City Council hearings: More cuts to schools and even larger classes next year as contracts grow fatter??

Me testifying with other advocates; credit CM Jackson who tweeted this

Yesterday the NYC Council Education committee held preliminary hearings on the mayor’s proposed education operating budget.  Here is a good report from NY1, here is the analysis of the budget by Council staff; here is my testimony [also shown below].  The proposed operating budget for next year, despite an overall increase in spending, would cut schools by another $64 million, with $182 million cut to general education instruction alone, leading to a projected loss of 2,570 teachers and even higher class sizes in the future. Meanwhile, the contract budget is projected to grow even fatter, to $4.7 billion.

Though Chancellor Walcott kept repeating that in the final proposed budget, he expects school budgets to be flat rather than cut, even a flat budget would still likely to lead to a sharp loss in general education teachers and continued class size increases, since the costs of programs go up each year, as well as the number of special education students with mandated class sizes and services that schools have to fulfill.  We have seen a sharp fall in the number of general ed teachers in recent years, with over 2,000 lost last year alone – and according to our estimates, more than 10,000 such positions eliminated since 2007.

Many Council Members focused on teacher attrition and the effects on class size.  The DOE responded that class size increases were not their fault, but the effect of the recession, the choices of empowered principals, and anyway, they weren’t sure that class size mattered.  [See my testimony for rebuttals on all these points.]  Other topics included the ballooning contract budget, the cost and damaging impact of small schools and co-located charters, the lack of college readiness of NYC students, and whether mayoral control can finally be deemed a failure or success after ten years.

Another issue of concern was how the DOE seems still o be unable to obtain federal Medicaid reimbursement for special services, having already lost out on more than a billion dollars in funds since 2005, which would have helped offset the rising cost of special education.  The latest update is that while the city projected in this year's budget reimbursement of about $117 M, so far they have only submitted claims for about $25 million for “case management services” from prior years, and have not yet submitted any new claims. Education Chair Robert Jackson was especially concerned about where funds to fill this gap might be found. Walcott pledged to avoid further cuts to schools.

Below is my admittedly imprecise transcript of the proceedings, along with the testimony of the union heads, Mulgrew of UFT, Crespo of DC 37, and Logan of the CSA. As usual, Council members critiques were on point, and often  frustrated with the lack of responsiveness from DOE officials, although after 10 years of this, the proceedings seem a bit ritualistic. My testimony is also posted below, with more details on DOE’s misplaced priorities when it comes to education spending and class size.

Testifying for DOE were Chancellor Walcott, Dept. Chancellor Shael Suransky, and CFO Michael Tragale.When I got there Walcott was coming to the end of his testimony, promoting the Mayor’s proposals to give $25K bonuses when signing new teachers who graduated at the top of their class, and $20K for those who rated “effective” 2 years in a row.

CM Lou Fidler asks Walcott about loss of 5000 teachers in last two years and the resulting sharp increase in class size; small classes are necessary for quality education.  How many more teaching positions lost should e expected next year? Walcott says despite cuts to schools, they are still improving results.  Walcott says it’s too early to project attrition levels and they cannot share models.  At next meeting, we will share if you like.

CM Robert Jackson; budgets released late last year; when will they this year?  Walcott: as early as possible; Tragale: we expect mid to late May.

CM Brad Lander: Continuing the focus on class size; he released a new report showing the rapid growth of class sizes of 30 or more.  In 2009; less than 1% of classes in grades 1-3 were that large; this year the number has tripled.  The loss of  another 2700 gened teachers is projected.  Are you looking at consequences, impacts of very large class sizes?  Teacher quality matters, but no parent wants his or her child in classes in 30 or more.

Suransky:  You should look at the context, we have had the deepest recession during our lifetime.  We lost $1.7 billion in state and federal cuts.  Philly laid off one fourth of its teachers.  We only saw a 3% increase in elementary school class size; we don’t want to see this, but class size doesn’t necessarily correlate to achievement, and the research is mixed. [NOT!]  Lander: have you looked at whether these large classes may have affected outcomes? Suransky:  We haven’t done specific analysis, to see how affecting achievement, and we don’t know about further attrition.

