State budget testimony on class size and the broken Contracts for Excellence program

Today the state budget hearings are being held for education.  Below are the testimonies submitted by Class Size Matters and the Education Law Center, mostly focused on class size.

Clearly the Contracts for Excellence process is broken, with non-compliance by DOE and lax enforcement by the State Education Department.  This probably needs a legislative fix as I say -- so that the C4E law is updated and strengthened with actual class size caps to be achieved over five years, and with enhanced accountability and enforcement.   I also provide the data showing that the decline in class size this year is purely due to enrollment decline, not any actual effort by DOE.  In fact, there are fewer classes at all grade levels than there were in 2019 -- despite the even greater need for smaller classes for the sake of health and safety as well as more learning support. 

Parents shut out once again: Contracts for Excellence process in violation of state law

Check out this letter sent Wednesday to NY State Education Commissioner King, from the UFT, Class Size Matters,  NAACP & AQE, pointing out the numerous legal flaws as regards this year’s Contracts for Excellence (C4E) process.

The state and the city have together shut out parents and the public from any meaningful involvement in the formulation and implementation of the city’s overall C4E and class size reduction plan, contrary to law.  As the letter points out, the following are among the violations of law that have occurred this year:

·         The state asked to pre-approve the city’s proposed plan, before the public had a chance to see it or comment;

·         The city has failed to schedule borough hearings;

·         The entire comment, public review and approval is happening too late in the year, when most of the funding has already been allocated; making a mockery of the process set out in the law, that was supposed to take place last spring.

In addition, the city’s C4E proposed plan is supposed to be made publicly available well in advance of any hearings, and the DOE is supposed to do  outreach, to ensure that parents are able to be fully informed before commenting. 

And yet to my knowledge, the city’s C4E  plan has still not been made public and little or no parent outreach has been done, with CEC presentations due to start next week, aside from one page on the DOE website. 

We have prepared a power point and a sample resolution for Community Education Councils or PTAs to consider passing, about the city’s failure to reduce class size and the numerous flaws in the process this year. Please also let me know if you would be interested in having someone from Class Size Matters brief your CEC personally about the current situation with class size and the city’s violations of the C4E law.

Even worse, this year was  supposed to be the final year of the city’s five year class size reduction plan, as mandated by the state in 2007, and yet class sizes will be larger in all grades than when the law was first approved.

Joel Klein came to District 2 and told lies

Chancellor Joel Klein came to PS 33 in District 2 on Wednesday night. He told a number of outright lies to the assembled parents, assuming (I suppose) that we didn't know better. This is on top of all the misrepresentations and obfuscations.

- Klein said there are no for-profit charters in New York City. This is patently untrue. There are currently nine for-profit charters in operation in the city and more being considered.

- Klein said Contract for Excellence money is "fungible" in school budgets and this is why class sizes rose, despite billions more in state C4E funding. This is untrue. Contract for Excellence money is supposed to be targeted to specified purposes by state law and it is illegal to use it otherwise.

- Klein said he "wished we had more resources" for meeting the needs of special education students. Special ed services are also mandated by state law, and it has been well documented, by the Public Advocate's office among others, that under this administration, students with IEPs have not received the services and funds to which they are legally entitled.

- Klein also said that 5000 seats had been added to District 2. Where? The 2004-2009 and 2010-2014 capital plans funded about 7,000 seats, but most of these seats have not yet been built, and many are replacements. By my count there are under a thousand new D2 K-8 seats now in operation, and Manhattan has lost 1,000 high school seats in the last year alone to lapsed leases, but I would welcome a more detailed reckoning by the DOE.

- Klein said that enrollment projections are available on-line. The DOE has never made its full enrollment projection analysis available to the public or the CECs responsible for zoning. Only partial data and the discredited reports of a few expensive contractors are available on-line.

- Furthermore, Klein said repeatedly that charter schools would add seats to District 2. There is no way this is possible. School real estate in D2 is a zero-sum game, as he pointed out himself several times. Every new school that is added within an existing building removes seats to make space for additional administration and duplication of cluster rooms, and every new program that draws students from outside the district (as charters do) bumps out district students.

Unless charters can obtain their own space--which doesn't happen much in NYC--they can only subtract from the number of seats available to district students.

He also kept saying no sites are available in D2 and it is hard to find more, without commenting on the large number of sites put forward by parents (including most of those that have been developed under the last two capital plans). Parents have been pushing hard on various sites and the DOE refuses to put its weight behind these efforts.

