Tell the Mayor what you think of his new threats of huge budget cuts to come

Sept. 12, 2023 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Mayor Adams has now ordered every city agency to impose an immediate hiring freeze and submit budget cuts for next year totaling nearly 15%: 5% cuts by October 6, another round of 5% cuts by January, and yet another 5% by April. According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, these reductions would mean slashing the DOE budget by $2.1 billion.

As I noted to the NY Post, if implemented, these unprecedented cuts would create a doomsday scenario for our schools, leading to much larger classes, loss of after school programs, special education services, counselors, cuts to 3K and PreK, and more. And as I pointed out in the Daily News, cutting back special ed services and sharply increasing class size may also be illegal – especially in the context of the new class size law.

Though the Mayor is blaming these new cuts on the migrant crisis, he has repeatedly shrunk the DOE’s budget ever since he came to office; moreover, there are 7500 unfilled teaching positions that the DOE had budgeted for but that schools have not been allowed to fill. These further reductions would be disastrous to NYC public school students.

So I urge you to text the Mayor today at (917) 909-2288, to tell him that these cuts are unacceptable and that he must find a way to prevent them. He has encouraged New Yorkers to text him, so let him hear from you.

Some other options you might suggest to him are to find budget savings in other agencies or to increase revenue, including raising taxes on the super-wealthy, including those making over $5 million per year. If you like, you can copy me at the same time at (917) 435-9329.

These new, unprecedented budget cuts may be threats meant to gin up fear and outrage, to help persuade the federal government and the state to cover more of the expenses of the refugees, but they must be taken seriously and vehemently opposed in any case.

2. Speaking of class size, please fill out our class size survey if you haven’t already; it will only take five minutes. We are hearing of many schools where class sizes have risen dramatically this fall; but even if they have remained the same or decreased at your school, we want to hear from you!

Thanks so much, Leonie

Ongoing budget cuts to schools causing additional loss of teachers as the number of highly paid educrats grows -- please take our survey now!

Please take our new five-minute survey below on the impact of budget cuts on your school!

Even as the Mayor and the Chancellor ruthlessly cut the budget for schools this year, the impact of those cuts are still being felt in a new wave of teachers being excessed from our schools.  According to Chalkbeat, many principals are letting go of teachers and other staff now, told by DOE educrats that they must cut their budgets as enrollment at their schools has been even lower than projected.  Some principals have been told to cut their budgets by as much as $750,000 or face having to return the funds next year.

That would mean excessing seven to eight teachers who he just hired this summer after a wave of departures. He’s planning to shift the debt to next year, even though district officials have urged him against it.

“It would literally destroy the school’s programs, not to mention excess all the new teachers we brought in who have brought fresh energy, fresh blood and new life to the school,” said the principal, who runs one of the city’s community schools, which serve larger shares of high-needs students.

Meanwhile, the NY Post reports that the DOE overspent its last year's budget for Central and District offices by over $100 million:

Most of that excess spending went to personnel.  Fatter salaries mean at least 80 DOE executives now make more than $200,000 a year, up from 63 or so in the prior fiscal year, according to officials and the Empire Center for Public Policy.

Apparently one of those high-priced executives is Mayor Adams' partner, Tracey Collins, who was recently promoted to “senior advisor to the deputy chancellor of school leadership,” receiving a 23% raise to $221,597 a year.

As I was quoted in the NY Post, the fact that DOE has exceeded its budget target for administration by such a large amount while slashing school budgets by somewhere between $475 million and over $1 billion shows that "Either their priorities or their management skills are severely flawed."

Even larger budget cuts are threatened for the future.  The Mayor's office and the Office of Management and Budget have ordered all city agencies including the DOE to cut an additional 3% this year and 4.75% next year. This literally could put the DOE into a death spiral and make it impossible for them to comply with the new state class size reduction law. 

Please take our five-minute survey on the impact of the budget cuts on your school if you haven't already!

