Millions in DOE contracts awarded for buses even if they're not running & scoring guides for tests that may never be given

 

As Sue Edelman reports in today's NY Post, last week the PEP approved the extension of contracts with busing companies through 2025 that will guarantee them 43% of the full amount -- amounting to more than $500 million per year ---whether buses are running or not.  

The  DOE also agreed to pay $106 million for May and June when buses were unused, which they say is 40% of the regular cost of busing for those two months.  This is less than the 85% that they originally planned to pay before we sounded the alarm last April about these contracts, at a savings of more than $100 million, but is still far more than they had to hand over.  

These contracts, like many others, contained a force majeure clause, which would allow all payments to be stopped in case of a pandemic, as a letter last spring from the NYC Comptroller pointed out. The NY Post article doesn't reveal what the DOE paid for the six weeks in March and April when the schools were also closed and buses weren't running, but one can assume DOE paid these companies the full contracted amount of more than $130 million per month during this period.

As I am quoted in today's article, the decision of the DOE to guarantee these payments, starting this year through 2025, seems extremely imprudent, especially given the huge dip in revenue the city is experience which may lead to even more budget cuts to our schools and their staffing: 

"Without more transparency about the rationale for these controversial contracts, it is impossible to know why the DOE is willing to sacrifice up to half a billion dollars per year in taxpayer money to busing companies through 2025, whether their buses are running or not,” Haimson said. “This seems highly irresponsible, especially given the fiscal crisis NYC is facing, which could lead to years of damaging budget cuts to our schools.“

Already today, the Mayor announced that in nine zip codes in Brooklyn and Queens, 100 public schools and 200 non-public schools (for which we also pay for busing) will be closed for at least the next two weeks.  More schools very well may close in the coming weeks, and yet the city will have to pay a minimum of more than a half a billion this year to the bus companies whether they are transporting students or not. 

Last spring, when we alerted reporters to the fact that the PEP was about to vote on renewing contracts with these companies which called for full payment even after the school buildings had been closed, the DOE pulled the contracts from the PEP meeting and restarted negotiations.  Then the bus companies started promulgating scare stories, warning if payments halted, neither the buses or their drivers would be ready to restart this fall.  One should note that doesn't appear to have happened.  The bus unions also warned of extreme economic damage to the drivers, but instead they went on unemployment, which at $600 per week through July may have surpassed their usual wages. 

Other wasteful contracts if less expensive were approved by the PEP last week.  One of them involves more than $800,000 in payments to Questar, the company which administers the state exams, for ELA and Math scoring guides for the years 2019-2020 as below.

What's wrong with this contract, aside from its excessive amount (couldn't these materials be provided online rather than printed and shipped ) and the way that it was authorized months after the period when it supposed to begin?  

No scoring or testing was done last year, because these exams were cancelled during the pandemic.  The DOE document says that "Questar had printed about 65,000 Scoring Guides for the  ELA  exams  scheduled  for  March  2020" whose cost DOE now apparently intends to pay for and use in 2021.  

If the exams aren't given in 2021, the document explains: 

Additionally, the requested term is for three years in case the upcoming state exam is suspended in spring 2021 until spring 2022; in this scenario, the three-year term allows the vendor to store and reuse the printed ELA scoring guides, saving additional costs, for the spring 2022 administration.

However, what the DOE doesn't mention here is that if exams are given in the spring of 2022 they may well be developed and administered by an entirely different company, as the state's contract with Questar lapses this year. 

In fact, the NY State Education Department has issued a new RFP, with bids due Nov. 24, for a new vendor to produce the state exams starting in 2021-22.  

There have been repeated problems with Questar's administration of these exams, including a student data breach in 2017, and computer crashes in many districts in 2018 and 2019.  In 2019, so many students were unable to upload their responses that the state cancelled the second day of computerized ELA testing.  As a result, Bob Lowry, president of the New York State Council of New York Superintendents, said they had serious doubts that Questar would ever properly do its job:

“We urge the State Education Department to immediately reevaluate its contractual relationship with Questar Assessment and undertake an aggressive review of the errors which have occurred during administration of this year’s assessments so that our students are never again subjected to such unacceptable experiences.”

