Elizabeth is doing the first shift at today’s Assembly Education Committee mayoral control hearing in Manhattan, so I don’t know what Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is testifying right now. But if he’s echoing what Mayor Bloomberg said this morning during his weekly radio show, Klein is suggesting that New Yorkers will take to the streets if state lawmakers allow mayoral control to expire at the end of June.
From Bloomberg’s mayoral control jeremiad, according to a report posted on the Daily Politics blog:
“My assumption is there will be a bill called mayoral control passed by the Legislature,” the mayor continued. “I think that the, if they didn’t do that, I think that there’d be riots in the streets, given what’s the improvement. I mean, parents have choices. For the first time we’re funding all the schools equally.” … “So I think they will pass a bill. The question is, does it have mayoral control? Mayoral control is control. Control is you decide. …”
Nearly 60 percent of New Yorkers support continuing mayoral control, according to a recent poll.