Testimony of Randi Weingarten before NYS Assembly Ways and Means Committee
Feb 6, 2009 4:24 PM
The state of the state is indeed perilous, as Gov. David Paterson called it in his Jan. 8 address. Our economy is damaged, and our confidence is shaken, just as the governor said when referring to the crisis-ridden national economy and the resulting $15.4 billion state budget deficit.
The United Federation of Teachers knows the state faces daunting challenges — that’s not in dispute — and my union does not minimize the difficulties ahead for Gov. Paterson and the members of this legislature. We are pleased the governor acknowledged in his State of the State address the centrality of guaranteeing access to a good education for children and to health care, jobs and a clean environment for all. We appreciate his concern for spending education and other essential service dollars even more effectively.
Yet if the executive budget is adopted largely unamended, great harm will be done to precisely those state residents least responsible for bring on the economic collapse. Education in New York City is slated for a combined state and city cut of $1.5 billion.
Here’s how the numbers break down. The city’s cuts total some $637 million and the governor’s would come to some $850 million once you factor in the loss of $645 million in expected school aid increases and more than $200 million in actual cuts. To make matters worse, the New York City school system will have $660 million less than it would need to just maintain the present level of services. These are the most massive financial assaults on education since the fiscal crisis of the 1970s.
At the neighborhood level, school children, parents and teachers will see individual school budgets cut from 8- to 12-percent, and I know you are or will soon be hearing from your constituents about the exact harm those cuts will cost local schools.
We’ve been this way before.
Schools in New York City took a terrific beating during the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s, and it took us 30 years to finally rid the schools of its corrosive effects. These were effects that diminished the quality of our schools and eroded the professional status of New York City’s educators as some 15,000 city teachers, guidance counselors and paraprofessionals were pink-slipped, as were custodians and janitors.
The result: class sizes exploded, supply budgets shrunk, kindergarten instruction, music and art programs and after-school activities were cut back. Professional training was canceled, as was substitute teacher coverage, and repairs and routine maintenance deferred. School programs were diluted, the schools were less safe, and the remaining pedagogues suffered through a 19 percent cut in pay. We dare not repeat those cumulative mistakes again.
Yet this budget, unamended, will make those mistakes again. Education funding cuts of the magnitude being proposed would have a lasting impact on the quality of education that our students receive and, consequently, on tomorrow’s workforce. We cannot have a vibrant, strong economy without well-educated citizens. That’s why continued investment, even in this difficult time, is critical.
Look at what has already been lost under two rounds of city budget cuts. The midyear cuts already assimilated by the schools saw a mix of extended-day programs curtailed, sports eliminated, and after-school programs, extracurricular activities, class trips, after-school tutoring and SAT prep no longer. And on Friday we will learn about the additional cuts the mayor will be proposing.
The cuts the governor is proposing will be far more devastating. The school finance equity we fought so long and hard for will be deferred, once again. My union is in the process of surveying the projected damage to individual schools. Here are just three examples—three all-too typical examples – of how these cuts will do real harm.
- At IS 72 in Staten Island, a staggering $1 million would be cut out of the school’s budget. That 10 percent cut that would result in no after-school programs, no Saturday program, no per-session programs, deans reassigned back to the classroom, positions vacated through retirement not being replaced, excessed staff and a class size on the order of 45 students per class.
- At the High School of American Studies at Lehman College in the Bronx, a top high school rated 29th in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, cuts will nullify the schools successes. With an already thin administrative staff (one principal, one assistant principal, two secretaries, two deans working one period a day each and a part time programmer and a part time testing/data person) cuts mean a loss of faculty, the headcount in core classes soaring as entire classes disappear. Lost personnel will mean elimination of all or most of the school’s electives, including Logic, Law, Women's Studies, Documentary Film Making, Forensic Science, and Astronomy.
- At PS 18 in the Bronx, the school will face cuts in per-session and elimination of the Reading Recovery Program, a vital one-on-one reading tutorial for first and second graders. .
Go through each school in the city. It’s the same sad story. Cuts of this magnitude will directly impact the classroom.
The governor’s budget proposals also defer Contract for Excellence funding. Even before the anticipated reduction in funding this budget year, New York City failed to achieve its state-mandated class-size targets for two years in a row, and deferring needed dollars only exacerbates the problem.. [In 2008, for example, class sizes in the city increased at all levels, for the first time in 10 years. Overall, there were 143 fewer classes in grades K-3 and 183 fewer classes in grades 4-8—and that was despite the infusion of new funds under the Contract for Excellence.] CFE needs to be fixed, so its dollars go to achieving smaller class sizes and other targets. Deferring CFE compounds the mistake.
What was missing in the executive budget message was a guide to how we could maintain crucial programs and essential services that protect our most vulnerable citizens.
In this very real economic crisis, we are rightly being asked, and must, make shared sacrifices. Some of these sacrifices will even come in those service areas we hold most dear. We know that! In a period of shared hardship, shared sacrifices are required, and we are willing to do our share. We agree that the state needs to take a responsible look at the expenditure side, with the proviso that cuts avoid harming the state’s neediest residents – the people who need help the most.
That means any cuts to education cannot harm core services. Where cuts must be made, they must not affect the classroom or the services which support that classroom. We have been asking our students to meet ever higher standards. We cannot maintain those requirements while removing the very supports that are critical to helping them get there. We cannot maintain our focus on literacy but stop purchasing books for our classrooms, for example. And we cannot stop providing our educators with professional development to improve their skills.
