Almost every public school parent, student and teacher takes it as an article of faith that city schools do not have enough money. Teachers spend their own money to purchase supplies, parents buy paper towels for their child’s classroom and students regard crowded classrooms and shabby playgrounds as the norm. But, as angry as many New Yorkers may be about this, they – or at least their elected representatives – do not blame Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Or so it would seem from the recent council hearing on next year’s budget for the Department of Education.
Earlier this month, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein appeared before the council’s Education Committee to answer questions on the proposed $14 billion operating budget for the Department of Education. Probably the most remarkable thing about the session was how peaceful – even cordial – it was. And the muted response extends beyond council chambers. Parents have stored away their Save Our Schools (SOS) buttons, and this spring has seen no banner waving rallies in front of Tweed Courthouse or angry letter-writing campaigns.
Certainly the sharp rise in results on standardized test scores by city students – released just two days before the council hearing -- contribute to some of the optimism. Council members and others were undoubtedly cheered by an increase, however slight, in school funding. The mayor says he has boosted city spending for education by a total of $2.5 billion since he took office.
But the aura of good feeling in the council chamber could fade. As savvy parents, council members and educators know, the optimistic budgets of spring can look far different in autumn. Last year, for example, many students showed up at school in September to find scheduled classes eliminated because of budget cuts. The Department of Education restored the bulk of those programs but only after weeks of turmoil at many city high schools.
Even now, the budget features some unanswered questions and possible dangers. For example, some wonder how much of the increase in the operating budget money will actually go into classrooms. The budget also makes two assumptions that are, from the city’s viewpoint, wildly optimistic: It assumes the education department will get almost $2 billion for capital expenses from Albany and that teachers will agree to a contract giving them merely a modest salary increase.
All told, the mayor sees the Department of Education operating budget increasing by about a billion next year. This comes down to about $910 for each of the system’s 1.1 million students.
The increases include:
--$15 million to help at-risk students;
--$2.8 million for gifted and talented programs;
--money for new small schools, some designed to replace larger failing schools
--$4.6 million for English language learners and $2.8 million for a translation unit to help families that do not speak English;
--$95.9 for special education
--$13.4 million school security
But much of the budget increase, the chancellor readily admits, will not show up in classrooms. Some will go to pay increased fuel costs and fringe benefit costs. While he would rather spend this money in the classroom Klein said, he had no choice: Students have to get to school somehow, and, once there, they cannot sit in unheated classroom.
Since Klein took over, many people, including some of the Democratic candidates for mayor, have criticized him for spending too much on consultants and on high priced bureaucrats (educrats in the jargon) with little education experience. But parent activists and even council members will be hard-pressed to determine just how much money goes for such items. As a recent council guide to the education budget notes, “The education budget is so large and so vague that it’s easy to hide serious flaws within it and hard to spot trouble when it arises.”
Class size can be a case in point. The mayor’s executive budget calls for adding $10 million to keep class size in lower grades at its current level – but it does not set a clear numerical target.
Smaller classes remain popular – many educators say that they are one of the few proven ways to boost students' performance – and expensive. But while advocates for them appear, for the moment at least, to have removed the issue from the budget talk, it is part of the mayoral campaign. Council Speaker Gifford Miller, for example, would spend $380 million – generated by keeping the income tax surcharge on the richest New Yorkers – to limit classes in the lower elementary grades to 17 students. Borough President C. Virginia Fields and Former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer have also called for smaller class sizes. At the same time, advocates for smaller classes have launched a drive (in pdf format) to put a ballot measure calling for smaller class size before voters in November.
In its four-year capital plan for 2006 to 2009, the city hopes to spend $10.5 billion to create more than 50,000 additional places for students around the city, restructure 44 schools, modernize science and computer labs and provide athletic facilities, among other improvements. In light of the overcrowding at many schools and shabby and outdated facilities at many others, the plan holds obvious appeal.
But there’s a hitch. According to the mayor’s budget, $6.5 billion of that money will come from the state. The city’s estimate derives from the judge’s order in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit on the funding of education in the city. In his decision, Judge Leland DeGrasse ruled that the city schools needed an additional $9 billion in capital funding for the next five years. But, Governor George Pataki has appealed the judge’s ruling and the state has not budgeted any money to comply with DeGrasse’s ruling.
