Four years ago, candidates running for mayor saw an ailing public school system riddled with politics and failing most of its 1.1 million students. Many New Yorkers believed outgoing Mayor Rudolph Giuliani had done little for the city’s schools other than browbeat them. While some aspects of life in the city had improved in the previous decade, the schools had not. In fact, many parents believed public education had gotten worse.
In 2005, no one – not even his harshest critics – can say that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has ignored education. He made gaining control of the system one of his top priorities -- and accomplished the feat. Since then, he has remained active in school issues, selecting the chancellor, eliminating the Board of Education and community school boards, moving education headquarters across from City Hall, instituting policies to end so-called social promotion, and so on.
All of the major Democratic candidates, as well as Conservative Thomas Ognibene, praise the mayor for taking on education and trying to improve city schools. But they fault him on the effects of his reforms and question whether the changes have improved what takes place in tens of thousands of classrooms across the city every day. Among themselves, the Democrats differ largely in emphasis. While they all, for example, want smaller classes (so, the mayor claims, does he) Gifford Miller makes it his number one priority while C. Virginia Fields includes it as part of a larger package of changes that also include such items as improving vocational education.
The biggest difference among the candidates comes over funding for the system. All of the Democrats support the court’s ruling in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit which ordered that city schools receive billions of dollars more a year to provide students with a “sound basic education.” But they disagree over how much of this money – if any – should come from the city and how the city should pay for that share.
Success in education can be difficult to measure, particularly over the short term. When he won control of the city’s schools, Bloomberg reportedly said, “"If reading and math scores aren't significantly better, I will look in the mirror and say I've failed. And I've never failed at anything in my life."
Most test scores are up , but the mayor’s rivals argue the increase may not result from the mayor’s changes and that, in any event, tests scores may not accurately reflect what goes on in the schools. Eva Moskowitz, chair of the City Council Education Committee and a Miller ally, held hearings in June where experts questioned the reasons for the increase in test scores. They note that, while New York City had seen a sharp rise in scores on the fourth grade state-wide English test, scores had gone up even more sharply in Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers – school systems that had not had the benefit of Bloomberg’s leadership.
And others dispute how much weight one should give the scores. "The focus on test scores in the early grades and the rise in the test scores in the early grades is a very narrow measure," Ferrer said in unveiling Ferrer's education reform package last month. "The right measure for the success of our school system is how many kids who graduate on time have the tools they need to go on to higher education and get a steady job."
Miller still sees a litany of problems. “Attendance is down, teachers are leaving the system in droves, violence is an increasing problem in our schools, and parents feel more disconnected than ever,” Miller said this spring.
More than any of the other Democrats, Miller has tried to carve out education as his issue. And Miller has focused largely on class size, calling for a 20 percent cut in the number of students in a class. This would mean, for example, a maximum of 17 children in all kindergarten through third grade classrooms in the city. "Every teacher, every parent and every principal can tell you that kids can't learn in classrooms that are bursting at the seams from overcrowding," Miller has said.
Miller has called for putting a proposal aimed at reducing class size on the November ballot. Bloomberg, though, will probably block the measure from going before voters this year. It could appear in 2006, though, by which time Miller will either be mayor or out of office entirely.
Ferrer would focus on reducing what he calls the “educational dropout crisis we have in New York City.” Ferrer's plan calls for a series of changes, starting at the pre-K level, because, he says, “children begin dropping out of high school when they start falling behind before school and in the early grades.”
So, like the other candidates, Ferrer would cut class size. He would also improve the system for tracking children’s progress as they go through the system, offer counseling and extra help for middle school students, provide all high school students with a laptop computer, and strengthen the high school curriculum in social studies, sciences and the arts. At one end, he would offer more challenging classes; at the other he would provide more math and literacy programs for struggling students.
Weiner, who frequently reminds listeners his mother was a long-time public-school teacher, has proposed a three-part program focusing on making schools safer; attracting and keeping good teachers; and spending money in the classroom, not at school headquarters in the Tweed courthouse. In going after spending on school bureaucracy and what he terms “political pet projects,” Weiner aims at two of Bloomberg and School Chancellor Joel Klein’s prized initiatives: the parent coordinators in every school and the “leadership academy” to train principals.
Fields has offered a plan dubbed SMART. The acronym covers smaller class sizes, massive interventions at the earlier levels, academic partnerships with universities, recruitment and retention for teachers, and technology and tutorial help.