Lander: how can we get these kids out of classes of 30 or more?. We didn’t have this problem in 2009.  I would appreciate it if you could take a closer look at the data.  Doesn’t matter how good teacher is, it’s hard to attend to the needs of 30 or more students.  What would be cost be to ensure that 2600 positions aren’t lost?  And how much would it cost to keep class sizes under 30 in the early grades?

Jackson: how many gened teachers lost in FY 12?  Tragale: Down 1200 according to the Mayor’s management report.[No; this is all teachers; not gened; our estimates show a loss of about 3,000 gened teachers  this year.]

CM Al Vann talks about importance of after school programs, Boys and Girls HS winning athletic prizes, etc.

CM Dominic Recchia; you say you don’t anticipate reductions to school budgets; what U/As you put together to make statement?  Tragale: [answers with gobbledygook].  Recchia: what exactly UA ‘s [Units of Appropriation] do you use?   I see a  $64 M decrease in school budgets.

Tragale: These adjustments are snapshot in time; any attrition adjustment doesn’t mean budget cuts to schools.  In terms of codes, I’m looking at 410-404, 481-2.  Recchia: I use same codes & this shows $64M cut to schools.  For the chancellor to come and say you don’t anticipate cuts, but in any case, we see that the overall budgets will be flat.  [Which will necessitate cuts to programs/teachers, esp. general ed teachers, since costs rise each year due to inflation alone, and special ed costs increase esp. rapidly, as this population is also increasing rapidly.]

Recchia: We’ve seen so many teachers cut; can you break it out so later we can see how many teachers lost in each category?  Walcott says okay.  Recchia:  you added network staff to the UA of 401 [budget code for school-level general ed instruction] for the first time this year; this makes it even more difficult for me and staff to figure out how much is being allocated at school level; why?

Tragale: In terms of the CFNs [Children First Networks], they are supported thru school budgets, part of allocations pay for this; we thought it appropriate.  Recchia: Schools were never charged for this support before when there were districts. [And even with the SSO’s, the DOE kept the mid-level bureaucracy on a separate budget line; now they are trying to hide this at the spending at the school level.] Recchia: this may look good on paper, but you’re taking away from schools.  Walcott: schools do benefit from networks.  Recchia: if you get additional money from state, we request you find mechanism to hire back 642 school aides laid off this year.

CM Ydanis Rodriguez:  What is our plan for future? Do you believe we are in crisis when only 13% black and Latino students college-ready?  Walcott: I’m not going to respond to this specific word “crisis”.  I believe we have a lot of work to do, and our reforms are aimed at accomplishing this.

Rodriguez:  We need more college advisers per student;  we don’t have enough.  Suransky: school staff are going thru a “massive training” for college advising & every school will have this ability by next year.  We want to partner with you on this.  Rodriguez: College advisory should start in 6^th grade, and a college prep course should be required in 9^th grade.  Also schools at the George Washington HS, not doing well re safety & performance; I don’t want you to close or relocate schools these schools, but you should be addressing their challenges now.

CM Barron credit: NY1

CM Charles Barron: points out how even flat school budgets leads to staff cuts; meanwhile contract budgets huge and rising; this year at $4.6 B with an increase of nearly $1 B this year.  “Somebody is getting rich; some people are making big money off of a failing system.”  The entire city contract budget $10 B; DOE has 40% of contracting budget. [For the list of contracts in each category and the horrifying amounts, see p. 30 of the Committee report.]

CM Robert Jackson: DOE could and should have renegotiated these egregious contracts to save money. Walcott: we're trying to save money for preK special ed busing contracts [but they want to eliminate requirements that companies hire experienced drivers] Tragale: we did decide to bring in-house some technology work. [Finally; after years of waste and corruption!] We’re also looking at bringing in house some technical services; we think we should be able to save a few million there as well.

Jackson: Temp service contracts at $20M (60% city total); OTHER unspecified Personal Services contracts at $64M (44% of city’s total). Lots of DOE consultants have gone to jail b/c they are ripping us off!  Walcott:  lots of contracts helping kids.