Parent Christianna Nelson testifies about how the small classes last year benefited her child but how the "terrible cuts" will undermine her school

Eloquent testimony from parent Christianna Nelson at yesterday's City Council hearing on the school budget cuts.  If anyone else would like us to share their testimony, please send it to us at info@classsizematters.org.

Hello, my name is Christianna Nelson. Thank you very much for holding this hearing today. I hope that you decide to restore these terrible cuts to public education. I’m here to speak as a mom about how these cuts are affecting the students in my daughter’s school. My daughter attends Arts & Letters 305 United in Bed Stuy, a lottery school that offers 40 percent of its seats to children who qualify for school lunch assistance. 

It's a beautiful school filled with dedicated educators and parents, and a diverse student body. It has actually increased its enrollment over the last two years, but it's still losing 17 percent of its budget--a drop of $1.5 million dollars. That means larger classes, fewer counselors, less art and music, fewer classroom supplies (and parents are already donating a lot of supplies). It's a slap in the face to educators, students and parents, who have suffered through two very difficult years. 

My daughter is actually a pandemic success story. She has a visual disability and an IEP. Since kindergarten, in addition to her vision services, she has required physical therapy, occupational therapy, counseling and she needs to be in an ICT classroom with two teachers. This year, with smaller class sizes, she was able to get more of the individual support she needed, and she experienced huge growth, academically and emotionally. 

At the end of the year, her team decided that she no longer needs physical therapy, occupational therapy, or counseling, and that she also no longer needs to be in an ICT classroom. 

My daughter has a very passionate, knowledgeable and devoted team of teachers and specialists. They showed up every day of this pandemic, often at risk to their own health (and many of them have children of their own), to help my daughter learn and grow. And now, instead of rewarding their hard work and supporting them, you're asking them to do more with less. It's immoral. It's plain wrong. And it needs to be fixed. Today. 

These cuts are not good for students, they're not good for teachers, and they're not good for New York City. I'm begging you to reverse these cuts. Let’s take the time and effort to plan and budget long term together, with real, meaningful input from educators, who are in the room, and parents, whose children are in the room--not overnight in one fell swoop. Restore the cuts! Thank you very much.

Testimony of Paul Trust, music teacher and plaintiff, for tomorrow's City Council hearings

Tomorrow, City Council hearings on their resolution, demanding the Mayor restore the budget cuts to schools will be held starting at 10 AM.  You can watch them here.  

Paul Trust at budget cuts rally

Below is the testimony from Paul Trust, a public school teacher and parent and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit to reverse the budget cuts. 

Hello, my name is Paul Trust, I am a music educator, a father of three daughters in public schools and a resident of Richmond Hill Queens.

Many of you may know me as one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit to restore school budget funding.

Because of the mayor cuts, the school I teach at will no longer have a music program. Because of these cuts the school my daughters attend will also no longer have a music program.   It breaks my heart that they will not be able to experience the joy of music that inspired a lifelong passion in me, thanks to the amazing music teachers I had in elementary school. 

Because the mayor appealed Judge Frank’s ruling, I gave up hope on returning my position at my school and have found a new teaching position in Brooklyn. I look forward to the next chapter of my career but I’m also sad to have been forced out because of the cuts.  I am sad for all my students I’ve known for years who thought I would be preparing them for graduation, for winter and spring concerts.

In addition, my wife, who is an art teacher in Jamaica Queens, used to spend her summers teaching at risk students. She was informed that, because of these cuts, they were not going to be able to have her teach classes. [Editor's note: though funding increased overall for summer school, the per-student amount was actually cut.] 

What I don’t understand is if mayor claims to know how important the arts are, as articulated by Commissioner Cumbo before introducing him at the future sight of the Hip Hop Museum, that when you put a trombone in a students hands it could be taking away a gun or  how important it is to have summer programing to keep at risk students engaged over the summer, how can he also say that he’s doing everything within his power to keep our city safe?