All of the candidates call for reaching a new contract with teachers, something Bloomberg has failed to achieve in the two years since the previous accord expired. Weiner notes that teachers in New York receive far less money than their suburban counterparts, leading the Scarsdale school system to raid the city for teachers. Whatever the intrinsic merit of giving more money to teachers, the stand has a possible political payoff as well. The politically powerful United Federation of Teachers has not yet announced who it will back in the mayoral race, and all the candidates would undoubtedly like their support. This may explain Bloomberg’s apparent shift on the teacher’s contract. He has stopped publicly demanding sweeping changes in work rules, such as ending tenure, and instead says teachers will get a raise.
Lesser known candidates weigh in on education as well. Democrat Chris Brodeur’s 100 innovations for New York City only touch on education (there’s more about ending corruption, making more things free and requiring bathroom doors to open outward instead on in), but he does want to end bullying.
Minor party candidates chime in on some of the mainstream issues – but include a position or two reflecting their affiliations. And so, along with smaller classes, Green Party candidate Theo Chino wants to “include ethics, nonviolence, and environmental conservation in school curricula.” Libertarian Audrey Silk calls for more discipline, increased vocational training and, as befits a Libertarian, more free-market style competition. “We do a great disservice to our children by removing competitive sports and competitive academics,” she says on her Web site.“Similarly, we do a great disservice to our children when we force them to solve problems and reach solutions â€by committee’ instead of teaching them self-reliance."
One candidate takes this a step further. Seth Blum, who teaches math at a public high school in Manhattan, has declared himself the candidate of the Education Party. Blum's platform would decrease the emphasis on tests, institute a curriculum written by city schoolteachers, and get money for education both through a surcharge on tickets to events held in new stadiums and a voluntary tax check-off for education. The group’s slogan trumpets, "The strongest democracy arises out of a most educated society.” For now, though, the party must grapple with New York democracy and get enough signatures to win a place on the ballot.
None of the Democratic candidates want to return to the days before mayoral control. But most charge the system has become too centralized and undemocratic.
“I hear the same complaint over and over again,” Fields says in a statement on education on her Web site. “No one at the Department of Education cares what we think and no one is listening.”
To change this, Fields said she would have an annual conference for parents and also pay more attention to the various education councils set up to replace the community school boards.
More than any other candidates, Ognibene focuses on the running of the system. He would cut the bureaucracy and give more power over budgets and some educational issues to individual principals. To ensure that this worked, all schools would be evaluated annually. But Ognibene would not surrender mayoral control. “If I were mayor, nobody would overrule me,” Ognibene said at an education forum. “That's the whole point of being mayor, isn't it?”
While the Campaign for Fiscal Equity ruling calls for an additional $14 billion for schools over the next four years, it does not dictate how much of the money should come from the state and how much from Albany. Bloomberg, though, has been adamant that the city will not pay a penny. Ferrer has staked out the opposite ground, saying the city will have no choice but to pay 20 to 25 percent of the $14 billion.
Weiner has criticized Ferrer on this, arguing that the former Bronx borough president could undermine the city’s negotiating position with the state. “Our position should be we don’t put in money because we’re the ones who have been victimized,” Weiner said at a forum ponsored by the Citizens Budget Commission. “Mr. Ferrer, you’re 100 percent wrong.”
“If you think zero is a sound negotiating strategy, that has gotten us exactly zero,” Ferrer said at the same forum. “And it will continue to get us zero.”
To fund the city’s share, Ferrer has proposed a small tax on stock transactions. While not committing himself to paying any set portion of the CFE settlement, Miller has proposed keeping the tax surcharge on people earning more than $500,000 a year. This, he says, would pay for smaller classes and would also put the city on the road to paying some of the money called for in the CFE ruling.
All the Democrats fault Bloomberg for not getting more state money for the schools – for not stopping fellow Republican George Pataki from stonewalling on the CFE ruling by filing appeals and refusing to budget money for the settlement. “The same kind of passion, determination, tenacity we have seen this mayor use to fight for a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan is missing when it comes to fighting Albany for funds for our schools,” Field has said.
Given Pataki’s intransigence – and Bloomberg’s apparent inability to shake it – the crucial vote on education in New York may not come in the September primary or even on Election Day but on November 7, 2006, when New Yorkers select their next governor.
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-Priorities
-Pay Raises for Teachers
-Campaign for Fiscal Equity
Fernando Ferrer promises to the number of high school graduates from New York City public schools by 50,000 in four years. And within eight years, lower the dropout rate below the national level. He plans to modernize the schools, hire more teachers, and create a centralized tracking system to monitor student progress and attendance, which he says will identify children at risk of dropping out it can be prevented before it happens. He also promises to provide each student a laptop computer to engage them in learning in and out of school
Ferrer also promises to give public school teachers a pay raise.
