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The Latest Round on School Funding


Some New Yorkers seemed downright unhappy that the city's troubled school system could get billions of dollars in additional funding. "This is about an attempt by special interest groups to take more money from the private sector and give it to the public sector," said Sol Stern, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. "I see nothing good coming out of this."

Others at a recent Manhattan Institute discussion on the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case shared his view, grumbling about lazy teachers and dopey school bureaucrats. "However much money they get, they're only going to waste it," a lawyer said over a pre-lunch glass of wine.

Most New Yorkers, though, were surely pleased with Judge Leland DeGrasse's order, issued on Valentines Day, to increase funding for the city Department of Education.

But before holding a ticker tape parade, consider what happened in New Jersey. It took more than 20 years before poorer school districts in the Garden State ever saw any money from a lawsuit, filed in the 1980s, challenging education funding there. At least one politician, New Jersey Governor Jim Florio, lost his job at least partly because of his efforts to bring more money to the state's neediest districts. And, despite some successes, many of those districts remain troubled today.

Now New York seems to be following its neighbor's example of long delays, tortured politics and uncertain outcomes.

The latest gyrations began on February 14 when DeGrasse issued a court order (in pdf format) that would require that:

  • New York City schools, which now have a budget of about $12.6 billion, receive an additional $5.7 billion a year in operating funds, phased in over the next four years;
  • The city schools get more than $9 billion in additional funding for capital projects -- new schools, maintaining existing ones, purchasing new technology and so on.
  • The state either appeals the ruling within 30 days or implement it within 90 days.

 

Governor George Pataki quickly took the final option, saying that the legislature and the governor, not a judge, should determine which schools get how much money. "It's a separation of powers issue," he told reporters.

DeGrasse's ruling, though, stems from the failure of elected officials to take on the problem. In 2003, the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, upheld DeGrasse's 2001 ruling that the state's method of funding education deprives city students of their constitutional right to a "sound basic education." Albany then had a year to figure out how much money the city needed and where it should come from. When the state's political leaders failed to do that -- and seemed nowhere near any kind of agreement -- DeGrasse appointed a three-member panel to help him determine how the state could comply with his ruling. The judge's order essentially reflects the recommendations of that panel.

Like the referees, DeGrasse does not say how much of the additional funding would come from the state and how much from the city. DeGrasse notes that the city "urges this court to prohibit the state from requiring the city to pay any portion of the additional $5.63 billion." But he declined to do this, saying the Court of Appeals had determined "that it is for the legislature to determine how school funding should be distributed between city and state."

The disagreement over who should pay how much has been a major stumbling block to any settlement of the case, exacerbated by the fact that both the state and city already face multi-billion dollar deficits. Pataki has reportedly said he wants the city to pay 40 percent of any increase. The city wants to pay zero. City Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo has gone so far as to say that if the city had to chip in, it would reject any of the additional state funds. "If we have to pay any portion of this, no thanks," Cardozo, said at a State Supreme Court hearing in January. "We simply cannot do it. It will hurt our children."

The Campaign for Fiscal Equity still hopes it can negotiate a settlement that would include not just New York City, but all school districts in the state. Although previous efforts at negotiation have failed, Michael Rebell of the campaign said perhaps DeGrasse's order would help. "I"m hoping that will change the dynamic a bit," he told Associated Press.

But some, such as Steven Sanders, chair of the Assembly Education Committee, wonder whether the governor simply wants to delay implementation of the ruling, for as long as possible " perhaps until he leaves office, whenever that might be. That would spare him the task of determining how to pay for the settlement.

In this go round, Pataki cannot appeal the court's earlier ruling that city students are deprived of their right to a sound, basic education. But he can challenge the court's ruling on how much money the Department of Education needs to correct that.

Pataki's decision to appeal brought quick criticism from people involved in the case and Democrats. "The governor now must no longer delay and not continue his appeals, thus ensuring children remain without the resources that have been clearly determined they need to succeed," Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said in a statement.

And the Alliance for Quality Education launched a campaign called www.OurKidsCantWait.org to try to get Pataki and the legislature to come up with the money.

But Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who hailed the judge's ruling, came in for criticism as well.

While faulting Pataki, InsideSchools.org, a web site on New York City schools published by Advocates for Children, said Bloomberg's refusal to spend any of the city's money is "particularly galling because he campaigned as the man who would fix the city's schools." The article by Clara Hemphill continues, "Bloomberg's insistence that he won't put a nickel more into the city's schools makes it almost impossible for negotiations toward a court settlement to proceed. Sure the city has budget problems, but helping the city's school children is more important than building a stadium on the West Side . . . or giving property owners a tax rebate."

In an interview with the New York Sun, mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer voiced similar sentiments. " The governor's proposal that the city pay 40 percent of the cost is ridiculous on its face," he said. "Bloomberg's position that the city pay zero is ridiculous."

But even though any money may be months, if not years, away, discussions continue on possible ways to spend the funds. The City Council has appointed a special commission, chaired by Anthony Alvarado, a former school administrator, to formulate recommendations. As part of its effort, the commission set up on-line hearings where, for two weeks in February, New Yorkers could offer their views on what to do with the money. In their comments, people called for better facilities, more school safety officers, improved after-school programs, providing more children with pre-kindergarten classes, small class sizes and so on.

Meanwhile, Inside Schools is asking its readers to offer their ideas on school funding.

Here again, though, many at the Manhattan Institute discussion took a different tact. Much of the audience agreed there was simply no money -- tax increases were not on the table -- and so panelists sought other solutions to the problems of New York City education. For example, Charles Brecher of the Citizen Budget Commission argued that the city did not need to spend billions of dollars to get the additional classrooms to reduce class size. Instead, it could operate schools year-round and shift students from crowded schools to less congested ones.

Jay Greene, another senior fellow at the institute, called for merit pay for teachers. The problem with previous increases in funding, he said, is that they were not tied to improved performance; instead, the worse schools did, the more money they got. "A system that financially rewards failure is more likely to produce failure," he said

Faced with such comments -- and at time an almost palpable hostility toward teachers among some in the crowd -- United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten sought to be conciliatory. She noted, for example, that the UFT would support pilot programs to test some of the ideas presented at the panel and said the UFT was going to run a charter school, a school that is publicly funded but privately run. But she was adamant that, for schools to improve, some of the additional funding had to be spent on ensuring a qualified teacher in every classroom. The way to do that, she said, is to raise salaries.

Given New Jersey's experience, though, the teachers might not want to delay a raise until the court-ordered money comes in. It could be a long wait.

 

After School Programs


Thousands of poorly paid working parents will be scrambling to find a safe place for their children to go after school, thanks to another round of government "streamlining" which has thrown some 80,000 after-school child care slots into doubt.

City officials are eliminating their support for three distinct programs -- the largest chunk is from after-school contractors with the Administration for Children’s Services -- and redirecting it to a new program by the Department of Youth and Community Development.

The new initiative is clearly well-intentioned. It has the potential to open up after-school programs to more of the children who need it most, such as those with disabilities and those who live in underserved neighborhoods. But the worry is that the reorganization will come at the expense of some very good existing programs.

"Nobody is opposed to reorganizing the after-school program system, as long as we don’t decimate the child care system to do it," says Susan Stammler of United Neighborhood Houses, many of whose members operate after-school centers.

“This is the first time that anybody cared much about after-school care," says Stammler's colleague Nancy Wackstein. "We just wish it was accompanied by more resources."

What Is After-School Child Care?

After-school child care is a relative newcomer to the world of human services, but has become indispensable to the growing number of families in which no adult is at home when the school day ends. After-school programs are seen as the solution to other problems as well. Students from inadequate schools are taught extra lessons and tutored in a more relaxed setting. For city children who have no safe places to play, the programs replace backyards, sidewalks and streets used by earlier generations.

