This evening in anticipation of the State Legislature adjourning its 2017 legislative
session without extending mayoral control of city schools, Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan released the following statement:
We would have preferred to have tied everything up with a nice neat bow and returned to our districts with nothing at all left on our plate, but under the circumstances, that just wasn’t possible.
I support the renewal of mayoral control, as do my Senate Republican
colleagues.Under our leadership, the Senate has approved three different bills to
extend mayoral control. Unlike the Assembly, our bills dealt wholly with education in the City of New York, and would give Mayor de Blasio new tools to ensure every child has a shot at a first-class education.The Assembly needlessly tied renewal of mayoral control to dozens of
unrelated local tax extenders requested by counties to fund important
services for their residents.I will continue to work to extend mayoral control because I believe very
strongly in the accountability it provides, but I also believe that the
50,000 boys and girls in Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx who are now on waiting lists for a seat inside a charter school deserve the best possible education we can provide. I will never stop fighting for those kids, and will not leave them without a voice.
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