To pay for all of this, Ferrer proposes using the $23 billion that the State Supreme Court ruled the city should receive in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit. Although he hopes the majority of the money will come from Albany, Ferrer said city should pay 25 percent of it. He has proposed a tax of about a half a cent on sales of an average share of stock. He argues that it makes sense to require Wall Street to contribute to education, the former Bronx borough president said, because “they are the industry that benefits most in seeing that New York’s children are educated to the highest of standards.”
(Read Ferrer’s education platform http://www.ferrer2005.com/site/News2?abbr=eng_&page=NewsArticle&id=5859)
C. Virginia Fields promises to reform the school system and eliminate a “top down approach” to education. She proposes extending after-school programs and increasing parental involvement, with an annual “Parent Power” conference. She promises to expand and improve pre-school options. Fields says she will must reach out to business, unions and non-profits to partner in planning our high school job placement and counseling.
Fields promises to recruit more qualified teachers and give them a pay raise.
To pay for her education plan, Fields promises to secure the $23 that the State Supreme Court ruled the city should receive in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit. She said it is too early to say if the city should be required to pay any portion of this and has said the mayor should demand the money from Albany before committing any money.
(Read C. Virginia Fields education platform http://www.newyorkers4fields.com/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cndIssues&htmlId=2153)
Gifford Miller has made reducing class size the top priority for education. Miller promises to reduce class sizes by 20 percent. This means kindergarten through third grade would have no more than 17 students, 20 students in fourth through fifth grade, and 23 students in junior and senior high. He also proposes eliminating quotas on the number of students a principal may discipline, provide after school programs for every child. Using new technology, he plans to foster better parent-teacher communication. And we wants to institute a service program so that every high school student performs community service.
Miller also promises to give public school teachers pay raises. He also wants to tie salary and advancement to performance and provide bonuses for teachers who agree to work in under-performing schools.
To pay for his education proposals, Miller proposes using the $23 billion that the State Supreme Court ruled the city should receive in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit. He believes the city should pay about 10 percent of this amount and has proposed an income tax on New Yorkers who make more than $500,000 a year to pay for it.
(Read Gifford Miller’s education platform http://www.giffordmiller.com/issues/education.html)
Anthony Wiener says that the top priority for the education system should be ensuring school safety. He believes principals and teachers should be given more power to suspend unruly students. He also wants to replace the current school curriculum and give teachers more say in their lesson plans. He promises to revamp school spending to put more money toward the classroom, for example eliminating Mayor Bloomberg’s Leadership Academy that trains principals.
Wiener promises to pay teacher’s more in order to keep them from moving to higher paid jobs in the suburbs.
To pay for his education proposals, Wiener proposes using the $23 billion that the State Supreme Court ruled the city should receive in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit. Although he admits that the city will likely have to pay some portion of this, he has not committed to a specific amount of city funding.
(Read Anthony Weiner’s education platform http://www.anthonyweiner.com/speeches/show/3)
Even Michael Bloomberg’s opponents agree that abolishing the Board of Education and taking control of the city’s schools was a major accomplishment. Bloomberg has also instituted a citywide curriculum and increased city funding for the Department of Education by $2.5 billion since 2002. Bloomberg eliminated the policy of social promotion in the 3rd and 5th grades and points toward a 10 percent increase in reading scores for 4th graders as proof of its success. Bloomberg also created a Leadership Academy to recruit and train principals.
Since giving the teacher’s a raise in his first year in office, Bloomberg and the teacher’s union have been deadlocked over additional pay increases. He has offered teachers raises of about 5 percent over three years in return for work rule concessions. The teachers union is demanding a 19 percent pay hike over three years.
Bloomberg supports the State Supreme Court ruling that city schools should get $23 billion in more funding. But he does not want the city to pay a single additional cent. Bloomberg has argued, any increase at all in city education spending would require cuts in other areas that "would harm the very children this lawsuit is designed to help." Michael Cardoza, the Bloomberg administration's corporation counsel, has even said that the city would reject any additional state funds if it had to chip in part of the settlement.
(Read Michael Bloomberg’s education platform)
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Despite frustrations and setbacks, the community education councils that replaced the 32 community school boards last fall were more effective in their first year than many observers expected, and parents say the councils may become more powerful as they learn to flex their political muscles.
The first year was difficult for the councils, which are made up mostly of public school parents and elected largely by officials of school parents association. Some council members complain about what they consider a dismissive attitude by the Department of Education. They are dismayed that Chancellor Joel Klein removed the one clear power the councils had -- to determine school choice and magnet programs. In poor neighborhoods in particular, the councils have had difficulty attracting enough members, and many don't have the full complement of nine parents.