Besides these cuts to the arts, at the school where my youngest daughter attends they are losing a guidance counselor, as well as a classroom teacher, which will maximize class sizes.  Although the mayor seems to believe we are through the pandemic, we are not. Especially when it comes to normalizing our students, the mental scars of what they have been through are still playing out. Having a second guidance counselor to attend to the students needs is essential support. Especially when a report just came out that we are not providing the social emotional support to New York City students that they should be getting.

And while these are personal stories, I know that similar ones are playing out in schools throughout the city and every borough. It is crucial that the $469 million that has been taken from city schools be returned so that our students, teachers, school communities can benefit from a well-funded school system.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Paul Trust, DOE Music Educator, Activist and father of 3 public school children

 

Lawsuit and rally to restore the budget cuts to schools; this Thursday August 4 starting at 9:30 AM

The lawsuit to restore the budget cuts to schools and provide the City Council with another vote on the education budget will be heard this Thursday, August 4 at 10 AM in the NY State Supreme Court, 80 Centre St. in Room 308.  Please join us in the courtroom to show your support.

Before the hearing at 9:30 AM, there will be a rally to restore the cuts in Foley Sq., just a block away.  If you join us there, we can walk together to the courthouse at 9:45 AM sharp.

Mayor Adams called protestors "clowns" and blamed Albany for his budget cuts to schools last night

This protest at a Harlem town hall against the Mayor's huge budget cuts to schools was reported briefly in the NY Post, but not what the Mayor actually said about these cuts, which he blamed on Albany.  

The Mayor claimed that "There's something called fair student funding, which is a wrong equation that we're fighting Albany to fix." 

Yet neither the Governor nor the Legislature have anything to do with his budget cuts to schools, or to Fair Student Funding, which is a formula devised by Chancellor Klein in 2007.  Indeed, the Legislature is sending $1.3 billion extra to our schools over three years, regardless of any enrollment decline. 

( Update: Sue Edelman on twitter just pointed out out that his claim they are paying 100% of FSF is also incorrect, as they cut the  allotment of about $25 per student in the formula, with as much as twice that much for kids with disabilities and other challenges.   DOE explained this as resulting from the FSF formula is pegged to the average teacher salary, which they claim has diminished in the past year, without refusing to disclose the actual amount of  the decline.)

See for yourself.  Check out what happened at about at 10 min. into the video, and also below.

 (Shouting in background of protesters from Make the Road NY, MORE caucus of the UFT, and New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools, who are dragged out of the room. ) 

Mayor Adams: You know, see, see this is the clown. This is the clown. And this is what we are up against people. 

People want to spend time being disruptive. That's what people want to do. But we got to stay focused and not get distracted. That's what we must do. Be focused and not distracted. Because people want to spend time on what they disagree on, and not spend time what we agree on. That’s what we have to be. So all that noise. All that noise, that's what folks don't understand. 

Listen, they are new to this. I'm not new to this. I'm true to this. I'm true to this. So because you are the loudest, does not mean you are saying something. Your ability to sit down and say, how do we work together because you can disagree with something, but you don't disagree with people should not be living in the state that they're living in now. And so if there's ever been a moment in history, if there's ever been a moment in history that personifies Esther 4:14. This is the moment God made me for such a time like this. I'm the right man for the right time to do what needs to be done in this city. 

Then, at about 38:40 minutes into the video:

Next table, Pastor Gil Monroe. 

Pastor Gil Monroe: Good evening and we're sorry for our friends. When will the budget of the DOE of $2 billion be restored,  cuts be restored? 

Mayor Adams: This is such, this DOE conversation is such an important one. You know because people have hijacked the conversation, so here’s what's happened with the with the Department of Education.

We have a massive hemorrhaging of students. Massive hemorrhaging when a very dangerous place in a number of students that we are dropping. There's something called fair student funding, which is a wrong equation that we're fighting Albany to fix.

