For Immediate Release
Jan 31, 2008 4:44 PM
The heads of the unions representing teachers and principals in New York City’s 1,500 public schools on Jan. 31 denounced plans by the city Department of Education to immediately cut $100 million from individual school budgets citywide.
UFT President Randi Weingarten and Council of School Supervisors and Administrators President Ernest Logan were joined by City Council Member and council Education Committee Chairman Robert Jackson and Jaime Estades, Director of Advocacy for the Alliance for Quality Education, on the steps of City Hall as they all criticized the cuts.
Kathleen Grimm, the DOE Deputy Chancellor for Finance and Administration, sent a letter to principals last night informing them of the city’s plans to impose an immediate 1.75 percent across-the-board cut from city schools, representing a $100 million citywide reduction in spending on schools. Evidently, the cut was done automatically through the Galaxy computer system without any consultation.
“The cuts are bad enough on their own, but the timing here only makes things worse,” Weingarten noted. “We are stepping up to fight these cuts in the absence of an independent board and independent chancellor. The public school children need champions to intervene and protect them. These cuts will certainly make it more difficult to give children the sound, balanced and well-rounded education they deserve. That’s why teachers, principals and other school staff and administrators are banding together to speak out against them. The people on the front lines know all too well how tough it is to provide quality education to kids when you’re constantly being called upon to do more with less.”
“We all recognize the need to exercise fiscal restraint in these difficult economic times,” said Logan. “However, this is a step backward that could have – and should have – been avoided. We have been speaking with principals all morning. It appears most, if not all, of the funding came out of schools’ Fair Student Funding allocations, which means a wide range of enrichment programs and academic intervention services are vulnerable.
“More specifically,” Logan continued, “that means music and technology programs and extracurriculars such as clubs, teams and other after-school activities. In addition, principals may have to scale back everything from translation services and professional development for teachers to the ordering of library books and classroom materials.”
“These budget cuts will harm our students at the precise time when the long-delayed Campaign for Fiscal Equity dollars should be helping to expand their opportunities,” said Council Member Jackson.
“We cannot afford to have our educators do more with less because they already work in overcrowded schools with scarce resources,” Jackson added. “This is the time for Tweed to cease the hiring of highly paid consultants, cut down on high-paid central staff and push the funding dollars directly into the classroom.”
“The city administration is calling on every principal in the city to take back $70,000 from our school children right away as part of a $180 million cut in city education funding,” said Estades of the AQE. He added, “Cuts this year are the leading edge in the city’s plan to reduce its commitment to our school children as they have also proposed to reduce new school funding increases for next year by $324 million. Parents across the city have been struggling for years to reduce class sizes, transform middle schools into high quality springboards for high school and college, improve instruction for English language learners and significantly raise our graduation rates. Cutting $70,000 from each school this year is a major step in the wrong direction.”
“You can’t make changes midyear without consequences,” Weingarten added. “The city should have learned that lesson last year when it tried to save money by rearranging bus routes in the middle of the year, leaving thousands of kids stranded for days in the middle of winter without a way to get to school.”