In New York, Battle of the Rudys Is Talk of Town

NEW YORK — Relations between school Chancellor Rudy Crew and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on the surface had seemed ideal: They puffed cigars in front of the fireplace at Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s white brick residence alongside the East River. They traveled to the Bronx, sitting together in a stadium box to cheer the Yankees. Weekly, they conferred at City Hall and shared praise.

Whether it was genuine friendship or a marriage of convenience is academic: The talk in New York these days is about the war of the Rudys.

Permafrost coats their relationship.

Some politicians and educators believe that Giuliani, who demands unswerving loyalty, is plotting to oust yet another head of the nation’s largest public school system.

The nominal focus of their fight is the issue of school vouchers and the restructuring of New York City’s educational system. But beneath the surface lie the realities of constituency politics.

“New York eats its school chancellors every time we think we have a superstar,” said Mitchell Moss, director of the Taub Urban Research Center at New York University.

“The question,” said Robert Berne, vice president for academic development at New York University and an expert on school policy, “is whether the disagreement is so strong to wreck whatever relationship existed between the two Rudys.”

Ever since Crews took over for beleaguered school chief Ramon C. Cortines, who resigned in 1995 after what his supporters charged was a prolonged campaign of mayoral bullying, he and Giuliani had worked together, to try to improve New York’s schools. And in a system with 1.1 million students, more than 1,100 campuses (many badly in need of repair), serious overcrowding, low reading scores and widespread social promotion of failing students, there was a lot to focus on.

The first hint of trouble came in January, when Giuliani used his annual State of the City address to propose school vouchers. It escalated sharply two months later, when Crew learned that advisors to the mayor quietly were lobbying a key member of the Board of Education to support a voucher plan. The aides contended vouchers would help low-income children and create competition on campuses, thus forcing schools to improve or lose enrollment.

Feeling undercut, Crew threatened to resign. For a while, the dispute simmered, with Crew believing that vouchers were “off the radar screen” and that things could be settled amicably.

But late last month, Giuliani unveiled his new budget--proposing to spend $12 million over the next two years to set up a voucher program in a single volunteer school district. Students would be selected by lottery, and the money would be distributed by City Hall.

The truce was over. The war of the Rudys had begun.

“This is an idea whose time has come,” the mayor announced, leveling this broadside: “The whole [school] system should be blown up, and a new one should be put in its place.”

When Crew learned that Giuliani and Peter F. Vallone, the Democratic speaker of the City Council, were crafting a plan to eliminate the entire seven-member Board of Education and replace it with a commissioner appointed by the mayor, with the consent of the council, he struck back.

Calling Giuliani’s actions “reckless and destructive,” Crew faxed a letter to 600 politicians, education officials and others who wield influence in the city. It urged them to fight the voucher plan and the efforts to change the system.

“When the mayor declares that the whole system should be blown up, he tells 1.1 million children and thousands of parents, teachers and administrators that they are wasting their time in schools that he has suddenly dismissed as no good and beyond redemption,” Crew said in the letter. “It’s hard to tell these thousands of people not to take it personally when the mayor is implying that their achievements have amounted to nothing.”

The powerful United Federation of Teachers joined Crew in the counterattack, reminding the mayor that his city contains not just failing schools but also some of the best schools in the nation.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson also rallied behind Crew.

“We have to see the public schools as they are, and we should be worrying about building them up,” said Hillary Clinton, Giuliani’s potential Democratic opponent in the 2000 Senate race.

“Schools should not be blown up, they should be built up,” Jackson reiterated in an address to students at a Brooklyn high school.

Later, delivering a rejoinder, the mayor claimed he was the driving force for school reform.

“I stir things up,” he said.

The day after launching his fax attack, Crew phoned Giuliani. The mayor didn’t return the call. His aides began spreading the word to reporters that he had lost confidence in the chancellor.

Some politicians and educators believe political timing figures prominently in Giuliani’s statements.

Vouchers are a popular cause within the Republican Party and among conservative upstate New York voters.

A recent New York Daily News poll found that 54% of respondents said the reason Giuliani was proposing educational reform is to improve his chances of getting elected to the Senate. Only 30% thought the mayor was serious about improving education.

Crew received high marks by the majority of those polled, who also objected to the mayor’s plan for vouchers and eliminating the Board of Education.

Giuliani’s initiative also comes at a time when a special state commission set up by Gov. George Pataki is looking into possible mismanagement and corruption in the school system. The panel is scheduled to issue its report next year, when Giuliani is expected to be preparing for his Senate campaign.

By attacking the school system and calling for reform, the mayor may be seeking to blunt criticism from the panel.

But Crew also has constituencies to court.

“He had no choice. Had he gone for vouchers, he would have lost credibility with the unions, with the liberal Democratic groups in New York City,” said Henry Levin, professor of educational economics at Stanford University and a specialist on vouchers. “The $12 million next year would become $200 million. . . . The camel’s nose would be in the tent.

“At the same time, Crew . . . truly believes vouchers are inequitable and will not be in the interest of those children most in need of better schools. He sees the voucher plan as creating a skimming of the most motivated parents with resources and their children--who, if they remained in the system, could be a force for reform.”

After days of sparring, Crew and Giuliani finally met privately last week. The tone was very formal. There were no smiles, no shared cigars, no hint of the old times.

“We hope to move beyond this like old friends would,” Crew said, emerging from City Hall.

“It was a business-like meeting,” Giuliani said icily.

“One of the problems is both men are true believers and see little room for compromise,” Levin said. “Giuliani really believes the educational marketplace with vouchers will solve the problem of the schools.

“Crew is between a rock and a hard place right now. . . . The school board he reports to is almost evenly split. Either direction, the chancellor will be unpopular.”

In what could be a preview of things to come, while Crew was out of town caring for his ailing son, four board members supported by the mayor--a majority--rejected the chancellor’s proposal for new construction and secretly wrote a plan of their own, largely crafted at City Hall.

“Giuliani will go true to form,” Levin predicted. He doesn’t yield. He doesn’t take prisoners.”