The USA Today article, More mayors move to take over schools, discusses how Mayor Martin Chavez of Albuquerque, NM. wants to take over the city's school system. Chavez sees the city school system as a failure. However (surprise surprise), the current school board does not think this to be a good idea. According to the article "...one of the city's 12 high schools made adequate annual yearly progress". Chavez is not the only mayor who wants to move into the role of being head of a cities school system. There are several mayors, of much larger city's that are running the school systems and having success.
There are those who do not think that mayors are capable enough to run entire school systems, and I can understand why some may think that. To be honest, the article shows us that the school systems where mayors are in charge are also experiencing some major academic success. Now the school board in Albuquerque is arguing that they have had recent success with one school in the last three years that has met federal standards. But really, is it a little too late for school boards that are consistently failing?
Now, some education professors have declared that it may be a little too early to declare mayoral leadership in school systems a success. However, if mayors are getting the job done, why are so many people getting upset about this? I know that some say that having one person in charge of the system removes public opinion, but really a lot of times voter turn out is low for these school board elections. To be honest, sometimes elected school board members are elected by their close family, friends, and the teacher union. I am not saying that mayors should always be in charge, but if school systems cannot fix the problem, then something should be done.
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