For a three year period, New Yorkers debated the question of whether there should be school decentralization or whether there should be total community control of schools. To a large extent the conflicts in 1968 were fought over this issue-with the union arguing for decentralization under which local boards of education would be required to comply with state law, union contracts, arbitration and judicial decisions and central Board of Education regulations. The Ocean Hill-Brownsville board and its supporters argued that they, representing the community, had the right to make final decisions in much the same way that southern governors demand the right to do as they wish in the name of states' rights.
When the New York State Legislature passed the school decentralization law the matter was decided. Largely because of the excesses committed in the name of community control, the legislature decided for decentralization and against community control. Against those who would have had only autonomous community boards the law provided for a strong ( and paid) central board and a school chancellor with extensive powers.
We are now completing our first year under decentralization. For the most part, the new system has not produced the excesses which many feared. While there have been practically no educational changes resulting from decentralization, relationships between teachers and community boards have been (with few exceptions) cooperative and the community boards have provided an essential local base of support against educational cutbacks. More and more decision-making is being exercised at the local level; although, tragically, the first major exercise of local power will be in the implementation of drastic budget cuts.
The New York City experience indicates that there is strong popular support for greater local decision- making. But there is also a near universal demand that central governmental agencies maintain their regulatory role to prevent local flexibility from becoming an excuse for excesses, whether these be the evasion of legal or contractual obligations, denial of due process, or the conversion of schools into centers for ideological indoctrination.
Because continued public support for decentralization depends upon the exercise of central responsibility it is important to note three major failures in this regard:
1. On May 18 the Community Superintendent of Bronx District 9 sent a memorandum to Parent Association presidents furnishing a list of all teachers who had been requested by their principals for reemployment next year with the request that "If you are aware of any teacher who has not performed satisfactorily, kindly notify the respective principal and Parent Association President ... " The list contains the teachers' names, schools and ethnic background in four categories-"Puerto Rican background, Other Spanish speaking background, Black, Other." Since parents already know the ethnic background of the teachers they have personally met, the only function of such a list is to invite criticism from parents of teachers they do not know and where the only information available to them is "ethnic background." Clearly, action by Chancellor Scribner is needed.
2. In that same district, large numbers of teachers, paraprofessionals and school secretaries will be illegally ousted from jobs and replaced by the Community Superintendent's hand-picked favorites in old-style patronage fashion. The job-ouster is being accomplished through a transparent trick- rewriting a program so that it employs "group leaders" instead of teachers, "group workers" instead of paraprofessionals and "clerk-typists" instead of school secretaries. Last year when that same district did a similar thing, it resulted in double cost to the taxpayer since the Board of Education ended by paying both sets of jobholders-those who were illegally employed and those illegally prevented from working. This, too, needs Dr. Scribner's attentions.
3. Basic to any due process procedure is the right to review by a party not directly involved in the action being appealed. Board of Education policy, governed by its By-laws as well as the union contract, has afforded non-tenured teachers the right to review procedures before the city school Chancellor. Recently Dr. Scribner announced that even when his own hearing officer found a dismissal of a teacher to be unjust, the dismissal would stand, because Dr. Scribner would not substitute his judgment for those who actually fired her! On this basis, no judge or jury could act unless they also happened to witness the crime.
In each case, Dr. Scribner seems to be using the decentralization law as the excuse for inaction. Clearly, when the legislature created the post of Chancellor, it did so precisely because it did not intend to allow local groups to act with total autonomy in violation of law or standards. Decentralization must not be used to justify abdication of leadership and responsibility. Decentralization cannot survive without strong central regulation just as democracy and rights at the state and local levels can be maintained only because we have a strong federal government.