The Current State Of Mayoral Control

Mayoral control is so 90's, it's true, but don't tell that to Los Angeles or Seattle, where the mayor is being urged even by some community activists to seek oversight of the system. This Seattle Times piece (Nickels urged to take some control of schools) reviews which districts have turned to mayoral control and where the holdouts are (San Francisco, for example). It also reminds us that mayoral control is no panacea. Chicago, which has had mayoral control for longer than everyone except Boston, showed up with some of the lowest NAEP scores on the science results released last week.