---Ann Kjellberg, Public School Action Committee

Joel Klein devises a plan in which he can stay in power....forever!

Last week, the DOE announced, with a straight face that, after competitive bidding, it had awarded a five year, $50 million contract to train principals to the (drum roll please) NYC Leadership Academy.

Ten million dollars a year of taxpayer money that will continue for five years, long after Bloomberg has left office. This news, delivered with a straight face, went mostly unreported in the press, with a few exceptions.

That the Leadership Academy – created by Joel Klein, with Joel Klein chair of the board, Joel Klein who had selected the other board members, Joel Klein who had appointed the director, Joel Klein who had raised $75 million in private money to start it through the Fund for Public Schools, an organization which is also chaired by Joel Klein….had now been awarded a $50 million contract by Joel Klein, went mostly unreported. (see partial correction below)

The press has had a field day reporting much smaller City Council grants to organizations that employ relatives of City Council members. But when Joel Klein awards a $50 million to an organization that he himself heads, nothing but….silence. The bare faced absurdity of it all cannot be outdone.

Encouraged by the lack of critical reception, Klein and his overpaid deputies have devised a new plan by which they can remain in power indefinitely, even after the Mayor leaves office, even if Mayoral control is significantly amended.

How? Simple. Before leaving office, Joel Klein will grant himself a contract to run the schools for the next twenty years, running the entire operation from an outside corporation, and eliminate DOE altogether. Whether this device is legal or not is uncertain, but that has never stopped him before.

At the same time, by eliminating the need for the entire central office at Tweed, he can claim a great victory by having shrunk the bureaucracy.

News update and partial correction:

A savvy reporter informed me that Joel Klein took himself and Chris Cerf off the board at the Leadership Academy about a month ago – just before awarding them the $50 Million competitively bid contract. Not that this would fool anyone, but…

Sure enough, when you go to the Academy's website here , you see the original board listed; but the links are missing for the bios for Klein, Cerf and Robert F. Arning, who is head of the NYC office of KPMG and has a huge contract with DOE as well.

And when you go to another page listing the board, their names are omitted.

Wonder if any of this is legal….since Klein stepped off the board right before granting the contract, presumably he thought there might be a problem.

UPDATE (July 27); the DOE's Truth Squad at work has made sure that the first of these links has been removed, eliminating any trace of Joel Klein's previous leadership of the Board, as well as Cerf's participation. When you go to the second link, there are eight current members listed, including Kathy Wylde of the NYC Partnership and two emeritus directors of McKinsey and Co. Two of the Leadership Academy's board members received awards from the Partnership in 2007, and another serves on their board as well.

hearings on Contract for Excellence -- make your voice heard!

Hearings will be held this week in the Bronx and Brooklyn on the city's use of the additional state funding for our schools under the heading of the Contract for Excellence (or C4E) -- supposed to be used in five specific areas that research has shown to improve student achievement, including class size reduction. Queens and Manhattan are slated for the week after. The full schedule is below.

Speaker sign-in will begin at 6:00pm, and each will be given 2 minutes to speak. Written comments will also be accepted through 6/27/08 at: contractsforexcellence@schools.nyc.gov. For flyers in English and other languages are here.

Please come and make your voice heard -- about the overcrowding at your school, the DOE's proposed budget cuts, or anything else that undermines your child's opportunity to receive a quality education. Transcripts from these hearings are posted online and are provided directly to the Commissioner of Education Richard Mills; this is one of the few opportunities that NYC parents have to speak out and communicate directly with someone with the authority to command the otherwise unaccountable educrats at Tweed how they should be spending our taxpayer money.

I have prepared a new briefing sheet on the the city's dismal record on class size since the state passed legislation last year mandating smaller classes; it also has links to more information on your schools' class sizes, the city's current class size proposal, and what the state should require in place of the city's transparently imaginary plan.

Rather than use a penny towards a realistic, "targeted" class size reduction plan, the DOE is leaving it up to principals to use their allotment of "fair student funding" to lower class size, if they so choose -- ignoring that many of them have neither the space nor the ability to cap enrollment to make this possible. Moreover, the administration has no intention of supporting them in their effort to do so.

Instead, the DOE plans to use $20 million of the C4E funds to "expand" their unproven merit pay scheme for teachers, along with many other questionable priorities.