CM Gail Brewer: We need more mental health services and support for schools.  Do you have data on this and what are you doing to help these kids, so don’t they end up in trouble?  Walcott: some schools have relationships w/ CBO’s that provide services.  Brewer: Esp. when you look at large class sizes more needed.   Also technology: charter schools have IPADs, regular pub schools don’t have them.  Suransky: We needed to upgrade wiring; this is part of capital budget.  Schools do have budgets for technology; and working w/ schools to develop that capacity.  Brewer: creates tensions and scanners make it hard to get in. We are behind rest of country.  Suransky: we are not behind but ahead. Brewer: how much is the budget for Fund for the Public School?  Walcott: We’ll get it to you.  Brewer: Special ed what is the dollar figure for sped private schools?  Tragale: Contract schls at $1.5 B, has gone up.  Brewer: PS 75, wants to take these students but has been told to wait.

CM Daniel Dromm  credit: NY1

CM Daniel Dromm: One third of your testimony is about teacher evaluation; the release of these TDRs was a total disgrace.  About 400 people came to our rally; morale of teachers very low.  Why does the administration demonize teachers?  Walcott denies.  Dromm: Teachers not the problem, but lack of resources and class sizes.  Walcott: we need better teacher eval system.  Dromm: Release of TDRS the problem.  Continual focus on this.  When are you going to talk about class size?  D 24 still hugely overcrowded.  Teachers do not see this as business.  Teachers would rather have small class size than merit pay; and where are you going to get money for merit pay proposal?

Walcott: This proposal is not reflected in this year’s budget.

Dromm: School turnaround process: teachers are going into ATR or into other schools?  These are not “ineffective’ teachers, as you said in your testimony.  Walcott: these are teachers who are not selected by committee; they may go into ATR or can be hired by other school.

CM Margaret Chin: DOE continues to create more and more small schools; IBO said one year hiatus of new schools would save $12M; and they continue to have a higher admin cost. Manhattan charter school going into a District 1 building w/ many other public schools; it will have fewer than 274 students; surely this is very expensive.  Suransky: Usually our small schools are 400-500 students; Chin says this one less than 300. Suransky: perhaps because there is not enough space.  Our small schools show high expectations, teachers have lots of support; results are better, yada yada yada.

Chin: But successful public schools are not allowed to grow because DOE wants to put charters in building.  Suransky: we are very balanced in our priorities; most co-located schools have developed successful set of relationships and collaborate well [NOT!].

Chin: How many new schools do you plan open in next fiscal year and what cost?  Suransky: approximately 40.  We’ll get the figure to you.  Tragale:  30 new public schools next year and 28 charters; for total of 58.   How much in budget?  About $12 M for new public schools; charter schools, don’t know yet.

CM Ignizio: Do we have teacher shortage in NYC?  Walcott: No.  At peak few years ago, we got 75K applications for teachers for 5K openings; high demand.  Ignizio:  So we could reduce class size with no loss of quality; no? I I was one of those kids, I would sit in back of classroom and talk and not pay attention.  Smaller classes help kids who are average but could be superior if teacher could focus more.  Full day preK?  Walcott says we  support it. [losing preK seats this year.]  Medicaid reimbursement?  We only brought in small amount of reimbursement.

Tragale:  we are doing everything we can to build more reimbursements.  Walcott: It’s a  detailed process where rules have changed in recent years.  Ignizio says he’s glad Staten Island may get busing variance, and new money from state for this.

CM Fidler: staff just handed me the education budget which has only three pages; we need more detail so the public and Council members can help finds savings; we have been talking about this for 10 yrs; we need  more detail in education budget.

CM Mark Weprin: Special ed services that city has to provide; process drags on, with attorneys, and DOE ends up paying both attorneys.  Can we streamline this process?  Suransky: we are trying to create more opportunities to keep children in neighborhood schools, 200 schools are now implementing these reforms, and broadening in future; improving services with less need to look beyond school and system.  Weprin: impact on school budgets?  Suransky: schools will receive proportional increases if they enroll more students w/ disabilities.