Nearly 70 percent of the city’s 1.6 million school-age children use some form of after-school child care, according to a survey by the Citizens Committee for Children of New York (in pdf format). The term can include weekly piano lessons, informal arrangements with relatives and neighbors, and expensive private programs. More often, it refers to government-funded programs, of which three-quarters operate on school day afternoons until 6 p.m. The Partnership for After School Education estimates that subsidized out-of-school-time programs serve over 220,000 New York City children a year.

Parents on welfare receive vouchers from the Human Resources Administration for the after-school care of 22,000 children. Most use the vouchers to buy informal care in private homes. Their children are not getting the level of care they would receive in more structured formal programs.

An even larger group of children receives no care at all. Among children whose parents’ education ended in high school or earlier, almost 40 percent are not attending any kind of after-school program. They are likely to be found among the one child in eight, between the ages of five and nine, who is left home alone during an average week.

The after-school child care system has been patched together from funding sources as varied as vouchers, block grants, “surplus” welfare funds, private foundation money, and fees paid by parents. The result is a mix of programs that can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $6,000 per child each year. The most comprehensive are open year-round and on holidays, working to help children develop academic, physical, social and emotional skills. At the other extreme are short-term courses, single athletic events, and drop-in activities attended by an ever-changing group of participants.

Switching Support

A few days before Christmas 2004, several hundred after-school programs were told that their contracts with Administration for Children’s Services would end in September 2006. To get new contracts, they would have to respond to a 174-page Request for Proposals issued by the Department of Youth and Community Development.

 

The city has proposed to cut $27.5 million from the total spent on three old programs, passing the remaining $64 million on to the new Department of Youth and Community Development program. Most of that is earmarked for programs open from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on school days, offering a mix of homework help, extra classes, arts activities, sports and other recreation. The city is offering a strong incentive to base programs in public schools: free rent, food, security, and custodial services.

This model looks very much like programs already being operated by some of the members of the After School Corporation, an umbrella organization which distributes a blend of public and private funds to 232 service programs. According to corporation spokesman John Albert, this is not a coincidence; the city's shift in emphasis "reflects the work we and other innovators have been doing for the last seven or eight years."

Programs in the corporation’s network are all located in public schools, but operated by community based organizations. The corporation provides limited financial support, at present covering about 60 percent of the cost of a typical program. Groups in the network tend to be large and sophisticated enough to raise private and other public funds. The After School Corporation’s programs are not unionized, and relatively few staff have early childhood education credentials. The corporation’s contribution to the cost of an average student’s care is about $1,500; additional funding varies widely among individual programs.

Undercutting Existing Programs

“We see this philosophical trend of pushing programs into the schools and we’re really concerned about losing flexibility,” says Susan Stammler of United Neighborhood Houses. “We can’t have a McDonald’s model, one size fits all. Some communities might have settlement houses with community centers that have dance studios, computer rooms, and other resources.”

Currently, the richest programs are those operated under contracts with the Administration for Children’s Services. A high percentage of staff members are certified Early Childhood Education teachers. Employees are unionized, and just signed a new contract with the city giving them a 12 percent raise. Programs often have cooks to prepare daily snacks, so they are not limited to foods that don’t require preparation, and many are open year-round.

According to Andrea Anthony, executive director of the Day Care Council of New York (where I work as a consultant), member agencies now receive between $5,000 and $6,000 per after-school enrollee. Under the new system, the most a center could be paid for a year-round program would be $2,800 per enrollee.

“They want to replicate what existing programs do, but they don’t want to pay for it,” Anthony says. “We’re encouraging them to either increase the rates or encourage more parents to apply for vouchers.” Parents whose children are enrolled in a program that is no longer available are entitled to an after-school care voucher worth up to $5,800 per year for each child.

About 168 child care centers serve both pre-school children (who are not affected by the change) and school-age children. If these centers don’t survive the transition, their pre-school care slots will also be lost. Pre-school care is even more critically needed than school-age care, especially by low-income working families.

The timing of the proposal process is seen as another cause for concern by Nancy Wackstein of United Neighborhood Houses. At a City Council hearing she testified, “We are greatly concerned that the notification of awards, due in July 2005, will be too late for parents to make informed decisions about their child care and after-school arrangements.”

