In June, in response to a lawsuit, New York State Supreme Court Justice Peter Moulton ruled that the NYC Department of Education is obligated to hold annual borough hearings on its Contract for Excellence (C4E) plan and include the transcript of these hearings when it submits its plan to the state – both of which the city has failed to do since 2008. The law is clear that both borough hearings and presentations at Community Education Council meetings are required by the C4E statute passed by the NY State in 2007.
On Friday, the city
announced it will appeal the judge’s decision and deny parents the right to
provide substantive input on its C4E plan, a plan that determines how more than
$500 million per year is spent; and how much is allocated towards reducing class
size.
Over the last decade,
the Bloomberg administration has shown a profound disrespect for parent input
and disinterest in following the letter of the law. One of the most
egregious examples of this is its refusal to adhere to a robust public process
in regards its plan to reduce class, required in the Contracts for Excellence
law. Instead class sizes have increased every year of the past five, are
now the largest in the early grades in 14 years. Even higher class sizes
are expected this fall.
Wendy Lecker, senior
lawyer for the Campaign for Fiscal Equity project at the Education Law Center,
explained: “In June, a court ruled the state Contract for
Excellence law mandates timely public hearings in all five New
York boroughs so parents can react to City’s school spending
plan for 2013-14. These hearings give parents the
opportunity to provide input on how vital education dollars are spent in their
schools. Chancellor Walcott has decided to appeal which
automatically puts the court order on hold. It's deeply disappointing
that the Chancellor is wasting time and taxpayer money fighting
parents in court rather than holding public hearings so the City's parents
can be full partners in their children’s education.”
Shino Tanikawa, a
plaintiff in the lawsuit and the president of District 2’s Community Education
Council in Manhattan, said: "The 15 minutes or so we can devote to this at
a CEC meeting is inadequate both in terms of the depth of discussion and the
amount of public input parents are able to provide given this important issue –
which makes borough hearings essential. The court agreed with us that the
DOE did not follow the law, yet rather than do what is right, the DOE continues
to find ways to minimize the voice of parents. When will parents be
treated as meaningful partners in educating our children?"
Isaac
Carmignani, co-president of the CEC 30 in Queens and another plaintiff, agreed:
“We sincerely hope that the Department of Education looks to uphold the law
rather than try to circumvent it. The presentations CECs receive are
sketchy as best; well-publicized borough hearings are required by law and DOE
should hold them, to allow for full public scrutiny and input on the need to
reduce class size and the DOE’s failure to do so. Class size reduction is
one of the top priorities of parents both in my district and citywide.”
According to Leonie
Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters, “It is outrageous that the
city is determined to waste thousands of dollars just to try to delay the
attention to their failure to reduce class size until Bloomberg is safely out
of office; and to block parent input in this way. Instead of achieving
more accountability with the nearly $600 million NYC receives annually as a
result of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit, we have less, as the
administrators at Tweed have used this program as a slush fund and principals
have used it to fill in the gaps resulting from the DOE’s egregious budget cuts
to our schools.”
This is just one of
the many failures of DOE to be accountable for the spending of these critical
funds. There has been no public disclosure of NYC’s C4E plan --
either by the state or city -- since 2009. There has been
no listing of the city’s approved class size reduction plan since
2009 as well.
The lack of
accountability and transparency with hundreds of millions of dollars of state
funds, meant to provide NYC children with their constitutional right to a sound
basic education, is nothing short of appalling.
More about the
lawsuit is here: NYS Supreme Court rules against NYC DOE and for parents.
Here is an excerpt
from the state law:
4.
a. A district's contract for excellence for the academic year two
thousand eight--two thousand nine and thereafter, shall
be developed through a public process, in
consultation with parents or persons in parental relation,
teachers, administrators, and any distinguished
educator appointed pursuant to section two hundred
eleven-c of this chapter.
b. Such process shall include at least one public hearing. In a city
school district in a city of one million or more
inhabitants, a public hearing shall be held within each county of such
city.
A transcript of the testimony presented at such public
hearings shall be included when the contract for excellence is submitted to the
commissioner, for review when making a determination
pursuant to subdivision five of this section.
c. In a city school district in
a city of one million or more inhabitants, each community
district contract for excellence shall be
consistent with the citywide contract for
excellence and shall be submitted by the community
superintendent to the community district education
council for review and comment at a public meeting.
Here is the
judge’s decision.
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