Weprin: teachers are being taken out of classrooms to grade exams.  What can we do to prevent that?  Suransky: NY State doesn’t pay for grading of state tests. Instead, passes costs to districts; some teachers are working overtime and some during day; we used to spend $10-15 M for overtime for grading; reducing the need to pull teachers out of classroom; but now we have less money to do this.  The state should fund it as other states do. Weprin: Can’t you use other staff?  Suransky: Has to be licensed teachers.  [Why not use ATRs? According to GothamSchools, not because most ATRs are HS teachers.  So what; can't they be trained to score 3rd-8th exams?]

CM David Greenfield: About the special ed Carter cases; DOE hired five new attorneys to litigate these cases. Tragale: correct, we now have 40 attorneys.  How much cost?  Tragale: doesn’t know. Greenfield: Isn’t it true that DOE doesn’t have space to accommodate all these students?  Suransky: not true.  Greenfield: true you are hiring former prosecutors?  Walcott: we don’t want to pay exorbitant fees, we are advocating on behalf of taxpayers.

CM Jackson:  DOE now challenging every year rather than every three years even after courts have already ruled that the special ed placement in private schools is appropriate.

CM Jumaane Williams: There’s a unique hubris of this administration when it comes to governance style.  They don’t listen and the problem is with Mayoral control.  Do you agree it has been a failure if only 13% of black and Latino kids are college ready, and  only 25% of students overall?

Walcott: Mayoral control is a success because people know where to express concerns and hold people accountable.  You see improvement over years in terms of HS grad rate etc. 

Williams:  Statistics are manipulated; books are “cooked” ; we can’t even get  alist of all contracts when services are cut.  We are hurting our poor and minority  students.  
Walcott: I won’t be lectured to when it comes to this; we are doing everything we can to improve outcomes, especially for minority students.  [UNTRUE! class size reduction is one of few reforms proven to narrow achievement gap, and yet allowing class sizes to rise to largest levels in over a decade.]  We have seen an increase no. of students taking AP courses etc.

Williams: You have not been successful in 10 yrs, we need municipal control. Mayoral control failing to achieve goals; why not listen to other people when you make your policies.  [Arguing :  back and forth. ] Williams: did the mayor ever ask you to cut your contract budget?  Walcott: contracts proving services to schools and students; mayor has increased spending overall. Spending is decided by principals [but not CONTRACTS!]

CM Fernando Cabrera: We know the system is failing; students were better prepared 20 yrs ago; CUNY says NYC students are NOT prepared;  SAT scores falling, and more students taking remedial courses, spending money for courses not getting credit.  Also, DOE did too little in addressing sexual abuse cases; students will live w/ this trauma for rest of lives; why did it take so long?  Class sizes: keep going up; yet we have a court order to bring down class sizes.  Why do you let this keep happening when we know it is one of our biggest problems?

Medicaid target this year $117 M; but now we know we won’t get it all, where are we going to cut instead?  Walcott: we don’t know.  [They argue about when the city stopped getting Medicaid reimbursements; Cabrera says it started 5 yrs ago and Walcott denies. Cabrera is right and Walcott is wrong.] 

Walcott points out more students taking SATs even if scores are down.  I disagree that we did too little too late about sex abuse cases.  We are on top of this.  I reviewed 200 cases; I acted where I had flexibility.

Cabrera: Should have done before.  Walcott: says he hadn’t power to remove teachers, give me that power.  It’s all a matter of timing and little latitude.  (Actually DOE did nothing; and as a result many school staff w/ substantiated allegations of sexual misconduct are still in schools b/c in many cases, they let the three year statute of limitations lapse.)

CM Letitia James: You should hire more arbitrators instead. Walcott: No, that’s not the issue. Sometimes arbitrators make wrong decision. I oppose hiring more.  James: Support rehiring 656 school aides?  Walcott: Leave it up to principals.    Beauty of system principals have ability to use money how they want.  James says principals forced to cut b/c of budget cuts.

James asks about Verizon: DOE has been unable to spend technology dollars and get services because of “legal challenges?”  Walcott: We are meeting w/ Verizon to resolve outstanding issues; will resolve in 2-3 weeks.  We will work to give you all contracts.  James: OMB prohibits capital spending on Kindles etc.; can you have discussion w/ OMB?  CMs want their reso dollars to be spent on Kindles and other such devices. Also, PS 115; 300 Willoughby. DOE wants to put 5^th school in building; 2^nd transfer school in building.  I am prepared to go to court on this; you need to reconsider that position.