Of the $2.6 billion in the 2006 executive capital plan presented in April, $1.8 billion is to come from the state – but the state budget adopted this spring did not include those funds, creating a possible $1.8 billion gap in the capital budget. “Should we vote yes on a budget with $1.8 billion that’s not there?” education committee chair Eva Moskowitz asked Klein during his appearance at the council. “Can we get it before October? I don’t know. I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
Klein responded that the capital budget was not “pie in the sky. It is a court mandate.” But, he conceded, it would be hard to fund the programs without the state money. Despite repeated questioning, he would not say what he would advise the mayor to do if (cynics would say when) the money does not materialize.
The Educational Priorities Panel, a private group that works to improve education in the city, advises caution. It notes that the administration says no projects will be delayed. But the group adds in a statement on its web site, “In the past, capital budget cuts and increases have not necessarily been a good predictor of how many new schools will actually be built.”
If the Department of Education eventually cancels or delays some projects for lack of funds then council members, particularly those whose districts are affected, would squawk. But for now, at least, legislative and executive branch can present a united front, looking to Albany to come through.
The other big question mark in the budget involves labor costs. New York’s 100,000 public school teachers have been working without a contract for two years, as has the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, which represents 5,500 principals, assistant principals and other administrators. The teacher's union, the United Federation of Teachers, has recently stepped up demands for an accord and criticized Mayor Michael Bloomberg for not using the city’s $3.3 billion city surplus to reach a settlement with the teachers. Bloomberg, on the other hand, argues the surplus is temporary at best. The administration also says it wants to use the contract to force major changes in other aspects of the teachers contract – scrapping many seniority rules, making it easier to fire teachers, giving principals more authority over who they hire and so on.
Klein said the budget envisions the teacher’s a contract similar to that reached with many other city workers. But the teachers – along with police and firefighters – have resisted this idea, arguing that the city must pay teachers more if it is to compete with suburban school districts and keep qualified teachers in the city.
As it is every year, the 2006 budget discussions also provide council members an opportunity to lobby for items of particular concern to their constituents. Vincent Gentile decried overcrowding at Fort Hamilton High School in his district. Diana Reyna outlined deteriorating conditions at the 850 Grand Street Campus. “We are bursting at the seams,” she said.
And Simcha Felder, most of whose Orthodox Jewish constituents do not use the public schools, urged the city to raise money by selling parts of some little used school playgrounds for real estate development. “It’s a no brainer,” he said. Many might agree – but not in the sense Felder meant.
Such gripes and proposals are all part of the game, as Klein apparently has learned very well. As he rushed out to another meeting, Moskowitz asked him whether he had a “philosophical objection” to giving teachers an allowance to buy books and supplies. The program was cut from this year’s budget – and last year’s as well. “No,” Klein said, “I don’t have a philosophical objection. You always put it back anyway.”
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Some of New York City's public schools now house "sweep rooms" for students cutting class, "holding cells" in the basement, and dozens of police and security guards. Unnoticed by many, these new additions are part of an unprecedented expansion of the criminal justice system into the educational domain.
In doing this, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has received inspiration from his predecessor. He has adopted the same "broken windows" theory that shaped former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's approach to fighting crime in New York City neighborhoods. The theory holds that minor signs of disorder, such as a single broken window, send a signal that no one cares, creating an opening for more -- and more serious -- offenses. So, to prevent crime you fix the broken window.
Thus, the Impact Schools Initiative, which takes its name from another police department program, Operation Impact, that put more police officers into high crime areas. Impact Schools is a joint effort by the police department, the Department of Education, and the mayor's office. Launched in January 2004, it targets middle and high schools with high levels of reported crime, and employs aggressive policing strategies to reduce violence and disorder.
But in light of new data profiling the Impact Schools, one must ask, "Which came first -- broken windows or broken schools?"
Impact Schools have more economically disadvantaged students and more black students than other city schools. They also tend to be more overcrowded, and less well funded than schools throughout the city, according to new research (in pdf format) by the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy. These problems existed before the launch of the mayor's Impact Schools initiative; only time will tell if conditions are changing. Looking back, we have to ask ourselves whether these schools had already been crying out for special attention -- not in the form of cops, security cameras, and "sweep rooms", but teachers, books, and computer rooms.
