Education in New York
纽约教育
Teach us, Mr Mayor
教教我们吧，市长先生
As mayors become leaders of school reform, cities look to New York
随着市长成为学校改革领导人，各市都指望着纽约。
WHEN Adrian Fenty became mayor of Washington, DC, this month, he immediately announced a plan to take over the city's schools. He is not the first to propose such a scheme, and will not be the last. Although in most cities schools are run by an elected board, this is changing fast. Boston's mayor began the trend of “mayoral control” in 1991: it has spread to Cleveland, Chicago and a dozen other cities and counties, including Los Angeles, where it is now the subject of a court battle. But it is Michael Bloomberg, who took charge of New York's school system—the nation's largest—in 2002, who has become the paradigm of the mayor-educator.
本月阿德里安•芬蒂成为华盛顿市长后，随即宣布了一项接管该市各所学校的计划。他并不是提出这种计划的第一人，而且也不会是最后一人。尽管在大多数城市学校均由推选的教育委员会管理，但这种情况正在迅速改变。波士顿市长在 1991年就开创了“市长控制”的先河，现已扩展到克利夫兰、芝加哥及其它12个市县，其中还包括洛杉矶。在洛杉矶，“市长控制”已成为法庭辩论的焦点。不过，“市长教育家”的楷模非纽约市长迈克尔•彭博莫属，他于2002年掌管了规模位居美国第一的纽约教育系统。
（1）The sad state of city schools has never been plainer, thanks to testing required by No Child Left Behind, George Bush's 2002 education law. In 2005 51% of fourth-graders in big cities scored “below basic” on a standard reading test, compared with a national average of 38%. （2）Mayors are eager to step in, well aware that bad schools not only harm students, but drive away the middle class and make cities less competitive. But what can mayors do that school boards cannot?
布什2002年签署了教育法令《不让一个孩子掉队》（No Child Left Behind），根据法令要求开展的评估结果清楚地表明，城市学校现状十分糟糕。2005年，大城市四年级学生有51%在标准阅读测试中成绩“低于基本要求”，而全国的平均水平为38%。市长们非常清楚，学校差不但会害了学生，也会导致中产阶级流失而减弱城市的竞争力，因而都急于插手学校事务，可是有什么教育委员会办不到的而市长们却能做到的呢？
Mr Bloomberg, who gave his state-of-the-city address on January 17th, offers an answer. His power over schools has made him directly accountable for them, streamlined organisation and allowed him to make New York a test-bed for reform. It has also, some say, demonstrated the dangers of letting a mayor's power go unchecked.
彭博1月17日在纽约市情咨文中给出了答案。接掌学校后，他就可直接对学校负责，对机构进行精简，并让纽约成为改革的试验田。有人说，让一位市长无拘无束的行使权力也存在一定的危险。
As Mr Bloomberg campaigned for mayor in 2001, it was clear that New York's school board was failing its 1.1m students. The board, removed from the city's budget process, had little control over school finances. The consequences were dire. Many high schools were losing more than half their students before graduation. Mr Bloomberg promised change.
2001年彭博竞选市长时，纽约的教育委员会显然辜负了110万学生的期望。教育委员会由于无法参与拟定纽约财政预算，因此对学校大部分财政权都鞭长莫及，结果也就不堪设想了。许多学校的学生有一半以上在毕业前就辍学。彭博承诺会改变这一现状。
With the central school-board disbanded[1], the mayor got to work. He appointed as his education “chancellor” Joel Klein, a former top trust-buster at the federal Department of Justice. Together, they dissolved the city's 32 school districts and replaced them with ten regions. They chose a uniform curriculum for reading, writing and maths. And they began to close large high schools and open small ones in their place. Mr Bloomberg set up 15 small high schools in 2002, and got money from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2003 to help open 169 more.
随着中央学区教育委员会的解散，彭博的改革也开始了。他任命联邦司法部前最高反托拉斯官员约尔•克莱因为其教育“大臣”。他们联手将纽约32个学区重新划分为10个区域，为阅读、写作和数学选定了统一课程，然后关闭大型的中学并在原址建立小型中学。2002年，彭博建了15所小型中学。2003年，他从比尔-梅林达•盖茨基金会那里拿到一笔资金后又建了169所小型中学。
Two years after seizing control, Messrs Bloomberg and Klein began a push to give more power to certain schools. Management scholars such as William Ouchi, of the University of California, Los Angeles, argued that decentralisation had saved American businesses; it could save schools too. In 2004, New York began opening schools where principals have more control over everything from budgets to staffing. If a principal does not meet the mayor's targets, he can be fired. Last spring, 322 principals, a fifth of the total, joined this “empowerment” programme.
接掌学校控制权两年后，彭博和克莱因开始设法下放更多权力给某些学校。加州大学洛杉矶分校的威廉•奥奇等管理学学者认为，权力下放曾经拯救过美国企业，它也能拯救学校。2004年，纽约开办了一些学校，在这些学校，校长拥有了更多控制权，从编制预算到安置人员都无所不包。哪个校长如果达不到市长的目标就得走人。去年春天，322名校长（占总数1/5）被纳入了这一“放权”计划。
Many parents, teachers and experts—not to mention the mayor—say the reforms are a triumph. Last year Mr Bloomberg's first crop of small high-schools had a graduation rate of 78%, compared with 58% city-wide. The empowerment schools have also shown signs of success, with better rates of attendance and grades.