The demand for after-school care may soon rise sharply. Congressional Republicans are calling for a major increase in the number of hours that parents are required to work in order to receive welfare benefits.

With so much riding on the fragile network of after-school programs, the city needs to expand its capacity, both in the number of children served and in the quality of care.

“The best I can hope for is that parents unite and demand access to the same number of slots they have now," Andrea Anthony says, "and that the rate per child is enough to pay for qualified staff.”

For More Information

After-School Grows Up, How Four Large American Cities Approach Scale and Quality in After-School Programs

The Family Guide to New York City After School Programs 2003

Linda Ostreicher, a former budget analyst for the New York City Council, is a freelance writer and consultant to nonprofits, including the Day Care Council and others with after-school programs.

Vocational Education


A few years ago, Marco Martinez was attending William E. Grady High School in Brooklyn, running track, working as a waiter -- and wondering what to do next. He stopped wondering when he decided to spend a fifth year in high school, enrolling in a one-year program at Lafayette High School to train dental assistants, where he learned to take x-rays, question patients about their medical histories, make dental models.

Now, wearing navy blue scrubs covered by a yellow smock to ward off infection, he works as a dental assistant at Kings County Hospital. "I enjoy knowing what procedures need to be done and explaining them to the patients," he says.Martinez has found his vocation.

The Lafayette program does not meet the traditional model of vocational education. Classes are held in a hospital, not a high school. Students help provide care. And the program is selective; of 40 students who apply, only about 10 are admitted.

But vocational education in general -- which received renewed attention last month thanks to a new initiative announced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- is trying to move on from its past. Educators no longer want it viewed, as one puts it, as "shop class for boys with cigarettes rolled up in their sleeves" –- a lesser diploma aimed at failing students.

It is not even called vocational education anymore; now the official term is career and technical education, or CTE for short. The curriculum focuses on newer careers, such as computers and “information technology.” Students must get hands-on experience and pass certification exams devised at least partly by the industries that will employ them.

Today’s career education faces a challenge that never confronted the old-fashioned vocational education programs of the 1950s and 1960s. At the same time that they help students learn a career, the schools must give students the academic background they need to pass the five Regents exams now required for graduation in New York State.

How is there enough time in the day for both? And how can schools set strict academic standards and still serve the very students most likely to be attracted to vocational programs in the first place?

OUT OF SCHOOL, OUT OF WORK

The interest in career education springs from a reality sometimes ignored in the drive for higher standards: Academic high schools do not meet the needs of thousands of students who leave the school system unprepared for either work or higher education.

The numbers tell the story. Of the students who entered New York City public high schools in 1999, only 53.4 graduated four years later, and about one-fifth had dropped out, according to a Department of Education study (in pdf format). The remainder stayed in school hoping to graduate in five or six years instead of the usual four. The graduation rates for blacks and Hispanics (in pdf format) were even lower, with less than a third graduating on time.

This leaves many young people with literally nothing to do. About one in six of all New Yorkers aged 16 through 24 do not attend school and do not work, according to a recent report by the Community Service Society. Among the young people who are not in school, more than half the blacks and 40 percent of the Hispanics do not have jobs either.

Faced with such figures, many experts have looked to career education. The idea is to give students “an option after high school,” said Jean Claude Brizard, a former chemist and former principal of George Westinghouse, a career and technical high school, who is now in charge of city high schools. While many students continue their educations, Brizard said, “if they are in an approved CTE program many of them will come out of high school prepared to get a job if that’s what they want to do.”

THE RISE AND FALL OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Vocational education in New York City had its roots in the early 20th century as the city struggled to educate students with widely varying abilities, many of whom did not speak English. With almost half of all students leaving school by age 14, some educators called for more job training in the schools. Eventually, New York would be a pioneer in developing high schools organized around specific trades, such as aviation, auto mechanics and printing.

Students taking vocational courses would get a vocational or commercial diploma, without the Regents test requirement of the academic diploma.

