At least one member of the state delegation wants more information before giving Mayor Byron Brown control of Buffalo's schools. Assemblyman Sean Ryan says he wants to hear directly from Brown about what his plans are, if he's put in charge of city schools. Ryan says mayoral control can be very broad.
"In Yonkers, right now, they have mayoral control. And that means the mayor appoints every school board member and hires the superintendent. In New York City they have mayoral control where they eliminated the position of superintendent and they absolutely got rid of the school board," Ryan said Monday.
Along with talking to Brown, Ryan says he wants to hear from the community.
"In these times of crisises...a lot of people paint, 'There's a crisis in education.' Often the first thing that goes is democracy," he said.
Ryan says that hasn't helped schools downstate.
"You know what Yonkers has right now? They have a school district in crisis. New York City, under [Mayor Michael] Bloomberg they made a lot of changes. But they didn't really measure the results until last year. And while it's clear there's been some progress. I'm not sure if the progress matches the turmoil and the change that they went through," Ryan said.
The Buffalo Democrat says very few of the novel ideas proposed to fix city schools have been tested and he is not in favor of making a change for the sake of change. He says it has to be good for the community.