不要说彭博，就是多数家长、教师和专家也都认为改革是成功的。去年，彭博建立的第一批小型中学毕业率达到78%，而全纽约仅为58%。加入“放权”计划的学校也有了进步表现，到课率和成绩都有提高。
（3）But some who favoured mayoral control in 2002 now complain that Mr Bloomberg is a dictator, hastily imposing plans after little public input. The uniform curriculum for reading and maths was poorly chosen, argues Diane Ravitch, a professor at New York University. Randi Weingarten, head of the teachers' union, describes teachers using egg-timers to try to follow rigid lesson plans. The effect of the uniform curriculum is unclear. Elementary school students have performed well in some local tests, but their scores in national exams have hardly budged.
但是，有些在2002年拥护“市长控制”的人现在开始抱怨彭博是一个专权者，认为他在公众反应还极为有限时就轻率地强制推行其计划。纽约大学教授戴安•拉维奇指出，阅读和数学的统一课程安排得很差劲。教师联合工会负责人兰蒂•维恩加尔滕则说，老师们为了跟上苛刻的教学进度差不多连煮蛋计时器都用上了。统一课程效果到底怎样目前还不好说。小学生在地方一些考试中成绩很好，但在全国考试中的成绩差不多还是老样子。
Mr Bloomberg's small-schools initiative has also drawn criticism. When the mayor closed big schools to open small ones, many displaced students simply crammed into other schools nearby. （4）David Bloomfield, a professor at Brooklyn College, argues that although the small schools are promising, the rush to open them has placed too great a strain on larger schools, where most students are still enrolled. One Brooklyn high school has as many as 46 teenagers to a class.
彭博建立小型中学的做法也遭到了非议。他关闭大型学校、开办小型学校之后，许多需要转移的学生都被硬塞到附近其它学校。布鲁克林学院教授大卫•布鲁姆菲尔德认为，虽然这些小型学校很有发展前途，但开办速度过快已经给一些仍然拥有大量在校生的大型学校带来了太大的压力。布鲁克林有一所中学一个班级的学生竟多达 46人。（译者按：46人，这在中国恐怕算少的了吧？据本人所知，中国的中学一个班级有60人都不足为奇。招生指标也许就三、四十人，人多是因为多了什么集资生、关系生等等，反正有钱即可。教育制度？在唯利是图的学校当权者看来，那是扯淡。中美教育之差距由此也许可见一斑吧。）
Yet the mayor, when faced with complaints, has usually forged ahead. He proved particularly autocratic in 2004, when he announced a plan to keep failing students from advancing to the next grade. A similar scheme in the 1980s did not raise achievement levels and was deemed a failure. But when members of Mr Bloomberg's advisory board opposed the policy, he sacked[2] them. Mr Klein argues that critics' inability to block change is a good thing. City schools, he says, need “bold, tough leadership”. In his state-of-the-city address, the mayor announced yet more reforms, tackling everything from teacher tenure to funding. He plans to disband his ten regions, and give principals even greater autonomy by letting them choose between different methods of support.
即便抱怨声不断，彭博仍旧一往无前。 2004年，他表现得尤为专制，在那年他宣布了一项计划，要把那些成绩不合格的学生留级。上世纪八十年代也有一个类似的计划，但并未提高学生成绩，被认为是失败之举。但是，彭博顾问委员会中反对这项政策的人都被他一一解雇。克莱恩认为，持批评意见的人无力阻止改革是件好事。他说，城市学校需要“大胆、坚强的领导”。在市情咨文中，这位市长还公布了更多的改革方案，涉及教师任期、财政拨款等各个问题。他还计划撤去他划定的10个区域，并赋予各校长更大的自治权，允许他们采取不同的办学支撑方式。
Education scholars generally agree that mayors can help failing districts, but they are starting to utter warnings. （5）Last summer the editors of the Harvard Educational Review warned that mayoral control can reduce parents' influence on schools. And they pointed to Mr Bloomberg's aggressive style as an example of what not to do. All this must be weighed up by the New York state legislature in 2009, when mayoral control is up for renewal—or scrapping[3].
教育学者普遍认为市长们是可以帮助落后学区的，但他们也开始提出忠告。去年夏，《哈佛教育评论》编辑提醒说“市长控制”有可能削弱家长对学校的影响力，并将矛头直指彭博的激进风格，认为他是“什么都是自己说了算”的典范。一切是好是坏，到2009年纽约州议会自会有所评说，市长控制是继续还是废止到时当有定论。
[NOTES](OXFORD)
1. disband v. [I, Tn] (cause sth to) stop operating as an organization; break up （使组织、机构等）解散, 散伙, 解体: The regiment disbanded when the war was over. 战争结束後, 这个团就解散了. * disband a club, society, etc 解散俱乐部、社团等.
2. sack v. [Tn] (infml 口 esp Brit) dismiss (sb) from a job; fire 解雇（某人）: be sacked for incompetence 因能力不够而被解雇.
3. scrap v. (-pp-) [Tn] throw away (sth useless or worn-out) 抛弃, 抛掉（无用的或用坏的东西）: scrap a car, ship, bicycle, etc 遗弃报废的汽车、船、自行车等 * (fig 比喻) Lack of cash forced us to scrap plans for a new house. 我们现款不足, 只好打消买新房子的念头.