But by the 1980s, the vocational schools had lost much of their appeal and prestige, saddled with outmoded equipment and teachers who lacked proper training. The education in these schools “was not great,” Brizard said. “If you have a student sitting in class for three periods a day, five days a week for two or three years and coming out not being prepared for a skill or jobs and not having good academic preparation, you’re doing a disservice to this particular student. So [vocational schools] became unpopular places.”

The school system began filling seats at the schools with any available students – whether or not they had any interest in the program – and the prestige of vocational education declined even further.

But even during this dismal era, said Frank Carucci, the United Federation of Teachers’ vice president for vocational and technical high schools, these schools “served as a safety net for kids who couldn’t cut it academically or who couldn’t go to college.”

CAREER EDUCATION TODAY

Today, more than 130,000 public school students are enrolled in some kind of vocational program. The city has 18 career and technical education high schools that offer a Regents diploma and certification approved by such industries as computer technology, health care, auto mechanics and cosmetology. These programs must provide specially trained teachers, up-to-date equipment, and opportunities for hand-on professional experience.

More than 120 other schools provide career programs. Those approved by the state Department of Education award students some kind of certification upon graduation if the students successfully pass a career-oriented exam.

The city also offers one-year CTE programs for fifth-year students, like the Lafayette dental assistant program. These classes are open to students under 21 who have completed their course work or earned a graduate equivalency degree (GED) -- but not a Regents diploma.

These vocationally-oriented schools should not be confused with the theme-based small schools that the city has launched in the past few years, schools with themes that range from law to sports management to firefighting. The difference is that those small schools aim to pique students' interest in school, and perhaps whet their appetite for further course work in the area; most of them do not offer specific career training and certification.

But even many students in the certified career education programs do not seek jobs in the field after graduation. According to Brizard, about two thirds of career education graduates go on for further education, some in their original fields, some in other areas.

Educators see this as a positive development. Students coming out of vocational programs can get jobs with decent salaries, but those who go on after high school for two or more years of technical training in the same field can get jobs with salaries as high as $60,000 a year.

Even if a student goes into another field entirely, says Carucci, their vocational work still had value. “If kids are doing something they’re interested in, then attendance is going to get better, their attitude is going to get better, their academic outcomes are going to get better."

PROBLEMS

1. Dual Requirements

When New York State announced the five-Regents exams requirement for all students, some predicted that would spell the end of vocational education. Indeed, some students, fearing they will not be able to meet both sets of requirements, have passed up the vocational program or left school entirely. And some of the vocational schools have become more reluctant to accept students with poor reading and math scores (students they once would readily have accepted) because they worry that those students will be unable to pass the regents.

It is true that those students who can pass both vocational and academic requirements do better than either purely academic or purely vocational students, according to Jim Stone, director of the National Resource Center for Career and Technical Education at the University of Minnesota.

For the less capable students, some advocates have suggested that students learn their basic academic skills through their vocational coursework. After all, said Carucci, figuring the pitch of a roof involves the same skills as figuring the slope of a line on a graph.

So far, it is hard to know how the students are coping with the additional pressures. The Department of Education has released statistics saying that 95 percent of students in New York City career and technical programs passed their Regents exams in 2002-03. The high rate –- only 59 percent of members of the class of 2004 overall in the city passed their math Regents -- prompted Eva Moskowitz, chair of the City Council education committee, to question the number.

2. Uneven Quality Of Schools

The quality and success of vocational programs vary widely. ABC’s Nightline recently profiled the culinary arts program at Long Island City High School where students learn to concoct such dishes as milk chocolate ganache. The program attracts almost 20 times as many students as it can accommodate and its graduates include Amar Santana, who at 22, became the youngest sous chef ever at highly regarded Aureole.

But other programs falter. At Automotive High School in Brooklyn, for example, slightly less than half the students graduate on time – or pass their math regents.

Three years ago, several groups launched an effort to reform Harry Van Arsdale High School in Brooklyn, which offered several career programs. The school began providing more support services to students, was divided into “small learning communities,” and began offering training in new fields, such as information technology. But, according to Inside Schools, despite some advances –- including the addition of a Duane Reade drug store to train students -- discipline remained a problem, with vandals damaging newly renovated science labs. Last year, the Department of Education announced that the school would be phased out entirely.