The facts speak for themselves. According to Drum Major Institute, the current 22 Impact Schools are operating at 111 percent capacity -– making them five percent more crowded than the average New York City public high school and seven percent more overcrowded than schools the Department of Education describes as similar. The worst of the Impact Schools, Walton High School and Christopher Columbus High, both in the Bronx, were at more than 180 percent capacity in 2004.
The city spent an average of $1,482 less for each student at an Impact School than it did at the average city high school in 2003. Furthermore, while the city increased spending on direct services in high schools by $1,217 per student between 2002 and 2003, average spending on students at the 22 Impact Schools rose by only an average of $609.
More than six in ten students at the 22 Impact Schools serving the lowest income families are poor enough for a free lunch (a benefit available to families whose incomes are up to 130 percent of the poverty line). This compares with about five in ten at the average city high school. At the six poorest Impact Schools, more than eight out of ten students are eligible for free lunch. At Walton High School -- also among the most crowded of the Impact Schools -- that number reaches nine in ten.
Additionally, the Impact Schools have a higher percentage of students of color and significantly fewer white students than the average city high school. More than half of students at the Impact Schools are black, compared with 35 percent in the average city high school. And there is also a slightly greater proportion of Hispanic students in the Impact Schools. At the same time, Impact Schools have a substantially lower share of white students -- 4.6 percent, as opposed to 14.2 percent.
Finally, ninth and tenth graders at Impact Schools were far more likely than their counterparts elsewhere in the city to be over age for their grade. By the time they reach high school, these older students, many of whom have had a difficult time in school, require additional resources to improve their academic performance. Getting extra help is made all the more difficult when a school is packed to the rafters and stretched to the limit, as is the case in the 22 Impact Schools.
Mayor Bloomberg seems eager to point to numbers showing crime falling at the Impact Schools this year over last.
But a recent analysis by the National Crime Victimization Survey has shown that putting police officers in schools does not stem violence. In fact, the opposite seems true: Schools using security measures such as law enforcement agents and surveillance cameras were associated with increased reports of school violence and disorder, while schools relying on more participatory efforts to educate youth on school rules and appropriate conduct were associated with less reported school crime.
The city has chosen to respond to the headline-grabbing visible symptoms of school disorder rather than treating the root causes, a complex social and education problem. If the city took a more thoughtful look at the 22 Impact Schools it would find they have much more in common than high rates of crime. Addressing those problems, and bringing the chronically resource-poor and overburdened Impact Schools up to the level of the rest of city schools, could go a long way toward making those schools safer, better places of learning.
The question for New York City now is not whether we fix the broken windows, but how?
Rhee, a fellow of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, is executive director of the Prison Moratorium Project
Having once told voters to judge him on his handling of education in the city, Mayor Michael Bloomberg reacted jubilantly to the news on May 18 that reading scores for the city’s fourth graders had risen sharply this year. Of the students taking the test in 2005, almost 60 percent met state standards, an increase of about 10 percent over last year.
But amid the good news, a stubborn fact remains: Kids in New York City still do far worse on this type of exam than students elsewhere in the state. Statewide, 70 percent of fourth graders meet the standards.
Many of those looking to close that discrepancy -- or “achievement gap” -- see two, sometimes related solutions: Give the city schools more money and use a lot of that money to decrease class size. Both issues have emerged as hot topics in this year’s mayoral race.
The fight for more state funding for city schools dates at least back to the Dinkins administration when the Campaign for Fiscal Equity filed suit, seeking more funding for city schools. Despite numerous court rulings in the city’s favor, New York City public schools have not yet seen any of the billions of extra dollars the court ruled they should receive -- and thanks to court appeals by Governor George Pataki they are not likely to any time soon.
Bloomberg has made his position on this issue clear. He supports the court ruling that city schools get billions more. But he does not want the city to pay a single additional cent.
The courts did not address the question of how much of any new funding would come from the state and how much from the city, declaring that such decisions belong with the legislative branch, not the judiciary. But, 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. And the mayor's proposed budget for fiscal year 2006 does not assume any big influx of state funds for education or any major additional city expense to match it.
