Dr. Bill Cala that "Mayoral Control Does Not Work and is Wrong" (as an essay by Cala in the January 14th online edition of City News is titled).

After all, Mayor Duffy shared Cala's position when he ran for Mayor. He actually signed a pledge against Mayoral Control, and was reelected last year scoffing at evidence he had changed. I well recall, just last summer, how many well intentioned friends were annoyed with me for raising the issue. “ 'Geez, Tom, how many times does the Mayor have to say he is not for this?" I heard it a million times. Naturally, those people feel betrayed now.

The elected school board may be the office most urgently meaningful to city residents struggling to improve their live, and their childrens' prospects. Tell them replacing elections with appointment isn't an attack on their voting rights. With 85% of the city student body of color, and with lost lives a painful living memory of the struggle for voting rights, you can hardly blame people for noting that nobody is suggesting elections be abolished in, say, Greece (not a very well governed suburb last time I checked). Had candidates for office at least been candid with city voters about this, the public outcry might not be so great now. Not only was the Mayor evasive, not one of the 14 city council primary candidates, when asked, stated support for Mayoral Control (one, Carolee Conklin, who had strongly leaned that way in a prior newspaper interview, went almost crazy with rage when it was pointed out).

To this day, no substantive plan has been advanced by the Mayor. Forums that allow meaningful public exchanges between both sides of the issue are avoided. Business, political, and media elites -- now safely past city elections, seek to abolish a democratic process by way of an Albany fix, while shushing critics, rather than cultivating informed public consent. This is hardly the "political courage" Mayoral Control advocates congratulate themselves for having a monopoly on. Assemblyman Gantt boasts that elected school boards will be abolished whether the public likes it or not, and greets a wheelchair bound constituent who seeks to talk about it with obscenities. Assemblyman Morelle tried to pin vandalism at the local Democratic Headquarters on Mayoral Control opponents, even when it was national news that the vandalism was instigated by anti-health care reform extremists, who claimed "credit." This conduct should the concern of every thoughtful citizen of Rochester.

Sadly, expressions of contempt invite the same thing in return, and lead nowhere. We need to get the conversation on a higher road.

For my part, I do wish the Mayor had kept his word, but I understand his frustration. I suspect he has just been taking some very bad advice.Long before Bob ever became Mayor, entrenched corporate City Hall, and Albany based interests have had patronage, private profit, and political designs on school resources -- designs which have nothing to do with helping children. The Mayor is a beloved son of my own Tenth Ward neighborhood, but he will not be Mayor forever. Who would a future Mayor appoint to the school board? Who would City Council appoint? Council members now indicate they want in on this too.

Bill Cala is equally highly regarded, and on education issues, I'd follow Bill's lead. When he says all elected officials come and go, good or bad, and the public should decide who and when, I listen.Beyond that, the science is in on this. Mayoral Control has been tried various places, various ways, and the plain fact is it has NEVER proved to improve student performance, and THAT is what we should be looking at.