CM Steve Levin: Early childhood and afterschool  programs facing big cuts;  urge you and work w/ those agencies to see how DOE cd help these programs. Also early childhood RFP will be disastrous; and will affect DOE performance in coming yrs.  Special ed preK; reimbursement from state; are we willing to go to court for $1B that we are owed?  Walcott: we have ongoing relationship w/ state and cannot speak to any lawsuit.

Levin: I do believe TDR’s being published decrease in teacher morale.  One school , IS 318, Daily News launched a crusade against; smear campaign.  I have proposed a resolution to officially honor teachers of NYC ; can you support?  Walcott: understand reality of TDRs to public conversation and within schools.  I have tried to be balanced.  Never heard me or Mayor demonize teachers.  We had court obligation to release information, but we placed the proper caveats around them.

Suransky: we have best teachers in country; they work very hard; we won't stand for anyone demonizing teachers & the fact that tabloids are taking advantage of this is shameful.

Jackson: how much would the teacher bonuses cost?  Walcott: We need two years of highly effective teachers; wouldn’t be reflected in this year’s budget.  [what about signing bonuses for new teachers?]  We also need more detailed breakdown of units of appropriation.   OMB is frustrated w/ DOE as we are in the lack of detail provided to them.   Concerned about expected failure to get expected Medicaid reimbursement in budget for this year.

Walcott: we won’t pass on Medicaid loss to schools.  $167 M for Medicaid for next year realistic goal?  We’re still shooting for this target.Looking for  supports from UFT needed title reclassification, etc.

Jackson: we don’t anticipate cuts to school budgets or layoffs; but flat, will have to reduce employees or services, b/c costs go up.  What progress have you made for ELL students in bilingual corrective action plan?  Suransky: exceptions to hiring freeze; working w/ teaching fellows to train more bilingual teachers for corrective action plan; target for new programs to hire more 40 of these teachers next year and more the year thereafter.

Jackson: How many ATR’s? Walcott: 850 teachers in ATR pool.  RJ: you said we would save $40M for substitutes.  Have projected savings?  Tragale: ATR rotation: we ended 1140 FY 11; 844 now.  We have saved $20M for salaries; $30M w/ fringe.  How many art and music teachers in ATR pool? Don’t know.

CM Brewer:  principals in pipeline; turnover?  Suransky: We have a consistent pattern 150 new principals each year. 5 yr grant grant from Wallace Foundation; starting to develop teachers earlier in careers as principals.

CM Lander: We need more ASD NEST programs, rather than neighborhood school having to accept all special needs kids. Suransky:  A lot of kids have different kinds of disabilities; but vast majority of kids not in autistic spectrum can be in regular classes.  We need more kids w/ disabilities in regular classes.  [But they won’t succeed in large classes we have in our schools!  ASD Nest program; class sizes capped at 14-18 students] Graduation rate of sped kids in special classes hovers around  5-6%.

Rodriguez: We need to strengthen early childhood education; Walcott says expanding Common Core into preK. What plan to put more resources in low college readiness?  Suransky: better curriculum and better quality teachers in those schools.

Walcott: repeats for upteenth time; budget will be flat, not cut.

Jackson: We should put a hiatus on new schools.  New admins & supervisors for these schools, very expensive.  Suransky: they are replacing other schools; costs even out over time.  [UNTRUE!  new smaller schools very much more expensive; greater admin costs than older larger schools phasing out.] Tragale: each new school $250K per year extra but cost over time flattens out.

Jackson: What about ATR costs for phase out schools, firing half of teachers?  Suransky: vary on quality of applicants in existing school and new applicants.  Walcott: Cannot estimate costs.

Jackson: why eliminate Nov. class size report and TCU reports; when parents care so much about this?  New Commission established will vote on whether to eliminate those reports. Did DOE put this forward proposal? Will eliminate transparency.

