Mayor, Governor Preach Reality
School Rally Can't Derail Cuts

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

Thousands of Teachers, administrators and parents rallied in a driving rain March 19, hoping to sway city and state legislators to rescind hundreds of millions of dollars of education cuts, while the new Governor and Mayor Bloomberg held fast to their plans.

The Chief-Leader/Adrienne Haywood-James SQUAWKING IN THE RAIN: United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten told thousands of rain-soaked educators and parents who gathered last week to protest the looming city and state education cuts that the state could live up to its promise to fund city schools by passing an Assembly bill to increase the tax on millionaires by 0.85 percent. 'We are here because we are dead serious about reversing these education cuts,' she said.

'It's a Disgrace'

"We lost all of our after-school jobs, our Saturday programs, a secretary, and mentors," said P.S. 121 United Federation of Teachers chapter leader Frank Soriente.

The South Ozone Park school turned out 67 of its 70-odd staff members, including all of the administrators. "You're putting children first, but you're putting them first in cuts," he said. "It's a disgrace."

After absorbing $190 million in city funding cuts this year, the school system is facing another $324-million reduction next year. The state has also reduced its expected increase in aid by $349 million. Governor Paterson last week announced an additional $800 million in overall state cuts in a revised budget, after the state's tax revenues were hammered by Wall Street's slide.

UFT President Randi Weingarten and Council of School Supervisors and Administrators President Ernest Logan made common cause in calling for schools to be exempt from the cuts.

"We know these are uncertain times," Ms. Weingarten told the umbrella-dotted crowd. "Every time there are uncertain times, the kids get the short end of the stick. This time was supposed to be different."

Spitzer's Promise

The union leader was referring to the pledge made last year by then-Governor Spitzer to comply with a ruling in a 13-year-old lawsuit that called for financial redress for city schools that had been historically underfunded.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow A LESSON IN FISCAL REALITY: Mayor Bloomberg tells reporters prior to the March 19 union rally against school cuts that he has no choice given the fiscal problems that both the city and the state are facing. Governor Paterson, in his first appearance at City Hall since taking office two days earlier, put in, 'The world that the Teachers, the schools in New York City knew, has changed.'

"Here we go again," Mr. Logan said, as more educators poured out of the City Hall subway stop into the crowd. "I'm the first one to admit that more money has come into education than any time in history, but that was to make up for all the times we didn't have the money to do what needed to be done."

Klein: Doing Our Part

The following day at a City Council hearing, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein said that the Department of Education had to do its part to help close the budget gap. "If education were excluded from this year's reductions," he said, "agencies like Police and Child Welfare would have to absorb a significantly larger cut, and obviously nobody wants that."

But Ms. Weingarten argued that, at least at the state level, there was another alternative. She asked those gathered for the rally the previous day if they supported the Assembly's plan to rescind the cuts and got a somewhat tepid response. Then she explained that the bill would "let the people who earn over a million dollars pay a little bit more so that we can keep the kids safe." When she asked the protesters, "Now do you support the Assembly's plan?" she got a roar of approval.

Governor Paterson threw cold water on the initiative, however, concurring with the Mayor at a joint press conference earlier in the day that the 0.85-percent tax increase on individuals making more than $1 million was a bad idea. "I think that the foremost area that we want to address is to tighten our belts," he said, "not to drive up taxes for a constituency that has been - I would say - battered over the past number of years."

When asked about the upcoming Teacher rally to express their opposition to the cuts, Mr. Bloomberg replied, "I agree with them." Mr. Paterson interjected, "The world that the Teachers, the schools in New York City knew, has changed."

More But Not Enough

The Mayor pointed out that the total amount of money going to education would still increase, although not by as much as originally planned. Later, he added, "Do we have as much money for education as I would like? No."

Some Teachers had other ideas about where the money could come from. "We can spend a trillion dollars on the war in Iraq while our children's after-school programs are being cut?" said Neil Friedman, a 22-year veteran Teacher at the School for International Studies in Brooklyn. "We can bail out Bear Stearns - you and me and everyone else here - but we can't find money for schools? Maybe it's time to start changing the way we think."

Councilman David Weprin, who chairs the Council Finance Committee, argued that even if the DOE had to take its share of cuts, the classrooms should be exempt while central administration absorbs the blow. "Even in 2002 when we had a $6-billion deficit, we still held schools harmless," he said.

The following day's Council hearing offered little insight about how exactly the next set of planned city cuts would come down, but several different approaches began to emerge.

'It's All on Table'

Mr. Klein said there was not yet a definite blueprint, but struck a congenial tone, emphasizing his desire to work with the Council and asserting that he had been meeting several times a week with Principals and CSA and UFT officials. "What I have been telling our Principals and what I am telling you today is that everything is on the table," he said during his testimony.

He acknowledged that the $10-million cut to the Lead Teacher program, which pays master Teachers extra to mentor new ones, was an error. "We have restored [the funding]. It was my mistake and I apologize," the Chancellor said.

Nonetheless, he appeared to view the overall budget decrease as a done deal. "I respect the Mayor and I respect his conclusion," he said.

Mr. Klein did not back down when Education Committee Chair Robert Jackson pressed him about why he had not publicly condemned the cuts, as past Chancellors not directly appointed by the Mayor had. "Do we want rhetoric or do we want results?" the Chancellor asked. "I have no apology to make for my leadership."

'Less Necessary'

He noted that the DOE had received $4 billion in additional funds under his and Mr. Bloomberg's tenure.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn also appeared to accept the approach of each agency taking an equal cut, arguing that it wouldn't be fair for some to bear a heavier burden if others were exempt. Instead, she suggested that the DOE work with the Council to identify programs that were "less necessary" than others and called for carrying out the cuts "not with a hatchet, but a scalpel."

Some Teachers who gathered at the protest said they had a hard time seeing how education would not be damaged if the cuts were enforced next year. Sharon Moss, the UFT chapter chair at a Bronx middle school, said that her school already had no music or art classes. "Those Teachers retired and they just never replaced them," the 22-year veteran Teacher said, standing draped in a waterproof poncho. She argued that the budget decreases were short-sighted. "You don't cut your future," she said.