So why did DOE signing contracts for nearly a million dollars with Questar through 2022 for scoring guides for exams that may never occur? It is inexplicable.

My statement to Cathie Black last night

See video below of last night at the Panel for Educational Policy, my statement to the new Chancellor Cathie Black.

To address the need to reduce overcrowding and class size, she should immediately call a halt to all co-locations and school closings, which only lead to conflict, bitterness and more overcrowding. Each new school sharing space with an existing school sacrifices about 10% of precious classroom space to create administrative and cluster rooms.

And she should immediately re-allocate the $1 billion to be spent on new technology next year in the capital plan to building and leasing more schools. These are not "Sophie's choices" -- these are choices that would benefit all our kids.



For more on the $1 billion extra the DOE wants to spend on new technology, see today's NY Post. Typically, the city wants to blame this on the state and the feds mandating online assessments. This doesn't fly; nowhere else in the country are they spending these kind of dollars for this purpose. Instead, the real reason is they want to expand online learning and further degrade the opportunity for our children to receive instruction from a real live teacher.

Another excuse by the DOE and another way in which they are evading their own accountability for the massive waste that will result.

Chancellor's Regs and School Changes for Vote at November PEP

Six public notices were released by DOE tonight for votes on the agenda for the November 12th PEP meeting. Three are Chancellor's regulations and three are changes in school configuration / utilization.

Links to all are below and on the PEP web site here It looks like we have a location for the November meeting as well: PS 128 in Queens, located at 69-10 65th Drive, Queens, NY 11379

Text below from the DOE site:

PUBLIC COMMENT

The following regulations have been posted for the 45 day public comment period. The Panel will vote on the regulations listed below at the November 12, 2009 Panel meeting. The meeting will take place at 6:00 PM at PS 128 in Queens, located at 69-10 65th Drive, Queens, NY 11379.

1. Public Notice: C-30 Regulation Governing the Selection, Assignment and Appointment of Principals and Assistant Principals
   
   a. C-30 Regulation Governing the Selection, Assignment and Appointment of Principals and Assistant Principals
   
   
2. Public Notice: C-37 Selection of Community Superintendents
   
   a. C-37 Selection of Community Superintendents
   
   
3. Public Notice: A-190 Regulation on Significant changes in School Utilization
   
   a. A-190 Regulation on Significant Changes in School Utilization
   
   
4. Public Notice: A-501 Regulation on Promotion Standards
   
   a. A-501 Regulation on Promotion Standards

PUBLIC COMMENT

The following educational impact statements have been posted for the 45 day public comment period. The Panel will vote on the statements listed below at the November 12, 2009 Panel meeting. The meeting will take place at 6:00 PM at PS 128 in Queens, located at 69-10 65th Drive, Queens, NY 11379.

1. Public Notice: PS 46M
   
   a. Educational Impact Statement for PS 46M
   
   
2. Public Notice: Greenwich Village Middle School
   
   a. Educational Impact Statement for Greenwich Village Middle School
   
   
3. Public Notice: Mott Hall V (12X242)
   
   a. Educational Impact Statement for Mott Hall V (12X242)

School Budget Cuts Presented at Panel for Educational Policy

Monday's Panel for Educational Policy meeting included a briefing on the budget cuts. Click here for the full Powerpoint. At Mayor Mike Bloomberg's insistence, the cuts must total $180 million for this year and $385 million for next year. Most of the cuts will come directly out of school budgets.

After the presentation, I asked for cuts to be made in the new standardized testing program, specifically for teachers to do their own interim assessments instead of the $26 million scheduled to be spent and for elimination of the pilot program extending testing in the K-2 grades. I also asked for the Chancellor's large press office to be shuttered and instead have DOE senior leaders speak directly to the press without intermediaries. As you'd expect, Chancellor Klein dismissed these suggestions. It has become increasingly clear that no matter what cuts are required, the Bloomberg administration's massive ramp up in standardized testing will go largely untouched. For more ideas on better places to cut see our list compiled here.