But we are paying 100% of fair student funding. This is amount of money each child is allocated from Albany. If you have 1000 children in school, each child per child gets $1 Match attached to it.

We had a substantial drop in students in schools. So you start out with 1000 for argument's sake, you drop down to 600. Albany is saying we only pay you for 600. We're not paying you 1000. 

And so when we said to our schools, we said listen, they're cutting off our funding, the fair student funding. So we're not going to cut you off right away. We have stimulus dollars. We're going to use a stimulus dollars to keep you whole,  we talked about last year, but you got to start adjusting to have the 600 students. We came this year, we said we still not going to cut you off we're going to give you three fourths of the amount that we normally give you. 

But next year because of the stimulus dollars, we got to give you 50% of the dollars that we normally give you. But the year after, we have no more federal dollars. Then we get hit with other things that Albany is putting on us without giving us the money for, so what we did is slowly adjust based on the student population and the money that's coming from Albany. So we need your help to tell Albany, let's change the equation based on the number of students we have in our school, so we won't lose your money in our schools. 

We're gonna base it on with Albany is doing, we are creatures of Albany, they give us our fair student funding. Now we would like the bad guy because we don't want that I adjust with Albany is doing to us. We need Albany to do the right thing and make sure we get the fair student funding increase so that we can put the money into schools. Right now we're keeping them as whole as possible with the federal money is going to run out and when it runs out, we don't we no longer have that cushion that we had. So it's not our desire to cut any money. We that's why we did only three fourths this year. Next year, we got to do 50%.

But then we got we got to fall off the cliff if we don't get the support that we need from Albany.

Four simple steps to take to stop devastating cuts to school budgets

As I reported a couple of days ago, budget cuts were released for schools earlier this week and they are devastating. Here is an article about the likely impact on class size and other critical services to kids. Already some teachers have said that as a result of these cuts, their principals have told them they will be excessed and no longer kept on staff next year. I have instructions on how to look up the budget cuts for your kids’ schools here; the UFT has also posted a look up tool that just contains just the cuts from Fair Student Funding, though principals tell me that other budget lines have been cut as well. The City Council seems to have woken up to this potential disaster, and these cuts are said to be the main sticking point in their negotiations with the Mayor Adams on the city’s final budget, negotiations which are going on right now and are expected to be concluded soon. 1, So, it is more important than ever that you call your Council Member today – to tell them NOT to approve ANY budget which include these budget cuts to schools which will have such damaging impacts on our children and schools. Their contact info is here. Then follow up with a call to Speaker Adrienne Adams, at 212-788-6850 or 718-206-2068. Clearly the Mayor and the Chancellor are intent on flouting the new state law, which requires them to start reducing class size next year. In a forum held last night about the DOE Contracts for Excellence plan, in which not a penny is targeted towards lowering class size, a top DOE official acknowledged “that a bill in the State pending right now about class size” and “If that bill becomes a week, you know that will have some impact on our plans for class size in the future….we are monitoring that very closely and we'll you know.” 2. Which brings me to another request: Please call Governor Hochul today at 1-518-474-8390, or send her a message here. Tell her to sign the class size bill ASAP, or else the Mayor will force NYC class sizes even higher next year, making it that much more difficult and expensive to achieve smaller classes in the future. 3. Also call the Mayor at 311.  Tell the operator that your complaint relates to education and the Mayor should withdraw his proposal to cut school budgets and instead comply with the state law and lower class size. 4. There are also two more C4E hearings via Zoom where you can express your outrage and/or dissatisfaction about these cuts directly to DOE officials, as well as challenge their refusal to proactively start planning for smaller classes next year. The first hearing is tonight, June 9 at 6 PM and the other Wed. June 15, also at 6 PM; they are supposed to be borough-based but any parent or teacher from any borough and any school can sign up to speak via Zoom, starting at 5 PM here. We have some talking points here.   By law, the DOE is supposed to summarize all the comments and provide them to the state and explain why they have or have not incorporated them into their final C4E plan, so it is important that parents and teachers tell the DOE and the State how they feel. Thanks so much, Leonie Leonie Haimson Executive Director Class Size Matters

Our testimony to the NYC Council urging them to prevent the Mayor's proposed cuts to school budgets and the capital plan!