Tragale: Nov. class size report does not include audited info.  [Uses audited Oct. 31 audited register.] Feb. report; more accurate. [But parents need this info near the beginning of year, and Feb. report has smaller classes because so many kids drop out.] What about TCU trailer report? Neither Walcott nor Tragale seem to know anything about this.

The DOE contingent leaves.  Michael Mulgrew, head of UFT next witness. Here is his written testimony.

Mulgrew: We have lost 6700 teachers in recent years; fewest guidance counselors per student in entire state.  Why are charter schools getting a 7% increase when our schools are being cut?  We should be getting $800M reimbursement from Medicaid, with $240M on busing alone for most disabled kids; this is the easiest thing to get reimbursed for and DOE is not doing it. Teachers don’t need a signing bonus, instead we should hire more teachers to reduce class size.  We don’t need TFA and teaching fellows, who get paid a fee when our teaching colleges cannot place their graduates.  We are seeing about 2600 retirements a year and other teachers quitting; total of 4000 teachers leaving per year.  Teacher morale is  at an all-time low. Increase planned in state aid; where will that money go?

Levin:  True that DOE reached out to you for suggestions on how to do better on Medicaid?  Mulgrew: they sent a letter to us on 3 PM the day before the Medicaid hearings.  I sent back some proposals.

Santos Crespo, head of Local 372, DC 37: We only learned this fall that 642 school aides were laid off because of a $22M shortfall.  236 have been rehired; rest collecting unemployment.  DOE should use some of CityTime $500M payment to restore cuts to budget and staffing.  Wouldn’t trust DOE to properly count sock drawer.

Ernie Logan of CSA: [Written testimony here.]The Children First networks don’t work; they should restore the districts that are still in state law.  The networks and superintendents try to pass the buck about whose responsibility it is.  If a principal is ineffective the first year, he or she should have the right to remove their CFN support group, but DOE says no.  If 33 schools are failing, don’t the networks have any responsibility?  ARIS and SESIS [DOE multi-million dollar data systems] don’t work, and the only response from DOE is that ‘we’re working on it.”  Principals spend a lot of time not being helped by this technology. DOE is spending $4.7B on contractors, with no oversight.  Principals have never been able to plan ahead.  When DOE eliminated districts, also eliminated many speech provider supervisors with responsibility to see that we had enough speech therapists and who did the required paperwork.  With all the PCB’s leaking in our schools, they don’t care about our children.

Jackson: what about the proposal to eliminate the Nov. class size reports and the report on TCUs?  Logan: we should stick w/ the Nov. class size report, Oct. 31 is the audited register.  They can play around with the numbers afterwards.  They have done nothing to get rid of trailers; they are not environmentally safe or sound.  Students deserve to be in regular buildings; we should not be educating kids in trailers.  And then in Albany, the Chancellor claimed that principals “like” the trailers; not true! 

Veteran principals feel mistreated and micromanaged from afar.  We believe in accountability; but the DOE is closing schools that got A’s; releasing TDR’s with flawed data and error rates of up to 70%, and telling principals that  they don’t trust their judgment when it comes to giving tenure to their own teachers.  They want to remove 50% of staff in turnaround schools, why?  As a result, many talented principals are leaving for other cities. 

My testimony followed, click on the link if below is too hard to read.

CSM Testimony Operating Budget March 2012

Update! Rally and hearings about the mayor's devastating cuts to our kids

There was a rousing rally at City Hall yesterday morning, with parents and elected officials standing up for our kids and against the mayor’s ruthless and devastating cuts.  

The actress Kristin Johnston made a great speech, saying that she has had a long love affair with NYC ever since she moved here more than ten years ago, but that these budget cuts threatened to kill that love, and would seriously damage Bloomberg's legacy.  “Is this really the message you want to give to the kids? Your education doesn’t matter?"   She said that the citizens of NYC would fight back, and win: “I only have two words for you: Cathie Black!”  (Photo at right from DNA info of Johnston, in back of the banner made by the activist parents of District 6.)

The city council budget hearings that followed were eye-opening as usual.  Chair of the Education committee Robert Jackson led off with a strong opening statement, saying that while the mayor wants to cut 6,000 teachers for a savings of $350 million, DOE was projecting increased spending on contract schools (private schools) by $157 million, and special ed preK by $165 million, with no explanation as to why. Overall, the DOE plans to increase its contract budget by over $700 million, rising to $4.5 billion.

