Bloomberg Administration Intransigence on Contract for Excellence Undermining Support for Mayoral Control

While the mayor and chancellor were being lionized in Washington yesterday by the Broad Foundation and Bush Administration, back home some key stakeholders in public education were not so flattering. In this article by Elizabeth Green in the NY Sun, Queens Assemblyman Ivan Lafayette expressed his frustration over the Bloomberg Administration's failure to submit an acceptable plan to spend new state funds:

Assemblyman Ivan Lafayette, a Democrat of Queens who is the deputy speaker, said he is concerned that the city might not agree to revise its plan. "We're offering all that extra money, but the city refuses to use it as they're requested to do," he said. "They're like petulant children."

Mr. Lafayette said the resistance has convinced him that his support for mayoral control of the schools was a mistake. "The one nice thing we did about this turning the power over to the mayor is that it sunsets in '09," he said.

The article goes on to quote Regents Vice Chancellor Merryl Tisch who also made the misbehaving-children comparison.

Several members of the Board of Regents, the body that governs state education policy, said they have been assured that the city will add a five-year plan to reduce class size and revise its distribution of funds among schools.

"If you don't like the rules, you just don't pick up your marbles and walk away," the Regents vice chancellor, Merryl Tisch, said. "The mayor and the chancellor are such responsible leaders that they would never adhere to ‘I'm picking up my marbles and walking away,'" she added, referring to Mr. Bloomberg and the schools chancellor, Joel Klein.

Earlier coverage of the Contracts for Excellence controversy can be found here and here.

Assembly Leader Lafayette: "Klein is still giving State Education Department the runaround"

On Thursday, the Queens Times published a lengthy letter from Deputy Assembly Speaker Ivan C. Lafayette which was highly critical of DOE's failure to provide the State Education Department with an acceptable plan for reducing class sizes. Here's an excerpt:

Despite all of the rhetoric coming from City Hall and Chancellor Joel Klein, they have made it clear that there are no plans in the immediate future to utilize any of the additional state funding to reduce class size. As of this writing, the city has still yet to come up with a plan on how to reduce class size. Did I mention that the contracts for excellence were supposed to be concluded by mid-August? Because of the irresponsible stubbornness of city Department of Education, we have already started the new school year and there are many more children who are being forced to try achieve more, but under even worse conditions. The budget was enacted on April 1st of this year, with New York City schools receiving $714 million more than last year. Six months later, Chancellor Klein is still giving the State Education Department the runaround. The current school year has already started and a plan is still not in place. It is an absolute slap in the face to the students and teachers who are still working and trying to teach in overcrowded classrooms.

Lafayette concludes his letter with a condemnation of the Bloomberg administration's woeful record on schools construction:

Figures provided to me from the State Department of Education show just how few new schools have actually been constructed over the last five years in New York City, with a majority of these schools being initiated by the previous administration. The law passed this year authorizes that state to provide New York City with an additional $283 million to carry out the goal of smaller class size. Chancellor Klein’s foot-dragging will not only cost the city money, but also cheat the children out of a quality learning experience.

For the full letter, see the Queens Times.

Klein Says "No" To Smaller Classes

Smaller classes is one of the few policies widely recognized to improve student performance. So when powerful Queens Assemblyman, Deputy Assembly Speaker Ivan C. Lafayette raised the issue of overcrowding in Queens classrooms with Chancellor Joel Klein, he hardly expected the door to be slammed in his face. But according to a press release issued by Lafayette's office, that's precisely what happened:

Despite all of the rhetoric coming from City Hall and the New York City Department of Education, Chancellor Joel Klein made it clear to Deputy Speaker Ivan C. Lafayette (D – Jackson Heights) that there were no plans to utilize any additional state funding to reduce class size. Chancellor Klein told this to a group of Queens’ legislators at a meeting on Friday, March 16^th at Tweed Courthouse, which is now the City Department of Education building.

The reason he gave was that in order to reduce class size, he would have to build new schools, meaning he would then have to hire 500 additional teachers. Chancellor Klein also said that he did not believe any teachers would even want to be placed in these new schools because they would be built in the most overcrowded areas, thereby intimating they were minority areas.

Lafayette's bulletin goes on to criticize Klein for failing to avail himself of funding mechanisms made available by the legislature for schools construction:

In 2005, it was the Assembly that pushed for and achieved legislative changes to the building aid formula cost allowance calculation for New York City. This change in the building aid formula, if utilized by New York City properly, will result in 60% of the cost for New York City schools over the next 5 years if the city proceeds with the 13 billion dollar capital plan, which seemingly has been abandoned.

“To date the city has not taken the time to even understand the state capital formula that pays for a majority of the costs to repair existing schools as well as to build new schools,” stated Lafayette.

Under the old formula, the city would receive at most 25% of capital money for new school construction projects. Under the new formula, New York City will receive up to 60% reimbursement from the State for these projects.

Clearly Klein and Bloomberg have no real interest in pursuing the policies proven to improve student performance. And Klein's rationale for opposing smaller classes grows more and more bizarre. At the same time, Klein inexplicably alienates the very legislators who will decide whether to renew mayoral control of the schools when the current experiment ends in 2009.