We agree that programs that don’t measure up should face cuts. But we need to preserve those that do, such as Teacher Centers. The Governor has proposed eliminating all funding for the Teacher Centers. Educators need ongoing – and relevant – professional development, especially if we believe the quality of the teacher is the most important factor in improving student achievement. The UFT Teacher Center, the union’s nationally known professional development program that operates at some 300 schools citywide, allows thousands of city teachers to sharpen their skills and better serve their students.
Teacher Centers are embedded in our schools. They are the model of school-based, non-evaluative professional development. Teacher Center instructors are colleagues who share practical classroom experiences and offer advice, encouragement and the opportunity to try out and master new techniques.
Teacher Centers have proven part and parcel of the most successful school districts throughout New York State. Indeed, student test scores increased the most in places where Teacher Centers provided the only professional development.
We have already suggested to the mayor and the DOE more than a dozen areas where responsible cuts can be made in the city’s education budget, for a savings of some $400 million. These include reviewing consultants and contractor arrangements, including an independent review of all DOE contracts and proposed investments in new information technology projects; reforming the DOE’s testing and accountability initiatives by replacing the costly and duplicative ARIS system with the existing New York State data system; downsizing the offices of Accountability and Public Relations, suspending the school bonus program; and putting a moratorium on new small school creation.
But cutting expenditures alone won’t cut it for New Yorkers.
What the UFT proposes is a tripartite solution. In addition to the savings from prudent cuts that protect core services and initiating greater government efficiencies—because we know we all have to share the sacrifices—we need two more critical elements.
Federal stimulus funding
First, we need to see that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, the nearly $1 trillion federal stimulus package supported by President Obama, passes Congress, and that it includes aid to municipalities and state governments and to education so that we emerge from this crisis ready to compete in the global economy.
While it is expected that New York State will receive from $10 to 15 billion over two years, it’s not a done deal. Nor is it clear what portion of these dollars will be targeted to schools for anything beyond capital projects. This legislature has to ensure that that happens.
New York State must remain mindful of the conditions teachers need to maintain quality of instruction such as reducing class size and maintaining adequate professional development.
Note also that the stimulus package must come with strings attached. So if Congress does not target dollars for education, then the legislature must do so.
Progressive Revenues
Second, we must return to a progressive tax structure in which the state’s wealthiest—those who did so well in the periods of plenty, now step up to pay their fair share of the tax-revenue burden.
The governor is proposing new taxes, mostly $3.1 billion in new sales consumption taxes that adversely affect the poor, who are the least responsible for the fiscal shortfall and the least able to pay for the losses.
What we need is not state revenue generation from regressive taxes but a shift toward relying on revenues that are progressive in nature, such as an increase in the personal income tax for state residents earning more than $250,000 with additional increases at higher incomes. In a financial crisis, there is no equality of sacrifice when high- and low-income earners are taxed at the same 6.85 percent rate.
We also urge the legislature to create a retirement incentive for eligible educators. That is a far more prudent option for reducing long-term costs than are layoffs or other draconian cuts to classrooms and to services children need.
A retirement incentive is also a more helpful measure than the governor’s proposed statewide change in pensions (including teachers) that —while not a cut as such – would create a Tier V.. That’s a mistake, and one that will have real-world consequences. While we are all aware of the fiscal problems we face, we should also be cognizant of the disaster that has occurred for those private sector workers who have already lost a defined benefit pension to the mantra of 401k’s, and then lost the value of the 401k and the employer contribution. There is no reason to put public employees in similar situations. Instead, we need to restore truly decent, assured pension benefits for all workers. Additionally Tier V will not save government any substantial amount for years to come.
That is why, while no one wants to lose experienced teachers, we believe a retirement incentive is a more prudent option than layoffs or devastating cuts or rejiggering the pension tiers. Replacing experienced teachers who wish to retire with newer teachers at lower salaries would prevent class sizes from swelling while reducing costs.
While we may be forced into a hiatus in the CFE funding, as I noted earlier, we should take advantage of this time to review the problems with the law and make needed amendments. For instance, we need to amend the law so that the class-size reduction program reaches every child in every school, particularly our most at-risk students. The city now is required to reduce citywide class-size averages only. But averages can and have been reduced without affecting class sizes in most schools in the city. The targets that the city and the State Education Department have agreed upon for class sizes should apply to each grade in each school.
Similarly we need to support career and technical education. Last year’s $75 million contribution by the state to the city’s vital CTE programs supplemented federal aid that recognizes how important career and technical training is to city schools and to creating a multi-skilled city workforce in the future. That funding commitment needs to be sustained. The success of CTE programs cannot be underestimated. Simply put, CTE works. It is an important path to highly skilled, well-paying jobs for thousands of students each year and part of the engine that spurs economic development.
Let me acknowledge that implementing any of these will not be easy. The UFT recognizes the difficulty of the decisions facing the state and its elected leaders, but we must also do our best to maintain crucial programs and essential services that protect our most vulnerable citizens: once again, they are children, the elderly and the poor.
Because education and good public schools are the foundation of society, we need to do all that we can to protect kids. As the union’s spot television ad says, kids rarely get a second chance, so even in difficult times, investing in our children cannot be put on hold.”
There are no do-overs for students—a child is only five once.
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