Structures of Mayoral Power

You bring up great points, and I was also confused about why it seemed that the mayor was a larger player in public school decisions than the superintendent, so I dug a little deeper. According to the Chicago Tribune, both the superintendent and the Board of Education are appointed by the mayor. As such, I might guess that whoever Emanuel has appointed as mayor reflects and/or enables the ideas and actions of Emanuel himself. Of course, in this sort of system, it makes sense that the mayor will likely appoint educators who will support and enact his/her own ideas. This also explains why the push for Garcia to become mayor has been so forceful - the stakes are high for public schools in any mayoral election. Given the centralization of the power in the seat of the mayor, the likelihood that decisions will arise from meaningful communication among all sides of the debate, and thus that plans will be constructed creatively and collaboratively is seriously limited. While it'd be great if Garcia could take on a superintendent role and work together with Emanual so that the strengths in each of their plans could be integrated, I expect that this race has polarized Emanuel and Garcia, and their respective plans, more than it has brought them together.

You also bring up the excellent point that mayors don’t just deal with education, their responsibilities to the city extend far. As such, placing so much power on them for a hugely important issue threatens the legitimacy of their role in other issues. It seems that at least for the people (teachers, families) mentioned in the article, votes would be cast primarily on the basis of education, but this forces them to either accept or disregard candidates’ platforms in other issues. Even more unsettling to me is that candidates may use the focus on education as a way of pushing other agendas without the voters realizing.

The structures of power in the Chicago school systems is concerning to me. When power is centralized in one role, a role that is not even specific to educational matters, we constrain the ability to construct new ideas that challenge one way of thinking and take into account the thoughts of others. From my understanding, Philadelphia is not so different under the direction of the School Reform Commission. Ultimately, in structures like this, the voices of the community risk going unheard.