Dear Chancellor Walcott,
We, the Community Education Council District 2, submit this letter
to register, yet again, our objections on the Contracts for Excellence Proposed
Plan FY14.
We remain firmly committed to the letter and the intent of the
2007-2008 Education Budget and Reform Act, arising out of the Campaign for
Fiscal Equity v. State of New York litigation. We believe reducing
class sizes is one of the most effective ways to improve instruction.
Much has been said about the importance of the effectiveness of teachers but
anyone who has spent any time teaching in the classroom knows even the most
“effective” teacher teaches better in a smaller class. Today with
the Special Education Reform that places more students with special needs in
the least restrictive environment (i.e., general education classes), making
individualized instruction even more critical, smaller classes are the key to
successful classrooms.
We are therefore deeply concerned that not only have class sizes
not been reduced as a result of the Contracts for Excellence plans of recent
years, but the NYC Department of Education has seemingly abandoned efforts to
reduce class sizes.
In District 2 despite several new elementary schools coming online
in the past four years, many of our schools continue to have class sizes that
are higher than the target class sizes of the City’s Class Size Reduction
Plan. More alarmingly the trend appears to be upward, due largely
to the series of budget cuts. It is a travesty that schools in District 2
now have the capacity to reduce class sizes at long last but are unable to do
so for lack of resources. It is also difficult to simply blame the
sluggish economy for lack of resources when we see hundreds of millions of dollars
going into private hands in the name of the Common Core Standards and
associated assessment tools.
We also object again to the continued blatant disregard by the
Department of Education for the legally mandated process for developing the
Contracts for Excellence plan. While the timing of the “public hearing”
was earlier than the last year, it was still held after the school budgets have
been allocated with much of the funds obligated, rendering any public input
meaningless as in the past.
Principals must begin the school year with a budget.
Presumably the budget in September included Contracts for Excellence
funds. We do not understand why public comments were not solicited when
budgets were in development.
Furthermore despite the fact in June 2013 Judge Moulton found your
department in violation of the law, the DOE continues to substitute
presentations at CEC meetings for the required borough-wide hearings. We
have objected to this practice because our meetings often have multiple agenda
items and presentations at our meetings are made by a Network representative,
who is not directly involved in the development or the implementation of the
Contract for Excellence plan. We again urge the DOE to hold
borough-wide hearings with someone from the central DOE offices with detailed
in-depth knowledge of the Contracts for Excellence.
The CECD2 has developed a collaborative process with the DOE
through our zoning efforts in the past several years. We have honest and
frank dialogues and have developed mutual trust with the staff from the Office
of Portfolio Development. We would welcome a similar collaborative effort
on this important program. In a district where overcrowding and large
class sizes have been a chronic problem, we can only make improvements to our
schools through collaboration.
We hope the public hearing process for the Contracts for
Excellence will be a better one for the school year 2014-2015.
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