__________________________________________________________________________

Bronx	6/11/2008	Wednesday	DeWitt Clinton High School	100 W. Mosholu Parkway S., Bronx NY
Brooklyn	6/12/2008	Thursday	Boys and Girls High School	1700 Fulton Street Brooklyn, NY
Manhattan	6/17/2008	Tuesday	Fashion Industries H.S.	225 West 24 Street New York, NY
Queens	6/18/2008	Wednesday	I.S. 230	73-10 34 Avenue Queens, NY

All hail Eduwonkette!

Check out this terrific Eduwonkette posting -- in which she points out that despite Joel Klein's continual attempts to portray his policies as equitable, are quite the opposite.

This has become most obvious in his ham-handed attack on the whole notion of providing more funding through the Contract for Excellence for NYC's low-performing schools.

I would add another point -- that the Chancellor, who talks endlessly about the need to address the achievement gap, refuses to implement one of the very few reforms which have been shown to narrow this disparity -- reducing class size.

Four things to hate about the Spitzer education budget

1- He would give about $100 million less than he pledged last year to NYC schools. These funds are their due from the settlement of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit.

2- The limited amount in additional operating aid he gives with one hand, he takes away with the other, by delaying reimbursement for school construction – which is the last thing we need, when the city has to be encouraged to build more schools more quickly to alleviate overcrowding and reduce class size. This will give them all the excuses they need not to improve the capital plan.

3- The promise of transparency and stability that was supposed to come with a new school aid formula -- one that would be less prone to political manipulation year after year and that would more equitably fund NYC schools -- has entirely vanished.

4- Last but not least, the extra operating aid would come in the form of an unrestricted grant – with no strings attached, unlike the portion of the CFE settlement called Contracts for excellence -- that was actually supposed to be directed to specific programs that research shows actually work, like class size reduction. With this money the city could instead spend it on more testing, cash rewards tied to test scores, more consultants, higher salaries at Tweed, or really any new fad that strikes their fancy.

Paul Francis, Spitzer's director of operations, told New York Sun that the governor's decision to give the city much of these funds in the form of a unrestricted grant was the result of a compromise "between the desire of the city to have unrestricted funds and the desire of the advocacy community to have all the money subject to the Contracts for Excellence."

To the contrary, we need more accountability, not less, with these precious funds. This money belongs to the children of NYC, not to the Governor, the Mayor or Joel Klein; and it must be spent in a way that gives them their constitutional right to an adequate education – including smaller classes in all grades.

We have a lot of work to do, with both the state and the city, to ensure that the promise to our children of smaller classes embodied in the 12 long years of the battle for education equity is actually fulfilled. Stay tuned.

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.

Still No Approval from State on NYC's Contract for Excellence and Class Size Reduction Plan

There is still no word from the State Education Department on DOE's Contract for Excellence, the plan that needs to be approved in order for our schools to receive additional state funding. Parent Karen Koenig sends this message to the State Education Commissioner, Richard Mills, and his bosses on the Board of Regents. Parents can email the commissioner at Richard.Mills@mail.nysed.gov


Dear Board of Regents and Commissioner Mills:

I am a NYC public school parent. As you may be aware, the need for smaller classes in our schools was the top priority of parents in the recent DOE parent survey. Yet DOE’s proposal under its “Contract for Excellence” is inadequate, especially with respect to class size, and will not lead to the smaller classes necessary to provide my child and other NYC children with their right to a quality education.

Please refrain from releasing any state funds to NYC until and unless the DOE submits a real five year class size reduction plan, showing how class sizes will be significantly reduced in all grades starting this year, aligned with a capital plan that will provide sufficient space in the long term.

I am tired of high school classes with an average of 30 students (and sometimes way more than that). I am tired of my daughter attending a high school that was built for 2,000 and now has 3,500 kids in it. I am tired of my child not receiving adequate instruction in math and science because there are so many in the class that not all questions can be fully explained and responded to. I am tired of my child starting classes at 7:30 in the morning because of overcrowding. I am tired of not being able to meet with all teachers during parent/teacher conferences because there are so many other parents trying to do the same. I am tired of the DOE NOT listening to or respecting what parents have to say about school over-population and the need for smaller class size.

Regards,

Karen Koenig
Recording Secretary
John Bowne HS
Flushing, Queens

The response is unanimous: withhold state funding until DOE comes up with a better proposal!

On August 6, Class Size Matters faxed an open letter to NY State Education Commissioner Mills, with the signatures of over 200 parents, PTA presidents, Community Education Councilmembers, education advocates, and other key leaders, including Robert Jackson, Chair of the NYC Council Education committee and the original CFE plaintiff.