Clearly the best solution for this is to improve the programs – a move Brizard believes is well underway. Today’s certified career classes, he said, are "rigorous programs approved by the state."

3. No More Plumbers?

For today’s high school students, computer related fields are hot – about 22,660 students are enrolled in CTE computer courses, while less than 70 are preparing to be plumbers.

“A lot of the old trade skills are viewed as old fashioned and obsolete,” says Carucci. “But they’re things we all need to survive and we need to do to keep the city going.”

4. Discrimination

Vocational programs fall prey to many problems of the work world -- including, some advocates charge, discrimination. In 2001, the National Women’s’ Law Center found that girls attended programs in traditionally female occupations -- cosmetology, health care work, office assistant -- while boys tended to go to programs teaching traditionally male, and better paid occupations, such as mechanic and computer repair. They also said that vocational schools with a higher concentration of boys offered more rigorous academic classes.

The center has worked with the school system to address these problems. The effort, said Jocelyn Samuels of the center, “has resulted in concrete improvement… but does not seem to have transformed the process of enrollment.”

IMPROVING CAREER EDUCATION

Policy makers in the city and state have presented a variety of proposals to improve career education.

In the city, the main initiative came in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent State of the City speech when he announced a new $14 million “Learning to Work” program aimed at young people who have already dropped out of school, or are about to. It will help them get a high school equivalency diploma or a standard diploma while learning a trade. While some praised the idea, others see it as a return to the old days of vocational ed – when job-training programs provided a second-class diploma to failing students.

New York State, meanwhile, is reportedly working on a so-called work readiness credential, a voluntary test that students could take to indicate to potential employers that they have the skills for entry-level jobs.

"This is something that business has wanted for a long time," one member of the state Board of Regents, Harry Phillips, told the New York Times. But others question why yet another test is needed. "If the diploma now provided after a student takes five Regents exams . . . is not enough for a student to be ready for the rigors of life, then one has to question the worth of that assessment," Steven Sanders, chair of the Assembly Education Committee, has said.

On the national level, the Bush administration has proposed that career training high schools become more academically rigorous and work more closely with both employers and colleges, However, in his budget released earlier this month, the president eliminated funding for the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act that had provided $1.3 billion a year in funding for high school career and technical education programs.

Instead, much of the money would go to No Child Left Behind, the national program that requires more academic standards. And so the dispute over funding for the Perkins Act symbolizes the key issue in vocational education in 2005. Can career training survive – and even thrive – in an increasingly complicated and academically demanding world?

For More Information

Career and Technical Education Organizations

New York City Department of Education

Association for Career and Technical Education
The largest national education association dedicated to the advancement of career-training education. The site includes legislative updates and information on policy issues.

Inside Schools
For profiles of individual schools

National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium
The professional society of the state and territory agency heads responsible for career technical education.

U.S. Department of Education Office of Vocational and Adult Education

United Federation of Teachers The web site for the New York City teachers' union includes information on vocational and career and technical education.

Vocational Information Center
Links to articles about and groups working on career education.

Articles on Career Education

Hammer Away (5/18/00)
The New Republic: High schools should train carpenters as well as computer technicians.

Is High School Career and Technical Education Obsolete? (November 2004)
Phi Delta Kappan

New York City Offers Firefighting 101 at New High School (1/12/05)
Education Week

Vocational School Aims for Mechanics Who Can Write (2/7/05)
New York Times

Vocational Students Lag in Achievement, Report Says (2/14/04)
Education Week

Reports

Who Graduates? Who Doesn't?: A Statistical Portrait of Public High School Graduation, Class of 2001 (in pdf format)
The Urban Institute

The Class of 2003 Four-Year Longitudinal Report and 2002-2003 Event Dropout Rates
New York City Department of Education (in pdf format)

Out of School, Out of Work... Out of Luck? New York City's Disconnected Youth
Community Service Society (in pdf format)

 

 



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