The issue of mayoral control of the schools will occupy increasing attention in the next few months as the law authorizing such control expires June 30.

The District 6 Community Education Council forum held April 3, and reported by the Manhattan Times on April 9, and the two-page paid advertisement by a pro-mayoral control organization, Learn NY, appearing in this paper two weeks earlier are merely the opening signs of the debate.

Why does it matter?

In abstract terms, it is a question of democracy. American history has been a continuous struggle for democracy – freedom from having one person making the decisions.

So how does this relate to what happens in our schools? What has happened during the last eight years when the mayor was given such unlimited power, for the first time in New York City history?

The city's Department of Education asserts that mayoral control has produced unparalleled changes for the better in the outcomes for students, especially with test scores and graduation rates improving, and more choices of schools to attend.

Is this true?

It's hard to know. The mayor and DOE have not allowed any independent assessment of their assertions.

They have refused access to their data, and even broken many laws, resulting in the Department being successfully sued twice by the state, and additionally by parents, for overstepping even the few boundaries that had been put on them.

This pattern of action not only makes directly confronting the DOE's assertions problematic, but in and of itself should raise questions as to the appropriateness of leaving nearly all power, including the power to analyze and rate itself, in its own hands.

There is, however, some data, and much experience:

Diane Ravitch, summarized in the April 9 edition of The New York Times that national tests, which are considered by most to be more reliable than state and city tests, reveal almost no gain in test scores from 2003 to 2007, and no narrowing of the achievement gap between white and minority students.

At the same time, numerous methods have inflated the graduation rates, still at best 50 to 60 percent of students, which Ravitch writes is: "the same as Mississippi, which spends one-third of what New York does on education," while the significance of these diplomas is also inflated as three-quarters of graduates "fail their placement exams at CUNY community colleges … and require remediation in basic skills."

This is not a surprise when 30 correct answers out of 87 questions (34 percent) on a recent State math exam earned a "passing grade" of 65.

Much of the gain in test scores and graduation rates has occurred at the small schools created by this administration.

These schools come with their own drawbacks.

English language learners (ELLs) and special education students have been excluded and left to flounder in the remaining larger schools, where their outcomes have not been good.

Only one out of 10 ELL students graduates with a Regents diploma. African-American boys' four-year graduation rate of any kind is 32 percent.

Special Ed students are less likely to be diagnosed and receive services under this administration than previously, according to a member of the Citywide Council on Special Education.

Moreover, much of any claimed gain correlates with increased funding that has reduced some class sizes – though in District 6 they remain unacceptably high in many schools – and raised teacher salaries, increasing retention rates.

Much of that funding came from a lawsuit started several years ago by current City Council Member Robert Jackson – not from the mayor.

Despite the increase in funding, the DOE has refused to admit that our district needs more school buildings to lower our class sizes, which is required to address the enhanced needs of our district in which almost 50 percent of its students are children whose native language is not English.

Mayoral control of the schools can hardly be conceived as the cause of system wide success, and even its own assertions are questionable.

Yet many who have raised such questions have been attacked or silenced.

I have reason to believe that heads of youth agencies, including those in our community, who have been education advocates for years, were intimidated into announcing their support for renewed mayoral control of the schools because they feared that their own agencies, dependent upon city funding to continue operations, would have their budgets punitively cut if they did not announce such support.

This is what happens when one person is in control of everything.

For these reasons, renewing mayoral control offers little assurance of significant gains for our students, while threatening to waste much money on efforts which have not been shown to make a substantial difference, and which may be educationally the opposite of what is needed.

Josh Karan is a member of the District 6 Community Education Council.