Walcott was steadfast that all these spending increases on private contracts and IT consultants were necessary; though he did announce that the DOE had (finally!) cancelled its contract with Future Technology Associates, the huge, wasteful and probably corrupt IT contract that the DOE has spent over $100 million on, with  63 consultants getting more than $250K per year, and much of the actual work done by cheap labor in India and Turkey while DOE  was being charged over $100 per hour for their work.  

This company, that Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez has been reporting on for almost two years, was supervised by Judith Krohe,  DOE’s executive director of financial operations,  who, it turns out, was personally involved with one of the principals. She has now resigned in disgrace, and the company is under investigation by the Special Investigators office, based on Juan’s revelations (though when RJ  held up a copy of one of Juan’s Daily News columns , Walcott said you can’t believe everything you read in the papers.  Unfortunately for the taxpayer,  you can.)  Here is Juan’s update on the FTA issue.

Repeatedly, the DOE has said that FTA’s work was so expert that it could not be brought in- house; now they admit that by hiring 20-25 employees, they will save taxpayers $2.7 million in one year alone. Why can’t this be done with more contracts, RJ asked.  Why can’t they renegotiate all their contracts and ask for a 5-10% cut?  Impossible, said Walcott.

Jackson said that contractors are “ripping us off by millions of dollars, ripping us blind” because they figure the “mayor is a millionaire so no one cares.”  Walcott: we report every infraction to the SCI and we have strict internal protocols. Veronica Comforme, the DOE”s chief financial officer said that they had put these new systems in during last year and a half.  (What about the eight years before that?  How many hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars have been ripped off? )

Chief Academic Officer Shael Suransky said that they would soon start billing Medicaid $100 million a year, which they stopped in 2005 because the feds said that the DOE didn’t document properly the services given (they have already lost $600 M through their incompetence in this area alone. Let’s hope SESIS, the DOE sped reporting program is working; there have been complaints that it is even more dysfunctional than ARIS.)

Finance Chair Dominic Recchia asked how many children were in the contract schools. Victoria Conforme, head of finance, said she didn’t know, Recchia complained that  there was a terrible lack of transparency as to the education budget, and the DOE was not responsive to follow-up information requests. 

CM Fidler said there was a “holy trinity” of school success: small class size, teacher quality and parent involvement, and that the mayor should go to Albany and make a deal with the Governor to extend the millionaire’s tax, with its revenue dedicated to education aid.  He asked Walcott if he would ask the mayor to do that, and Walcott said no, this wasn’t his job.  Besides which,  an “effective teacher” can do his job well, no matter what the class size.  Fidler said he was very “disappointed” and that he wished he would show “leadership” and that “someone has to advocate for the kids.”

The most persistent questioners on class size were Council members Daniel Dromm, a former teacher, and Brad Lander.  Both pointed out that the DOE estimate of only a two student per class increase was unlikely to occur in many schools.  Dromm pointed out that when a school  eliminates a classroom teacher, this immediately raises the size of classes on the grade by five or six, depending on how many classes per grade there are, in a non-linear fashion. Lander pointed out that already classes had increased  in size to excessive levels, and asked what the actual contractual class size caps were by grade. 

Again, none of the top-level DOE officials appeared to know the answer to this very basic question, neither Walcott, Suransky, or Conforme, though they had been asked this same question by Lander in the previous month’s hearings.   (The actual caps are to the left, compared to the CFE or Contract for Excellence goals.  In every grade but Kindergarten, they are 30 or more.)  Lander asked what would be the effect on classes that were already near thirty;  Walcott shrugged his shoulders and said they hadn’t done that analysis. Lander said that their apparent unconcern about this issue and their failure to do any analysis was unfair to parents. 

