Teachers Question School Add-Ons;

Push Class-Size Cuts
Teachers Question School Add-Ons


Teachers, parents and education advocates last week attacked the Department of Education's $228 million spending proposal for failing to guarantee class-size reduction and lacking transparency.

The Chief-Leader/Eric Weiss TOO MANY HANDS IN THE AIR: Roderick Daley, who teaches at I.S. 285 in Brooklyn, said more money is needed to reduce class size so he can respond to his students' questions in class. 'I constantly have to say, it's not your turn, or see me after class. It's not fair to them,' he said at a Department of Education hearing last week. About 60 people testified at a muggy Brooklyn High School for the Arts, in the second of five borough-wide hearings. Speakers told the panel of DOE officials and 200 audience members that they wanted more details about the substance of the plan to ensure that the funding would reach the neediest students. They also argued that plans for reducing class size were too vague and that the tight timeline for public comment, which is required by law, did not reassure them that their input would be incorporated.

"Our overall concern is that the policy proposal is wholly lacking in specifics," said Geri Palast, executive director of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which filed the lawsuit that led to the increased state funding after the courts ruled that the state had severely underfunded city schools for years.

'Work with DOE'

"It makes it impossible for the public to hold [DOE] accountable," she said. "We really do want to work with them."

A period of public comment is required by law, but advocates complained that announcing the proposal July 5 and holding hearings July 9 through 12 would not allow the city to include changes in time for the state deadline for submission, which is July 15. Comments were also accepted by e-mail.

"The timing of this report seems very suspect," said Geof Sorkin, a Dean at I.S. 259 in Bay Ridge. "Where is the collaboration with parents and educators? It is simply devoid of any input."

DOE: Gives Us Time

The Chief-Leader/Eric Weiss MIND THE GAP: About 200 parents and Teachers attended a Department of Education hearing last week in Brooklyn to urge city officials to spend more money on reducing class size and to ensure that high-needs schools that have historically been underfunded receive the bulk of the new state spending.

But Deputy Chancellor for Teaching and Learning Marcia Lyles said that while the "basic ideas are there," DOE officials would seek to integrate community input. "The proposal is a draft," she said after the two-hour hearing. "It's still in process."

Education advocates questioned whether the DOE's spending plan met the overall Campaign for Fiscal Equity mandate, which is to fund historically disadvantaged students. They said that it was not clear which schools and neighborhoods would receive about $95 million of the $228 million. And they argued that while a majority of the schools getting the remaining $133 million were low-performing, some struggling schools would get none of that money, known as Fair Student Funding dollars.

For example, more than half of the city's 50 lowest-performing middle schools will not receive any new Fair Student Funding money. The advocates noted that performance levels are often closely tied to income and race. Only about 29 percent of students meet state standards in reading and writing in the middle schools that serve the most students in poverty, compared to 74 percent of students in schools that serve the highest-income students, according to the Campaign for Fiscal Equity.

'I Almost Freaked Out'

"I saw the plan for some schools like mine and I almost freaked out," said a visibly upset Lorraine D. Mitchell, a 37-year veteran Teacher at M.S. 143 in Bedford-Stuyvesant. "We've been fighting for almost 14 years for this, for all our children who need it."

DOE officials said they were confident that the plan targeted students most in need.

Most of the participants also spoke strongly in favor of strengthening the class-size reduction components. "I have 30 students in a class with their hands in the air," said Rodrick Daley, the chapter chair at I.S. 285, "and I constantly have to say, it's not your turn, or see me after class. It's not fair to them."

State law mandates that districts, including New York City, lay out a five-year plan to reduce class size to the state average, which advocates say is missing from the proposal. State and city education funding is set to ramp up over the next few years, adding $5.4 billion annually by 2011.

Ms. Lyles said that she thought the hearing brought up important issues. "It highlights the need for communication," she said. "We recognize the need to reduce class size. What they were saying was not at odds with our intentions."