His opponents clearly see him as vulnerable on education in general, and this funding case in particular. But they are also attacking each other.
In April, Fernando Ferrer proposed a tax of about a half a cent on sales of an average share of stock. Ferrer anticipated this would raise about $1 billion –- or, he said, enough to cover the city’s share of any negotiated settlement between city, state and courts in the CFE case. 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.”
Even though a similar, and far larger, tax existed in New York City until 1981, virtually everybody criticized Ferrer's proposal. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, whose support would probably be needed for such a tax to be enacted, said the idea was dead. Bloomberg called it a ``job-killing'' plan, and Representative Anthony Weiner, also running for mayor, termed it ``a mind-bogglingly bad idea.''
For her part, C. Virginia Fields says it is far too soon to be talking about how much the city will pay. “We need to have a much more aggressive position taken by the mayor of this city with the governor and the state legislature,” she says. The mayor needs to show the “kind of passion” he has exhibited on the West Side stadium and push the governor to provide “what’s right for the children of New York City."
Council Speaker Gifford Miller has proposed an extension of a tax surcharge on those earning more than $500,000 a year.
Weiner’s plan to provide funding for city schools calls for a tax on millionaires and cuts in some of Bloomberg’s pet education programs, such as paid parent coordinators in every school and the Leadership Academy, which trains prospective school principals.
If and when the city gets any additional money, many parents, teachers and others want it to go toward reducing the number of students in city classrooms, particularly in the elementary school grades.
Just how much emphasis to put on cutting class size has been a key part of the educational debate in the city.
Advocates, such as the organization Class Size Matters, believe that no other single improvement can do as much to boost achievement as cutting class size. According to Class Size Matters, average class size in kindergarten through third grade in New York City is 22, down from 25 several years ago. But the group says that a quarter of students in the early elementary grades remain in classes with more than 25 children. This compares with an average class size of 20 in New York State as a whole. Class sizes become progressively large as children advance through public school, with high school classes in the city typically 34 students.
Led by Miller, members of the City Council have proposed reducing the average class size to 17 in early elementary grades, 20 in grades four and five, and 23 in middle school. At a mayoral candidates forum on education, Miller said that smaller class size is one of the things “that we know works” in improving education.
The other Democratic candidates express similar beliefs.
“Smaller class sizes is part of my overall list of things that we need to address,“ Fields says, along with better pay for teachers, expanded high school vocational programs, identifying students with possible problems at an early age and increasing the number of guidance counselors.
Chiding the mayor for not making overcrowding and class size a priority, Ferrer said, “Smaller classes mean our kids can get the individual attention they needed and deserve…Smaller classes work”
Not surprisingly, the teachers union has supported effort to reduce class size. “Lowering class sizes is one of the most basic, foundational reforms we can do to improve student achievement,” UFT President Randi Weingarten, said at a rally earlier this month, adding that some of the money in the court case must go toward reducing class size rather than being “squandered.”
The Bloomberg administration does not seem to agree. A 2003 audit by State Comptroller Alan Hevesi found the city did not create the number of new classrooms it was supposed to, despite being given money for that purpose. The mayor’s proposed 2006 budget includes increases in funding -– particularly for the mayor’s cherished program to create more small schools -– but has no additional money to cut class size. And in its plan for a sound, basic education, given to the courts last summer, the city said it would focus on leadership training, secondary school reform, early childhood education and special education and instruction for non-English speakers. The plan does not mention class size as a priority.
The Department of Education denies it ignores class size. Stephen Morello, communications director for Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, told the Sun recently that the administration already had cut class size and that reducing it further “is a key part of the city's five-year capital plan and its strategy for spending the CFE operating funds.”
But advocates, remaining skeptical, want to force the city to deal with class size. Class Size Matters has launched a drive to put on the November ballot a measure calling for the city to spend at least 25 percent of any CFE money on bringing down class size in the city to a level comparable to that in the rest of the state.
In 2003, advocates collected more than 114,000 signatures in support of a ballot proposal on class size. But Bloomberg managed to quash the vote. Since the mayor has his own ideas for charter reform measures , he could well bump the class size question off the ballot again this year, regardless of how many signatures advocates collect.
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