The letter urges the state to reject the city's class size reduction proposal, submitted on July 16 as part of its "Contract for Excellence", and to withhold funding until and unless the city prepares an actual, enforceable five year reduction plan, as mandated by law.

The city is obligated to come up with a five year plan, showing continuous and measurable reductions in class size, to receive the additional funding that will come to our schools as a result of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) case, according to the budget passed by the State Legislature last spring.

Earlier, we sent Commissioner Mills a longer letter, explaining in detail why the the city's submission is inadequate. For those who are interested in taking a look at our analysis, it is posted (in Word) here. In brief, the Department of Education's proposal fails to comply with the law for the following reasons:

It does not include even the outlines of a five year class size reduction plan, as required. Even as a one year plan, it lacks sufficient funding, space and direction.

The so-called "Fair student formula" used to allocate dollars deprives resources to reduce class size to half of all schools, including 47% of our failing schools – those that according to law and good policy should be addressed first.

The schools that were selected for “class size coaching” are too few in number, and the process itself of "coaching" will lead to uncertain results.

There is no alignment with the capital plan, as the law mandates -- and thus there is no provision of the additional space that will be necessary.

The class size “targets” mentioned in the document appear to be based on speculation alone, and are so minimal they will be difficult to measure, given the chronic inaccuracy of the city’s class size data. In many grades, the “targets” for class size appear to be higher than would result from enrollment decline alone.

The funds the city wants to spend on its testing initiative, under the heading of additional "time on task" should be disallowed -- as all these new standardized exams will take time away from learning rather than extend it.

Instead of a thoughtful systematic plan, this proposal is fatally flawed -- haphazard, scattershot, and indifferent to the law and the regulations. It is unlikely to lead to a significant reduction in class size in any grade.

We asked that the state require that the city spend at least $100 million next year hiring teachers to reduce class size, targeted first to our failing schools, and immediately prepare a long-term plan, providing sufficient funding and space through a more expansive capital budget, so all students in this city will be able to receive appropriate class sizes within five years.

Since the city revealed its proposal in July, it has met with overwhelming criticism from parents and teachers alike. Here is what Noreen Connell of the Educational Priorities Panel wrote about the response:

Despite the absence of a coherent document and with as little as five days’ notice, close to 900 individuals testified before NYC Department of Education officials, predominantly PTA presidents and other parent leaders. A smaller proportion of those giving oral testimony, but still significant in number, were classroom teachers. Education advocates, elected officials, and civic and union representatives were the balance of participants. ... all substantive public testimony expressed disappointment or anger about the plan’s objectives. Such widespread public rejection calls for the NYS Department of Education to work with city school officials to develop a more acceptable plan.

Her are links to the letters to Mills from Assembly Education Chair Cathy Nolan, Assemblymember James Brennan, City Council Education Chair Robert Jackson, the Campaign for Fiscal Equity ( pdf), Advocates for Children (pdf), the League of Women Voters (pdf), the Women's City Club (pdf), the United Federation of Teachers, and the Educational Priorities Panel -- each asking that funding be withheld until the city comes up with a better proposal.

What will the Commissioner do? Stay tuned.

Sign a letter now and let the State know how you feel!

The city released their class size reduction proposal last week. Despite calling it a five year plan, as the state requires, it is anything but.

Accordingly, the Mayor and the Department of Education ignored the pleas of parents from all parts of the city -- including the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island, and Queens -- who begged them them to revise this flimsy proposal and instead submit a real plan that will lead to measurable progress in class size. Instead, a small group of schools will receive "targeted" class size coaching -- without an actual commitment that any school will actually reduce class size to appropriate levels.

This week the Mayor traveled to St. Louis, and in a speech to the Urban League said that elected officials who respond to parents' legitimate concerns to have their children provided with the same sort of class sizes and attention that Bloomberg's own daughters received are merely offering "cheap platitudes and slogans instead of real solutions."

Please sign on this letter to Commissioner Mills of the NY State Education Dept., urging him to reject the city's proposal, and make the DOE offer a real solution to our class size crisis. Just send your name, school and/or other organizational affiliation to leonie@att.net with a copy to Ann Kjellberg at kjellzer@pipeline.com by Aug. 6 -- the day before the state deadline for comment.

Then please resend the message -- with any edits or details about your child's situation that you'd like -- directly to SED at emscsom@mail.nysed.gov, signed with your name and full address, with a copy to your state legislators, as it's important for them to weigh in as well. For their emails, just plug your address and zip here.

Then forward this message to every parent you know who cares about the future of education in this city.