Here is how the cuts were presented by DOE -- in five "buckets":

Bucket 1: $40 million* for a 6% cut to Central and Field

• Includes reduction of 338 positions for 8% of Central and Field positions through a further rationalization of these operations.*
• Revise scoring of state assessments in Math and ELA, grades 3-8
• Reduce and/or combine publications in OSEPO
• Reduce meeting/conference expenses
• Cancel mid-year teaching fellows program, reduce size of next cohort of teaching fellows
• Eliminate citywide science assessments
• Defer OTPS spending for the Office of School & Youth Development
• Hold ARIS training in DOE facilities only
• Reduce training in DIIT
• Reduce consulting expenses for ECLAS2 assessment program
• Reduce HS enrollment tool costs

Bucket 2: $27 million cuts with an indirect impact on schools

• Reduce facilities work – will monitor cleanliness and make necessary repairs
• Reduction in custodial services
• Reduction in maintenance and repair contracts and related materials
• Elimination of 137 positions in the trades workforce and management
• Delay initial trial of GPS implementation (transportation)
• Eliminate school bonuses for AS and WD on the progress reports
• Reduce family worker positions (not required) for Pre Kindergarten as revise support and technical assistance for PK in public schools
• Mandate that schools with ATRs use them as substitutes rather than hiring an external substitute teacher
• For FY10, estimating cutting less than half of a percentage point from the transportation budget

Bucket 3: Reduce school funds by $104 million for a 1.3% reduction in FY09

• Schools were notified of targets on November 10th
• Schools have through Nov 21st to work with ISC/CFN/SSO to identify specific targets
• Guidelines on reductions were provided to schools
• An estimated cut for FY10 was provided to help schools consider impact on and from FY10
• No school layoffs for FY09
  

Bucket 4: District 75 -- $2 million

• District 75 schools were exempt from the last 2 round of cuts but this year will take under a $2 million cut for 0.26% reduction to their tax levy funding in FY09.

Bucket 5: Other – Fringe

• FY 09 cut: $7.5 million
• FY 10 cut: $12.3 million

Manhattan President Scott Stringer -- Letter on PEP Budget Vote

THE CITY OF NEW YORK
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN

SCOTT M. STRINGER
BOROUGH PRESIDENT

June 26th, 2008

Dear Manhattan Public School Parents:

On Monday, June 23rd, the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) voted
on the executive budget for New York City public schools. As may
already know, my appointee to the PEP, Patrick Sullivan, voted
against the proposed budget, and I am writing to share with you the
reasons that Patrick and I felt it necessary to vote no.

The state law is clear from my perspective. The PEP is
supposed to "approve an estimate of the total sum of money deemed
necessary for school operations in the next fiscal year." The
budget presented by the Chancellor of the Department of Education
(DOE) would require cuts to all schools, some ranging from five
percent or higher. The proposed budget with these cuts would, in my
view, not be sufficient to fund school operations. Consequently,
pursuant to the PEP's duties as outlined in state law, Patrick and I
felt he simply could not approve of the proposed budget.
Furthermore, rather than propose an estimated budget that sets forth
the funding to meet schools' needs, it appears that the Chancellor's
budget instead starts with the funding provided by the Mayor and
reduces expenditures until a balance is achieved. This is not the
way state law dictates the budget should be presented to the PEP,
the Mayor and the City Council for approval.

My concern is that the proposed budget will require cuts to
essential programs such as academic intervention and tutoring,
including programs for those students at risk of being held back
under the third, fifth, seventh, and eighth grade retention
policies, arts, music, sports, enrichment programs, advanced
placement courses, after school programs, professional development,
technology, libraries, and classroom supplies. Many schools facing
the deepest cuts would likely lose teaching staff as well.

