Mayor Bloomberg and UFT Reach Agreement on Schools Reorganization

Here are some highlights of the agreement announced at the press conference on Friday.

No Budget Cuts For Two Years

The Chancellor and DoE staffers responsible for the Fair Student Funding proposal have argued that many schools receive too much funding. Fair Student Funding would have cut some budgets while raising others. Despite record city surpluses, DoE was intent on taking these budget actions that many feared would destabilize successful schools -- as Deputy Chancellor Grimm told parents at a District 2 CEC public meeting, "there will be winners and losers". Under last week's agreement, the Mayor guaranteed that no school will have its budget cut in the next two years. For the many schools who would have seen large cuts, this retreat on the part of the administration is important.

Joint Planning for Class Size Reduction

New state law requires the Bloomberg administration to develop a five year plan to reduce class sizes in all grades. Under the agreement, the administration pledged to "work with the UFT, and other stakeholders, such as New Yorkers for Smaller Classes to develop a joint set of recommendations on how best to implement the law". Given the administration's past refusal to reduce class size or to engage anyone on this issue, their statement that they will proceed in cooperation with others represents a change in their public stance and may lead to progress. New Yorkers for Smaller Classes is a coalition chaired by Lillian Rodriguez-Lopez of the Hispanic Federation and includes the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), Class Size Matters, the NAACP, CPAC, ACORN, as well as many other parent and advocacy groups.

Increased Funding for English Language Learners (ELL)

The weighting for ELL students will increase compared to the original Fair Student Funding proposal, resulting in more funding for each student. A reserve fund will be established to ensure sufficient money is available should the new funding methodology leave gaps as it is implemented.

Parent Engagement

The agreement calls for a committee chaired by the DoE's Chief Family Engagement Officer and comprised of parent groups, to "design improved systems and processes for parent engagement, and specifically, to ensure that every school has a well functioning and well trained School Leadership Team".

Commitment to Engage on Issues

On several other issues -- middle school reform, teacher tenure and student success centers -- the administration pledged to work closely with various relevant advocacy and parent groups, as well as other stakeholders, including the City Council, going forward.


For parents, the agreement is a bit of a mixed bag. There are significant concessions and a welcome willingness on the part of the administration to take input from a wider group of stakeholders. These openings need to be pursued in good faith. At the same time, none of the elected parent organizations mandated by state and city regulations to represent parents were mentioned in the discussion of issues that are tremendously important to parents. The citywide elected parent organizations -- Chancellors Parent Advisory Committee (CPAC), Citywide Council on High Schools (CCHS) and Citywide Council on Special Education (CCSE) -- were clearly not parties to the agreement, nor were the Community Education Councils that represent parents in each of the 32 school districts. Many of these bodies have passed resolutions that address important issues not included in the agreement, for example excessive testing, the poor state of special ed services, the reckless pace of the incessant restructurings, etc. There is clearly much more that needs to be done.

The press release detailing the agreement can be found here.