The experiences of one council member, David Bloomfield, chair of the Graduate Program in Educational Leadership at Brooklyn College and first vice president of the Citywide Council on High Schools, reflect those of many council members. "My chief frustration was the perception that the Department of Education had created the council as window dressing," Bloomfield writes in an article for Inside Schools. "Rarely was there a sense of welcomed collaboration between the parents on the board and Department of Education officials."
Despite this, he says, there were successes. When the council publicized complaints it had received from parents, an article appeared in the Daily News. This, Bloomfield writes, prompted the Department pf Education to appoint an executive director for secondary schools and to revamp its policies on admission to high school.
Other councils point to success too.
On Manhattan's West Side, parents who thought admissions procedures discriminated against poor and working class Latino families were able to get a hearing. On the East Side, parents upset by the progressive math curriculum aired their concerns. And a community council member from Queens says he is impressed by the clout the council gives parents.
"I've been empowered to a degree I wouldn't have thought possible," Jeffrey Guyton, a council member from District 30 in Long Island City, said in a letter to the New York Times this spring. "I've helped to get a leaking roof repaired and am organizing a seminar on asthma at PS 2, among other things."
When the legislature gave the mayor control of the city schools, it dissolved the 32 community school boards and replaced them with 32 "community education councils" each with nine parents elected by parents associations, two ember appointed by the borough president and one high school senior, who does not get a vote. These councils are supposed to approve boundaries between schools, review educational programs, evaluate supervisors, and make recommendations on building use. The legislature also created the council on high schools and a council for special education. The first councils were selected for one-year terms, but the next set will serve two, starting in the fall.
There have been difficulties. Resignations, dismissals and unfilled vacancies meant that almost half of the 32 councils did not have their full complement of nine parent members on January 3, 2005, according to a report prepared by Carolyn Prager of Advocates for Public Representation in Public Education. Because a great many of those who did finish their terms did not run for re-election or were defeated, there will be a huge turnover in the councils in the fall. Almost as worrisome, the turnout in the election limited to three parent association officers in each school was dismal.
Indeed, in some poor neighborhoods parents feel as frustrated as ever. "We have no power at all," Glenn Simmons of the council for District 32 in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn told the Daily News. "Our members resigned because they were unhappy. If you want to make a difference in schools, community education councils are not the place to do it." Christian Rodriguez, a member of District 22 in Flatbush told the Daily News that many parents were chased away by frustration. "If you come into the situation cold, like a lot of parents did this year, it really is a shock to your system," he said.
The bureaucracy seemed to conspire against the councils. Members learned that they did not have the free access to schools that their predecessors on the community school boards enjoyed; rather, they could visit only if the principal agreed. They were upset when, without consultation, the chancellor revised a regulation -- A-185 -- on zoning to remove their ability to designate magnet schools and school choice programs in their districts.
By spring, members were grappling with onerous conflict of interest regulations that required them to disclose their personal finances - and perhaps be removed from the council - if they had even a remote connection to a group or company that does business with the Department of Education. A council member in District 13 in Brooklyn faced disqualification because she worked for Verizon, the telephone company, which does business with the school system. "You've got to be kidding," Carmen Colon, president of the District 13 council, told the New York Times. "She has nothing to do with contracts. She's a clerk." Colon said excessive paperwork discouraged civic-minded parents from running for office.
Despite these problems, some councils took on important issues. Darlene Vanasco, a parent, attended a District 15 meeting in Brooklyn on a middle school initiative and small class size. "The dedication of the people on the council has been incredible," she said. "They are tenacious, smart and informed and I do believe they can really make a difference over time."
District 3's council was instrumental in airing the Center for Immigrant Families' report on what it called de facto segregation in the gifted programs on Manhattan's West Side. District 2, also in Manhattan, held three forums on the math curriculum. Serena Brown, newly elected to the panel, said the middle school admissions process was greatly improved with the help of the council. According to Catherine Skopec, a parent who has attended nearly all District 2 council meetings, the panel really listened and there was some movement on some issues."
In December many of the councils banded together in an Association of New York City Education Councils to help solve their problems. They engaged civil rights attorney Norman Siegel as counsel. Besides public representation, the group provides members with technical assistance on such matters as how to read budgets, placing emphasis on the capital budget that councils are supposed to approve.
"I think the councils had a lot of great ideas," said Vanasco. "I also think they feel quite hobbled in instituting the ideas. The issue is not whether they could be effective. The issue is how. Some feel a lot of work was put in with not enough hard results to show for it. However, I do think we need to be patient. Change happens over time."
This topic page has been adapted from an article that originally appeared Inside Schools, an independent guide to New York City public schools sponsored by Advocates for Children.
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