The lack of disclosure and transparency also made it extremely
difficult to assess the sufficiency of the budgeted funding. DOE
refused to provide budget code level detail (which would provide
information about the cuts or lack of cuts taking place at the
central level) or respond in writing to Patrick's questions about
cost increases.

What we do know about DOE's itemized $963 million in cost increases,
however, is cause for concern. DOE has embarked upon a series of
initiatives that are all extremely expensive including the retention
of thousands of students, the ramp-up in standardized testing and
test prep, the creation of charter schools, the expansion of
collaborative team teaching (CTT) classes, and the restructuring of
large high schools into small high schools. While some of these
programs are clearly beneficial and the efficacy of others is
subject to debate, the fact is that each one alone costs hundreds of
millions of dollars annually. The decision to proceed
simultaneously with many expensive initiatives while the mayor has
asked DOE to reduce its budget by $428 million raises questions
about the fiscal management of the school system. While we are
fortunate to have an additional $608 million in state funding, our
oversight of finances must be rigorous if we are to avoid harmful
cuts to the classroom.

My hope is that the Mayor and City Council can work together to
achieve an education budget that does not affect the quality of
education provided to Manhattan's children. I will join parents in
asking that the final budget restore the cuts and thus the City's
commitment to its children.

Very truly yours,
Scott M. Stringer

Manhattan Borough President

MUNICIPAL BUILDING
1 CENTRE STREET
NEW YORK, NY 10007
PHONE (212) 669-8300
FAX (212) 669-4305
www.mbpo.org
bp@manhattanbp. org

Panel for Educational Policy Agenda for December: Q&A with DOE

The next PEP meeting is Monday, December 17th at 6:30

It's in the Bronx at MS/HS 368 Information Network & Technology Academy , 2975 Tibbett Ave.

For the agenda, PEP members are being asked to pose questions in advance and the leadership team of the DOE will be present to answer them.

If you have a question related to schools policy or budgeting that you feel should be asked, send it to me at the blog address or my official address (click on my profile on the right).

Gifted and Talented Policy at October Panel for Educational Policy Meeting

This month's PEP meeting was held on Staten Island. A special thanks to the D31 CEC who provided a warm welcome. Here are the highlights from my perspective as the Manhattan representative on the Panel:

Proposed Gifted and Talented Policy

The new G&T admissions policy was presented but not discussed. Highlights:

• Request for testing forms available starting December 3rd
• There will be two tests used to determine each child's score: the Bracken School Readiness Assessment (BSRA) and the Otis Lennon School Abilities Test (OLSAT). The OLSAT will count for 75% of the score and the BSRA for 25%.
• There will be strict cutoff for the combined score. A child must fall in the 95% percentile nationally to be considered gifted.
• All children at or above the cutoff score will be guaranteed a seat in a G&T program. Children not passing the cutoff will not be eligible for G&T programs.
• The three citywide programs (NEST, TAG and Anderson) will have an additional onsite assessment.

Beyond these changes scheduled to take effect starting in December, the DOE is proposing for next year to test all Kindergarten students with the Bracken School Readiness Assessment (BSRA).

See the G&T proposal document (pdf) for more information including the proposed timeline.

Already I have heard many complaints from parents about the proposal, especially the following:

• The standardized tests being used are correlated with socioeconomic status and may be heavily influenced by child's preparation in the home. It's not clear that the proposal brings us any closer the the stated goal of a more equitable system. See more on this viewpoint here.
• Notifications of acceptance are given too late for parents who are also considering private or parochial school options. This late notification retards parental choice, supposedly one of the key elements of the Chancellor's reform program.
• The implication of the plan is that some districts have too many G&T seats and these may need to be curtailed. While it is important to add capacity where it is needed, there is no good argument to close programs that are working. Based on last year's OLSAT results, DOE should have a sense of impact on each program but don't seem to be discussing it with principals.
  

