COMMENTARY

Can the mayor run the schools? Too soon to tell

YAEL T. ABOUHALKAH

The Kansas City Star

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Sly James promised to be one busy guy if Kansas Citians elected him as their mayor earlier this year.

But is he one busy, effective mayor, the kind Kansas City desperately needs?

Here’s the blunt answer: It’s too soon to tell.

That’s why it’s not an open-and-shut case on whether James should be in charge of Kansas City Public Schools.

The pros: James could use his strong ties to the business community to find people highly qualified to actually operate the district.

Getting the district in shape would help James accomplish a lot of his other priorities, such as retaining businesses and attracting more residents to the heart of the city.

As a black mayor, James would have plenty of credibility if he had to reject any untoward meddling by black ministers and black leaders such as lawyer Clinton Adams and Urban League president Gwen Grant. Their recent letter to state officials, claiming they and a few others were qualified to run the district, was especially laughable.

And putting the mayor in charge of the district would make one elected official accountable for its future.

The cons: James was elected mayor of the city, not superintendent of a long-troubled school district. He has other, important, irons in the fire.

Putting mayors in charge of school districts has not come close to working miracles in other urban school districts.

Getting rid of an elected school board would be a pretty momentous step to take.

Finally, James won’t always be mayor. What if the next mayor doesn’t have the same passion about this district — or appoints unqualified hacks to run it?

James recognizes some of the downsides of actually taking control of the district. So it’s positive that he’s open to working with the school board and many others to review options for running Kansas City Public Schools.

Let’s get back to just how well James is doing as mayor, something a lot of people are paying attention to now that the school district mess could land in his lap.

In seven months in the job, James has organized and/or supported a number of efforts to improve Kansas City.

As a police commissioner, he hired a promising chief in Darryl Forté. James has projected a professional manner in his dealings with the City Council, becoming the clear leader of elected officials who routinely defied former Mayor Mark Funkhouser. James also has named committees to study important issues, including how to reshape economic development and to improve ethical behavior at City Hall.

Still, many of the major priorities James supported on the campaign trail in early 2011 remain in the planning stages. We won’t know for months whether all of the mayor’s good intentions will pay off.

• The Citizens Commission on Municipal Revenue won’t report on how to improve the city’s tax collection efforts until early 2012.

• A program to improve efficiency of city departments, modeled on Baltimore’s CitiStat, isn’t yet ready.

• A council committee report on how to make it easier to do business in Kansas City is almost complete but not adopted.

James and the council also have not yet acted on recent recommendations from the Pension System Task Force on the need to control costs of retirement benefits for thousands of city employees.

Looking back in history, I watched Emanuel Cleaver in 1991 get off to a slow start as mayor, and saw Kay Barnes have a few successes and setbacks in her first year in office in 1999.

James seems to have more on his plate than both those mayors did. It’s encouraging that he’s tackling controversial issues with gusto. But it’s too soon to say he’s attacking enough of them successfully.

That’s why putting him in charge of Kansas City Public Schools — while intriguing — is not a slam dunk good idea right now.