De Blasio Sends State a Message on Schools

On the surface, Mayor Bill de Blasio's visit to Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn on Tuesday was about touting progress there. It's one of 94 schools that are dubbed Renewal Schools, and that the city has pledged to improve within three years — or shut down.

The city has extended its instruction day by an extra period and added a Saturday academy. There's a new principal and all the teachers there have to reapply for their jobs next year. With these changes, the city says twice the number of seniors at Boys and Girls will have the credits to graduate this year.

Sitting in a ring of tables arranged into a U-shape flanked by his Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina and the new Executive Superintendent for Renewal Schools, Aimee Horowitz, the mayor held up the school's progress as proof that he should maintain control of the city's public school system.

“The buck stops here,” said de Blasio.

De blasio is urging Albany lawmakers to make mayoral control of schools permanent and says there’s no need for Governor Cuomo to take over failing schools as he’s has proposed.

What the mayor does want from Cuomo is money from the court’s nearly decade-old Campaign for Fiscal Equity decision, which created a funding formula for schools statewide. The state froze payments during the fiscal crisis, but now that the state has a surplus, de Blasio said municipalities across the state are being short changed.

“This is not just a New York City reality," said de Blasio. "This is a statewide reality, and again, it’s time for Albany to address this matter."

De Blasio recently teamed up with Syracuse mayor Stephanie Miner to urge the Governor to give cities more education money based on the court’s funding formula. The mayor said he’ll work with any leaders around the state who want to fight to get that funding decision implemented.