The reality is that the union contractual class size caps in grades 1-5 are 32, and many classes could indeed rise to that level if these cuts go through; these are huge class sizes not seen in the early grades in  many years.  The confusion on this point is a result of how  previously, the DOE had honored a side agreement with the UFT that limited class sizes in grades 1-3 to 28 students per class, which is still far too large but far better than 32. Class sizes could rise even above these limits, since there is an obscure rule called "breakage" meaning if the surplus number of students does not amount to more than half the limit of a new class, the violation can remain unaddressed.

Tweed no longer honors the side agreement that limited class size to 28 in 1-3 grades, and the UFT does not grieve these violations.  This is yet another of the myriad ways that the Bloomberg administration has systematically undermined class size and the quality of education received by NYC children in recent years

Walcott's testimony revealed multiple levels of shifting rationales. Why not let the principals choose what to cut, according to the DOE theory of principal autonomy, asked RJ, instead of unilaterally deciding that six thousand teaching positions must be eliminated?  Walcott said he is looking for input from principals, but that the decision to lay off teachers has to be made centrally.

Several council members drew attention to the big increase in charters and their spending and staffing that comes directly out of the DOE budget.  There will be 18 new charter schools next year, and charter growth  will cost the DOE an additional $120 million; amounting to more $666 million, not counting the space and services which DOE gives them for free.  Why the big increase in charters, asked CM Steven Levin, doesn’t that divert even more resources from our district public schools?  Walcott said that the growth in charters was in response to parental demand.  But then Levin pointed out that there is also strong parental demand not to lay off any teachers.

Jackson, Fidler, and Recchia all repeatedly criticized the DOE for putting out non-transparent budgets, and not responding adequately to follow up questions from staff.  One way in which the DOE purposely obscures its spending is by repeatedly claiming that they’ve made cuts in the bureaucracy when with more careful analysis, it turns out they’ve just pushed costs to the school level.  For example, a couple of years ago, DOE claimed cost savings in the central administration in test scoring, but then it turned out these “savings” were achieved by making schools send their teachers to score state exams during school time, requiring principals to hire substitutes instead;  earlier Tweed had paid teachers overtime to do this same job.

Recchia alluded to the fact that the educrats at Tweed are playing new tricks with the budget, by obscuring the continued expansion of the mid-level bureaucracy at the expense of the classroom by  submerging almost 2,000 positions  of the ever-expanding Children First networks into the budget line of school-level spending called “ General education and Special education Instruction and School Leadership.” 

Through all the shifting reorganizations, from the districts, to the regions, to the school support organizations and now to the CFNs and clusters, the  midlevel bureaucracy had a budget line that was kept separate from schools,  so that their headcount and spending could be separately tracked.  That’s how we knew that the savings DOE claimed they’d achieved by eliminating the districts was illusory.  No longer; now they claim a reduction of the bureaucracy of $17 million; while hiding its growing headcount at the school level.  In this way, they are doubling cheating our kids – as the actual cuts to the classroom are even larger than apparent.

Speaker Quinn and Recchia put out a statement calling for $75 million in alternative cuts; including $4 million from Teach For America and the New Teacher Project recruitment and training, a smaller DOE press office,  and $13.2 million from the DOE’s IT contracts (projected to be $50.6 million, up 76% from this year alone.)   More on their proposals here, and more accounts of the hearings from  GothamSchools, Post, Daily News,  Times, NY1  and DNA info, which has additional photos of the rally and the hearings. See also D6 parent Tory Frye’s FB page with some short videos.

This was my statement at the press conference, which sums up my views:

One of the ways in which a city reveals its future and its soul is by the way it treats its children.  By any measure, the mayor fails in this category.  He has wasted hundreds of millions of dollars and continues to waste millions more on no-bid contracts, consultants, computers, and testing; and instead wants to slash the budget by eroding the most important thing of all: the personal relationship between a student and his or her teacher. 

Already, class sizes have steadily increased in recent years and school level spending has been cut by 12%. Eliminating six thousand teaching positions at a time of enrollment growth would be absolutely devastating and would return us to the dark ages as far as class size goes.  The mayor’s cuts reveal that rather than putting children first, he is putting them last. 

Before adopting these devastating cuts, the mayor and the council should consider whether they would subject their own children to class sizes of thirty or more.  If the answer is no, they should do everything they can to restore all 6,000 teaching positions.