DOE will take comments for a month, take them into consideration and release the final plan. Members of the public can submit comments through November 25 via e-mail (to giftedandtalented@schools.nyc.gov), phone (call (212) 374-5219) or at a public hearing:

Manhattan: Monday, November 5, Fashion Industries HS (225 W 24th St.)
Staten Island: Tuesday, November 6, PS 58 (77 Marsh Ave.)
Queens: Thursday, November 8, John Adams HS (101-01 Rockaway Blvd.)
Bronx: Thursday, November 15, Evander Childs HS (800 E. Gun Hill Rd.)
Brooklyn: Monday, November 19, Brooklyn Technical HS (29 Fort Greene Pl.)

Speaker sign up is at 6:00 and hearings start at 6:30

School New York City Educational Construction Fund (ECF)

The ECF provides long term leases on city land to developers who then build both a commercial project and a school. It's a way for the city to get school capacity without capital funds.

Jamie Smarr presented the two current projects of the ECF, 1765 First Avenue (future site of East Side Middle School) and 250 East 57th Street (PS 59 and High School for Art & Design).

While the idea behind the ECF is fine, there just have not been enough projects to make a dent in the capacity needs of school system. The ECF has been in existence since 1967 and has built 18,000 seats, or roughly 450 a year. Against 1.1 million kids, that's not much. But even these seats are not necessarily incremental. For example, the 1765 First Avenue project is replacing a school that was closed earlier. I asked Jamie what was stopping us from doing more projects and he pointed to the need for developers to cooperate. I asked if he got support from the Mayor and Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff in reaching out to developers. He said he had the cooperation of the Chancellor.

Chancellor's Regulation A-655 (School Leadership Teams)

Martine Guerrier presented the proposed changes to the SLT regulations. Many parent leaders have expressed the concern that the changes to the regulations would weaken SLTs by giving the principal more influence than the current regulations allow, especially by placing the SLT task of creating the schools Comprehensive Educational Plan (CEP) behind the principal's responsibility to define the budget. For more information on this point, see testimony at the City Council hearings from myself, Jim Devor and Joan McKeever Thomas (here).

Martine and I had some back and forth on these issues. She said the final A-655 regulations are not yet ready.

Public Comment

There were many speakers at the Staten Island session who complained about poor treatment of special ed students - lost IEPs, poorly trained teachers, lack of programs and a tendency on the part of school staff to criminalize the behavior of special ed kids. There were several speakers who had accounts of police being called to deal with misbehaving students including one disturbing story of a very young girl who was threatened with arrest and handcuffing.

Peter Calendrella, 1st VP of the District 31 CEC made an impassioned plea for DOE to find ways to allow students to carry phones to and from school. Mr. Calendrella, who was formerly an Assistant District Attorney working with the Special Victims Unit, pointed to two recent cases where Staten Island students could not call police when they witnessed a crime in the immediate vicinity of their school.

Bloomberg gets it wrong -- repeatedly -- about the survey's results on class size

On Thursday, the Mayor and Chancellor held a press conference to release the results of the teacher, student and parent surveys -- posted here. Almost immediately, they misrepresented what the surveys actually said -- by repeatedly claiming that class size did not come out as the top priority of parents, when it did.

A little background: I was one of the participants in the parent focus groups that were organized by DOE and KPMG to help develop the survey. Our focus group as well as every other said that large classes, as well as an overemphasis on testing, were top concerns of parents and should receive their own questions on the survey. (We knew about the results of the other groups because they showed them to us.) Yet when we were given a draft of the survey, it didn’t have a single question that mentioned class size or testing on it. We protested vociferously, and DOE offered a compromise– that they would include class size and test prep as one of a list of 10 possible priorities in a catch-all question at the end of the survey.

We didn’t think this was sufficient – since it seemed purposely designed to minimize these problems and ensure that these issues would get as low a preference as possible We continued to argue that each deserved its own questions – especially given all the other repetitive and apparently purposeless questions that the survey contained. Yet they went ahead anyway, we asked parents to consider boycotting the survey, and we subsequently undertook our own independent parent survey, whose results will be released soon.

