By MICHAEL SCHENKLER

This column is not about education.

It is about management — the management of the New York City school system.

I have a unique perspective.

I spent 15 years working in that system. I served as teacher, assistant principal, principal and even spent six months working at the now abandoned Board of Education headquarters at 110 Livingston St., Brooklyn. For half of my four years in the classroom, I was the elected United Federation of Teachers Union Chairman and led my staff on the picket line during the strike of 1968. Much of my family – immediate and extended – earned their stripes in the system. Mom and sister as teachers, dad as principal and uncle Murry Bergtraum as Queens’ first member to a newly empowered Board of Ed back in the 60s. I used to know the system well; I still follow it.

I also know management. Serving as CEO of a publicly traded company and overseeing some 23 newspapers taught me firing-line management techniques — very quickly.

And with my rich and varied background, I look at our school system, the Mayor and the changes taking place and see a picture quite different than most.

COLLOSAL FAILURE

Premise: the school system has failed. Duh!

While every other service and segment of our society has advanced with technology, experience and research, the school system degenerated. While health care, construction, sadly even war, have advanced at an incredibly rapid pace in the second half of the last century, the New York City school system has declined to a pathetic zenith. Its failure is one of the saddest stories in the history of our wonderful City.

The school system which provided a quality education to this writer and countless others before it began its decline in the 60s stands as the single greatest failure of the greatest City in the world. It is our saddest embarrassment.

And along came a very bright and very brave soul by the name of Mike Bloomberg who was willing to stake his reputation on his ability to reverse the course of educational decline and failure. Bloomberg, as we all know, was (and is) neither a politician nor educator. He is one very, very smart businessman. He is a visionary and a spectacular management guru. His skills are chronicled in and by the rise of his Company, which he left to apply his talents to our City.

BLOOMBERG

MANAGEMENT

Mike Bloomberg approached the educational disaster like any other management problem. Get control and bring in a new team of managers. Step one – he achieved what no other Mayor was able to — the legislative dismantling of the archaic Board of Education and Mayoral empowerment to run and oversee the school system. He brought in as Chancellor an aggressive litagator and manager — Joel Klein, a child of Queens who went on to lead the federal government’s legal team against Microsoft. Bloomberg wasn’t considering ABC’s, he was looking for control.

Next came the hiring of Diana Lam — a curriculum revolutionary. That’s not her title, that’s my term. Lam, the Deputy Chancellor for Teaching and Learning, has left behind in her wake a batch of school systems which she turned topsy turvey. Her methodology seemed to be less important than her shake-em-up style. Lam’s Columbia based curriculum is nowhere near as upsetting to old-timers in the system as the directives of lockstep instruction: All bulletin boards will have blue backgrounds hung with three staples per side and yellow letters 3.5 inches high affixed with two staples each to the top third of the board. (No, that’s not a real directive, merely how it has been related to me by my staff which has chatted with teachers – on the front line – in the classroom.)

Now what are they trying to do?

Lam’s Columbia curriculum is neither flawless nor proven. It’s a good approach. Bulletin board colors? C’mon. Number of staples?  Gimme a break. There is little or no education involved in any of this. This is merely an extension of the Mayor’s move to get control.

TAKING BACK

OUR SCHOOLS

Way back in the 60s when the system started declining, Mayor John Lindsay relinquished control of the schools. He took in some interesting partners in management. The Ford Foundation brought in the parents to help mange and an inept labor negotiation team allowed the UFT, the teacher’s union, not only to extract fair labor concessions for an underpaid staff, they also walked away from that negotiating table as partners in management. Unions began dictating about preparation periods, plan books, tenure, difficult kids and a host of other matters that should have been the exclusive purview of management. A principal could no longer run his/her school and the Superintendent of Schools (later  the Chancellor) could not run the system.

Nothing above should be construed as anti-union. But that wonderful and noble calling of teachers is either a profession or not. When assembly line work rules are negotiated, professional growth is stifled.

When worker protection becomes more important than professional growth, the system suffers. Lindsay and his successors should have rewarded the teachers and their union by significantly increasing salaries of good teachers and not trading off pieces of control. Mayor Mike knows that.

And Mayor Mike is trying to do something about it.

THE STRUGGLE

FOR CONTROL

The struggle taking place between the teachers in the classroom and the directives from the Tweed Courthouse — a wise and symbolic move to demonstrate control has been wrested — is not one of basic educational philosophy. It is one of simple control, because Mayor Mike knows that he can’t reverse four decades of decline without being the boss. And this school system has not had a boss — one with true control and responsibility — in nearly half a century.

The present struggle is unpleasant, but it is necessary. The Mayor and Chancellor are demonstrating to the teachers and the UFT just who the boss is. The rest of us will also find out. Once control is back in the hands of management, running the business of educating our children will take center stage.

The teachers, the union, the parents and the entire City should assist in reaching that point as quickly, and with as little strife, as possible.

Because then, the real test comes.

And I can’t think of anyone who has demonstrated the skill and desire to direct the management team during the biggest test this City has ever faced than Mike Bloomberg.

The tragedy of the destruction of New York’s twon tallest buildings may have been second to the tragedy of the destruction of New York’s school system.

The system’s failure likely cost many more lives and dollars than the attacks of Sept. 11, as dropouts and failures entered our society.

And the intelligent and perceptive Mayor has properly identified the educational crisis as his mission. He has offered to stake his reputation on the future performance of the schools.

If he can achieve positive change by the next election, he’ll be more than a management wizard, he’ll be a miracle worker.

And I’m rooting for him.

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Michael Schenkler can be reached at:

MSchenkler@QueensTribune.com