 May 25, 2022

Check out our  submitted budget testimony before the NYC Council Finance Committee for today. We urged the Chair Justin Brannan and other Council Members to prevent the Mayor's proposed cuts to school budgets of $375 million, that are projected to lead to a loss of about 3200 teaching positions, which in turn may cause the sharpest increase in class sizes since the Great Recession, the last thing NYC kids need to recover from the Covid crisis.  We also ask them to oppose the proposed $1.5 billion in cuts to new capacity in the capital plan, which is unsupported by evidence and apparently relies on an unrealistic change to the school capacity formula that assumes every middle school and high school classroom can be scheduled for every period of the day.

Our testimony also follows.  If you'd like to submit your own comments on these cuts,  you can send an email to testimony@council.nyc.gov by Friday.

Please help us advocate against the egregious budget cuts planned for schools next year!

Yesterday, Mayor Adams announced his executive budget, and though he added $1.2 billion for various initiatives, including even more funding for the police, he is still planning to cut school budgets by $375 million over the next three years, which combined with unidentified school budget “efficiency savings” of this year, would amount to about $411 million in cuts.  Some of that would be partly made up with federal stimulus funds, but he still plans to cut school budgets by about $225 million next year, increasing to the $375 million the following year.

At the same time, the Mayor is proposing to cut $1.1 billion in new school construction, with a loss of about 11,000 new seats, compared to the capital plan that was adopted last June.  Queens would suffer cuts of over 6,000 seats and Bronx nearly that many.  For more on the proposed seat cuts by district, see our presentation here.

So now we need your help.  Please take the following three steps:

• Call the Mayor at #311 and your Council Member.  You can find your CM phone number by plugging your address at https://council.nyc.gov/districts/   Tell them: “Please do not cut the budget to schools or the capital plan; which would cause class sizes to increase and worse overcrowding.  Instead, provide dedicated funding to further reduce class size and make it more equitable across the city.”

• Then send an email message to the Chancellor by clicking here,  saying the much same thing.

•   Finally, please volunteer to join us in a meeting with your Council Member to urge them to fight these cuts, by filling out the Google form here, or by responding to this message. 

•  Ask your CEC or Community Board to pass a resolution on opposing these cuts; a sample resolution is posted here.

Though the Council has pushed the Mayor to restore many of his proposed cuts, they have not said anything about reversing his devastating cuts to school budgets, which would likely cause the sharpest class size increases since the Great Recession. 

Nor have they said anything about the proposed $1.1 billion in cuts to the capital plan.  The City Council needs to hear from their constituents that they care passionately about this issue.

 Thanks so much for your support and please forward this message to others who care.

Reopening schools amid funding cuts & how to minimize the harm of remote learning

On this week's "Talk out of School" I interviewed Jasmine Gripper, Executive Director of the Alliance for Quality Education, about Governor Cuomo’s damaging and inequitable budget cuts to public schools. 

Then Josh Golin, Executive Director of Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood, explained why schools need to minimize screen time and the use of ed tech apps and should protect student privacy during remote learning. He also explained how parents can advocate for this.  Resources below.

You can also subscribe to our weekly podcast and listen to past shows here.

More resources here:

Alliance for Quality Education report: Set Up to Fail: How Cuomo’s School Cuts Target New York’s Black & Brown Students 
For more information on AQE’s planned 9/12/20 actions on school funding, contact  Maria@aqeny.org  

News on Albany school cuts  and Schenectady layoffs 

Campaign for Commercial Free Childhood’s statement urging schools to minimize screen time and ed tech 

Also: CCFC petition on this issue and an article on the subject.

Parent Toolkit for Student Privacy from CCFC and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy