NEW YORK — Educators across the country are watching this year's race to succeed Mayor Michael Bloomberg because several candidates have vowed to overturn some of his school policies if elected.
During his three terms, Bloomberg has sought to make the city's public school system a showcase for get-tough policies such as closing schools deemed to be failing and using student test scores to measure teacher effectiveness.
With 1.1 million pupils and a $24 billion annual budget, New York City's public school system is the largest in the nation. And Bloomberg has left his mark on it.
Since winning mayoral control of schools from the state Legislature in 2002, Bloomberg has closed more than 140 struggling schools — often despite neighborhood protests — and replaced them with hundreds of new schools.
He raised teachers' salaries but fought their union about merit pay for top teachers and the use of standardized test scores to evaluate teachers.
Critics including the United Federation of Teachers and some members of the field of mayoral candidates claim that Bloomberg's policies have hurt the schools.
Several of the candidates said the city's schools are too focused on standardized tests and teachers spend too much time teaching to the tests.
There are at least 10 mayoral candidates — including Democrats, Republicans, and one independent. Most of the criticism of the education policies of Bloomberg, an independent, has come from the Democrats. Some of them also oppose Bloomberg's policy of closing large high schools.