So what happened? Despite the attempts by DOE to minimize this issue, smaller classes still came out as the top priority of parents at 24% -- which is quite substantial, considering they were forced to choose among many other compelling options. Here are the responses to the question in full:

Question 13: Which of the following improvements would you most like your school to make?

Smaller class size: 24%

More or better enrichment programs: 19%

More hands-on learning: 13%

Better communication w/ parents: 10%

More preparation for state tests: 10%

More challenging courses: 8%

More teacher training: 6%

More of better arts programs 5%

More effective school leadership: 5%

Less preparation for state tests: 1%

Now ignoring the question of why parents should have to choose among these various options (wouldn't smaller classes make hands-on learning and better communication with parents more possible? Don't our kids need both enrichment and small class sizes?), it is clear that despite the best efforts of DOE, parents spoke resoundingly clear -- that reducing class size is an important goal that should be pursued.

So what did the administration do? Rather than accept the reality of their own data, they put together a press release that attempted to obscure the results.

In a rather clumsy attempt to minimize class size concerns, the Mayor's Press Release contrasted the 24% of parents who selected smaller classes as their highest priority with “45% of parents who said creating more or better programs should be their school’s top priority “ They omitted the critical fact that they had to lump four different responses to get to this latter figure (more enrichment, hands-on learning, challenging courses, and arts programs.)

At the press conference the Mayor went further, and actually said: “By a big majority, two to one, parents would rather have you spend more money on enriching the programs rather than reducing class size.”

Perhaps he was confusing the new, rather inchoate category that DOE had devised -- “more or better programs” with enrichment. As you can see above, “more or better enrichment programs” actually came out second to class size at 19%, rather than two to one ahead of it.

During the press conference he also denigrated groups who advocate for smaller classes, saying that the results show that “When somebody stands up and says, “‘I speak for all parents and we want smaller class sizes,’ that’s just not true.”

As I was quoted in the Times , "It’s a transparent attempt to minimize the importance of an issue that is staring everybody in the face as the top priority of parents.”

Thanks to keen reporting, the NY Post noted the Mayor's error in claiming that parents preferred more enrichment over smaller classes, and the NY Times noted the deceptive comparison between class size and "more or better programs." See also the NY1 story.

If the Mayor's misstatement was an inadvertent mistake, you would think he would have figured it out after all these news stories. But you would be wrong.

On Friday, he went on his weekly radio show and did it all over again. Here is an excerpt:

Gambling: What did you learn? What was the one surprising thing that you learned from this?

Mayor: People wanted, by a factor of 2 to 1, double the number of people wanted more money spent on enriching programs as opposed to class size. Class size is something we want to work on. We are bringing it down, we're building more classrooms, you've got the biggest construction budget ever seen and all that sort of stuff. And we really are. We're hiring more teachers all the time. So we're going in that direction. But class size as compared to better teachers say, the science shows, are really important, and parents seem to think that.

He added some other rather interesting comments:

"You know everybody's got bitches, and of course that's what the papers focus on. But there are an awful lot of people very satisfied."

And: "The real world is full of tests. Every day your employer tests you all the time!... People who say too many tests, I don't know what they're thinking."

He also reiterated that despite the City Council override of his veto of the cell phone bill, he would continue to confiscate any cell phones that students brought to school.

What can you say? For a guy who claims to worship data, Bloomberg appears to have little interest in getting it right when it comes to how parents feel about the importance of class size.

Middle Schools Initiative & Cell Phone Ban: Discussions at Panel for Educational Policy Meeting

The Panel for Educational Policy meets monthly to review DOE policies and approve budgets. As the appointee of Borough President Scott Stringer, I represent Manhattan on the Panel. The DOE doesn't release minutes or transcripts of the proceedings so I'll be relating the important items for all interested. See also InsideSchools for coverage.

