Word: school-board
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...reforms came abruptly, grabbing attention like fingernails scratching a chalkboard. As Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer stepped into his new role as czar of the city's public schools last week, he began the dirty work of dismantling one of the nation's most ineffectual public bureaucracies. Armed with a new state law giving him authority over the city's 265 public schools, Archer swiftly demoted the city's elected school-board members to unpaid advisers and stripped them of such perks as corporate credit cards, cell phones, pagers and even office keys. He suspended all new employment contracts...
Still, Chicago's experience has inspired other mayors frustrated with their city's public schools. Even mayors with little hope of gaining full authority over schools have begun to push aggressively for greater influence. Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell has put his political muscle behind the city's reform-oriented superintendent, and Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan has stirred controversy by backing his own slate of school-board candidates. "The school board's attitude toward me is, 'Stay out of our business,'" says Riordan. "But we know who the people will hold accountable if the system continues to fail"--the mayor...
...recall campaign by critics who claim he is awarding the city's most valuable business contracts to whites, remaking Detroit's schools is a potential land mine. In a city that is 76% black and where a majority of voters are Democrats, even a reluctant alliance with a white Republican Governor and majority-white legislature has made Archer's motives suspect. Some critics consider the takeover a violation of the rights of voters, who elected the school-board members Archer is stripping of their power and their pagers...
Murray is pro-choice; Smith once voted against Medicaid funding for abortion in cases of rape and incest, explaining, "We don't kill children because their father is a jerk." Murray, a former instructor and school-board member, boasts about her role in last week's budget agreement and the planned hiring of 100,000 teachers to reduce class size; Smith, who once managed a tax-preparation business, accused Murray of raiding the Social Security trust fund and said she doesn't want bureaucrats or politicians in D.C. "wrapping my school district in red tape...
After months of debate and a raucous school-board meeting, supporters of detracking, like science teacher Ray Sepulveda, won out. On his own, Sepulveda had detracked his classes a decade earlier, eliminating prerequisites so that any student who wanted to take college-prep or honors courses could do so simply by signing up. "I think everybody should be exposed to the good stuff," he says. To ease the transition to the new, detracked environment, principal Antonio Gaitan organized after-school tutoring and Saturday enrichment classes for 700 former standard-track kids. "It's vital to build in curriculum support," Gaitan...