State of the City

Today, the Mayor gave his annual State of the City address focusing on job creation in NYC. Read the full text of the State of the City address.

Public Advocate Gotbaum, in attendance, issued the following response to his speech:

“While I commend the Mayor for his proactive planning for new job creation, and the innovative components of his recovery strategy, I had some serious concerns with his new quality-of-life crime proposal. 'Three strikes and you’re out'  has been bad for California. Cutting police officers while taking the sentencing out of the hands of judges and prosecutors and putting it in the hands of politicians is just bad policy. We need to keep the police on the streets. 

And it's about time that the city start providing parents with a central place to get answers about education. My office has been shining a spotlight on this problem for years: parents need answers, and access to information about their child’s education. Getting parents important information is a baseline service that the DOE should have been providing all along.

P311 seems to be a move in the right direction, but it needs to be more than just a number to call. Parents should be able to connect with someone who can help get them the right kind of help and address the concerns specific to their child.  I will be closely monitoring the implementation of P311 because we already know how ineffective 311 has been at providing information to parents of children with special needs. Beyond giving parents a place to get answers, however, parents also need to be given a voice in the education system. This is one of the main issues at stake in the revision of Mayoral Control that my Commission on School Governance has proposed. 

But the mayor claims that we should reauthorize mayoral control as is because 'if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it'. Well, I support Mayoral Control, but the system as it exists now is far from perfect. Even the Chancellor has acknowledged there should be independent oversight of the Department of Education’s budget and the data the DOE produces. It is clear we need to reevaluate how to include parents and other stakeholders in the governance of the schools and how to ensure real accountability and transparency at the Department of Education.”