Frederica Freyberg:
Even as the Milwaukee mayor has thrown his hat into the ring to run for governor, he and others are pushing for mayoral control of Milwaukee schools. Gov. Jim Doyle has said he'll call a special session of the legislature to take up a bill that would allow that. But what do we know about what happens in terms of student achievement and learning when mayors run the schools? Our next guest is a national expert on that question. Dr. Kenneth Wong chairs the department of education at Brown University and was in Wisconsin this week spreading his knowledge. He's still in the Midwest tonight and joins us from Chicago. Doctor, thanks very much for doing so.

Kenneth Wong:
Delighted to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:
Well, now you have literally written the book on this issue titled "The Education Mayor" and studied more than 100 school districts in 40 states, 12 of those under mayoral control. What does your research show?  

Kenneth Wong:
First of all, the research suggests that under mayoral control urban school districts are making statistically significant progress in elementary reading and math scores, as well as in high school achievement. And I think this is very significant because our database compares districts under mayoral control with districts that continue to have the elected school boards. So in a way this is a control and treatment design. And we also have five years of student achievement data for every single school in each of these 100 larger school districts. So the significance of this study is that controlling for low-income status of the student, ESL status of the school and other social, racial, ethnic characteristics of the student, we found these are net gain. In the course of five years, what we are seeing is that districts under mayoral control are definitely closing the achievement gap with the state. So they are outpacing their peers that continue to have elected school boards.

Frederica Freyberg:
What are the elements of a successful mayoral control model?  

Kenneth Wong:
First of all, I think the whole idea of mayoral control is to really streamline and improve accountability. For too long and in an average, typical, large urban school system, government is highly fragmented, so there are a lot of legitimate actors, but each one of these actors is in charge of a piece of the pie. So you've got a teachers' union talking about workplace condition, class size. You've got the state Legislature in charge of part of the school funding formula. And you've got the mayor trying to get involved, trying to leverage the community, but the mayor's office does not have formal appointed power of the school board. You also have the school superintendent, who is a trained educator, oftentimes, and the school superintendent may or may not have the skill set to deal with union issues or school funding or lobbying the federal government for additional governmental support. So you've got this circle of blame that everybody is pointing finger at one another and suggest that the other entities are not doing their share. But with mayoral control, what we have is that we shift the paradigm of fragmentation into a single office, ultimately being held accountable for all the results. If the school buses are not running on time, if the test scores are not moving in the right direction, if the federal dollars are misused or the state aid is not there and if the teachers are not qualified, then we know that ultimately the mayor's office is in charge and the public and the community can actually use the electoral process to hold the mayor accountable. Now, even though we have the electoral process right now in the elected school board arrangement, unfortunately democracy in practice falls far short of the democracy as an ideal and that is that if you analyze the school board turnout, oftentimes you see only 4 percent to 8 percent of the eligible voters come out to vote for school board members. But in a typical mayoral election you are talking about 40 percent to 60 percent. Right before Mayor Bloomberg took over control of schools in New York, voter turnout was only 4 percent. At this latest round of mayoral election, I believe it was around 50 percent. There are a lot of democratic checks and balances under mayoral control, and we are basically shifting the nonpartisan school board election into one of a typical four-year electoral cycle.

Frederica Freyberg:
Now, in Wisconsin's case there are a couple of proposals that deal with the mayor's office in Milwaukee taking over those schools, but neither of them as I understand it would give absolute control to the mayor's office. The school board still has some role and in one of the bills more of a role than others. What do you think of that as a model for mayoral control?  

Kenneth Wong:
It's a really interesting model. I think the key is whether the mayor would have the ability to appoint a school superintendent. I think that's a very important executive decision that the mayor has to have the control over. Second, the question is whether budget authority and other personnel appointing authority are going to lie with the mayor's office or not. My understanding is that one of the proposed legislation would move a lot of the substantive policy making and budgetary authority from the elected school board to the mayor's office and to the hands of the appointed school superintendent. And so that actually is quite similar to what we see in Washington DC, where there is a strong executive branch to take primary responsibility so that the voters would hold the mayor's office accountable. And then the elected board remains a community liaison with the community, so that when there are complaints or where there are concerns from the larger community, they can channel through the school board members and the school board can hold public hearings on certain issues. Yeah.

Frederica Freyberg:
Let me ask you quickly and finally, what can you tell people who are worried about this in Milwaukee? Will this work to make achievement better in Milwaukee schools?  

Kenneth Wong:
Our study looking at five years of student test scores and continue looking at more current test scores in mayoral control systems suggests that, yes, mayoral control does produce better student achievement than what otherwise would have been the case. Second, I think it really streamlines accountability. It change the culture to the extent that the mayor's office will be able to allocate more resources and technical support to the school system. Further, we are going to see a lot more partnership between the city and other municipal services, as well as nonprofit and the community organizations.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right.

Kenneth Wong:
And so I think there is a situation where education will be a center in a quality of life improvement initiative.
Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Dr. Wong, I wish we had more time. Thank you very much.  

Kenneth Wong:
Thank you very much.  

Frederica Freyberg:
Opponents of mayoral control of Milwaukee schools have drafted their own bill in the legislature. Milwaukee democrats Spencer Coggs and Tamara Grigsby introduced a measure that would give the mayor input without total control. Teachers’ unions and the school board support that bill.