Middle School Initiative

The DOE presented their initiative to adopt recommendations of the City Council's Middle School Task Force. NYU education professor Pedro Noguera did an excellent job of pulling a strong report out of a task force filled with diverse views. It's a shame the mayor and chancellor couldn't give it more than half-hearted support. The NY Times coverage reflected the timid response:

"But the mayor shied away from adopting the most far-ranging changes recommended in the reports, like significantly reducing class sizes, creating a special middle school academy to train teachers about early adolescence, and removing police officers from city schools to create a more welcoming atmosphere."

I pointed out how the middle school situated inside DOE headquarters, the Ross Global Academy charter school, has capped class size at 20 students and asked if the more modest class size reduction recommendations in the report (25 students per class) would be adopted. The answer was no. Since the report offers smaller classes as a way to attract experienced teachers to high-needs schools, I then asked what measures would be taken to attract and retain teachers. The DOE plan is to expand the lead teacher program and offer professional development.

We often hear the mayor speak on the nature of leadership: "Lead from the front" etc. Middle school reform is an area where we could use some of that leadership. Council Speaker Chris Quinn and the people behind report are looking at the situation optimistically - that the initial DOE position is only a start and more recommendations will be embraced. Let's hope their optimism is warranted

School Safety

Elayna Konstan, the CEO of the Office of School and Youth Development said our schools are getting safer. The next day the State Education Department said schools are getting more dangerous. You can find statistics for your school on the SED web site. I asked if the Middle School Task Force Report recommendations on school safety would be implemented, specifically, would educators be given more control over school safety officers and police in the schools. Konstan was not familiar with the recommendations and pointed to their efforts in professional development and sharing of best practices.

Cell Phone Ban

The City Council has passed a bill allowing students to carry phones to and from school. While the mayor has vetoed it, the Council has said they will override the veto and pass the bill into law. I asked CEO Konstan if the administration would work with the Council to accommodate the rights of students or would there be more litigation. The response was more tough talk: "We'll wait for the litigation." The chancellor referred me to the mayor's veto message.

New DoE Budget: Klein Signals Early Defiance of New State Law

The DoE operating budget for next year was unveiled this week at two events, the Panel for Educational Policy meeting on Monday and a joint session of the City Council Education and Finance Committees on Tuesday. While there was no press coverage, there was important news:

First, the budget for next year will include a substantial increase of more than a billion dollars: $16.9 billion vs. $15.8 billion last year.

Second, the state has made funds available to settle the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) case, whereby the state was ordered to address unconstitutional deficiencies in our schools. Under the terms of the new state education law requiring a "Contract for Excellence" with each district, these funds are to be spent in five areas: full-day pre-K, class size reduction, time on task, middle/high school restructuring and principal/teacher quality.

Unfortunately, Chancellor Klein seemed to signal that he was reluctant to comply with an important aspect of the new state law regarding class size reduction. Under the law, the city is required to submit a five year plan to reduce class sizes in all grades -- and start lowering class size starting next year. When questioned at both the PEP and City Council, the Chancellor, disagreed, saying no such plan was required, at least not for this year. Also disturbing was an exchange with Education Chairman Robert Jackson, the lead plaintiff in the CFE lawsuit brought thirteen years ago:

Jackson: You would agree that putting two teachers in a classroom is not class size reduction?

Klein: No, I disagree.

When questioned, Klein could not say how much money was being directed to smaller classes or how he intended to achieve them, given the overcrowding that exists in many schools. His plan seemed to consist of little more than providing principals with more money, who he thought would probably hire more teachers if they had the space. As evidence he pointed to how Empowerment Zone schools hired more teachers with their funds in prior years. He did not, however, mention that many of those same schools were sent more children as a result.

Finally, despite a budget increase of more than a billion dollars, DoE will be cutting the lunch service budget in elementary schools by $5 million. Deputy Chancellor Grimm explained the same staff would be retained but paid fewer hours.

Click here for the budget presentation and here for the text of the state education law. (Scroll down to section "S 211-D" for the new part)