President's Perspective
The Dayenu budget
Apr 12, 2007 1:48 PM
Judging from the news reports on the fight over the state budget, you might conclude that, despite Gov. Spitzer’s vows about how everything changes on Day One, the final agreement on school aid is just “same old, same old.” Such a conclusion would be understandable given all the backroom maneuvering reported in the tabloids — but it would be wrong.
What emerged from behind those closed doors for New York City schools is much of what parents, teachers and school advocates have been asking for: fair funding based on student needs, targeted to ensuring qualified teachers and proven programs, with public participation and strong accountability.
As the governor had promised, more than $600 million in additional aid will flow to city public schools next year — an amount that will grow to $3.3 billion by 2010-11. And to get that money, the city must ante up $2.2 billion more of its own funds as well.
Equally significant is a framework that distributes state aid according to a needs-based formula, not pre-determined regional “shares.” Now, I’m not pretending that this is the end of political horse-trading, as this and every other city, state and federal budget has demonstrated, but the basic foundation for a more equitable school funding system that meets the mandate of CFE has been laid.
Still, this budget is about more than formulas and funds. It is also about school improvement and making sure the money is spent where it will make a real difference, most especially for class size reductions. And UFT members and parents who allied themselves in this battle can take credit for that targeting and the community input that it requires.
First of all, there will be no burying of all these new dollars in the general pot, where it so often seems to disappear. These dollars must be used for new or expanded programs that have been proven to boost student achievement.
Furthermore, districts must choose from a menu of programs designed to accomplish one or more of the following five goals: reduce class size, increase student time on task, raise teacher and principal quality, restructure middle and secondary schools, or provide full-day pre-K and kindergarten.
For New York City, the law is even more prescriptive about the use of the new funds, especially when it comes to reducing class size:
Priority shall be on appropriate class sizes [italics added] including adequate accessible school buildings with sufficient space to ensure appropriate class size and implementation of a sound curriculum. Other priorities also may include sufficient numbers of qualified teachers, principals and other personnel; sufficient and up-to-date books, supplies, libraries, educational technology and laboratories; suitable curricula including an expanded platform of programs to help at risk students by giving them more time on task; adequate resources for students with extraordinary needs; and a safe orderly environment.
And, as if that weren’t enough, the legislation imposes state oversight and enforcement to make sure the DOE complies with the “appropriate class size” priority. The city must submit a five-year plan to reduce class sizes to grade-by-grade averages set by the State Education Commissioner. The commissioner also has the power to review any and all complaints about violations of these limits, and his decisions “shall be final and unreviewable.”
The governor and Legislature could not have made their intention any clearer! Their mandate is especially impressive in the face of the tremendous fight the city put up against it even until the very end of the process, and when you recall that the governor’s original budget suggested, but did not require, smaller classes.
Every district must submit to the state commissioner a plan, called a Contract for Excellence, for how it will use its new funds. In New York City, there must be a citywide plan as well as individual community school district plans. And they all must be developed with considerable community input! (That means before the plan is a fait accompli.)
Finally, there is plenty of accountability built into the law with audits (in New York City conducted by the City Comptroller) assuring that the new state money is being spent as planned and that it is not simply replacing local funds.
Of course, what works on paper doesn’t always work in the real world. First, the commissioner must be serious about his responsibility to lower class size by setting real targets and making them stick. Then the chancellor must devise a plan and implement it faithfully — and the commissioner is expressly charged with making sure he does that.
A lot will also fall on us, the UFT and the parent/community coalition. We will need to hold people’s feet to the fire, something we are getting quite nimble at. Even up to the last minute, thousands of educators and parents were faxing their legislators and adjusting their messages to the latest developments in the down-to-the-wire negotiations.
This group is not going to rest on its laurels, that’s for sure. Not after more than two years of gathering a quarter-million signatures, seeing every state legislator from the city in person and sending tens of thousands of messages, giving out a million leaflets, researching, coalition-building, going to court, testifying, polling, advertising and pulling every trick out of our hats to get this accomplished. No one, not me, the other union officers, individual members or the UFT, even with all our clout, could have done this alone. It truly took a village — a very large village! It included Lillian Rodriguez, Leonie Haimson, Hazel Dukes, Robert Jackson, Kathleen Gomez, Jan Atwell, Noreen Connell, Tim Johnson, Bertha Lewis and many others and the organizations they represent.
This law was passed on the eve of Passover, and because it epitomizes the successful end of the CFE case, I cannot help but recall a Passover song that celebrates the miracles God did for the Jewish people during their exodus from Egypt. It is called “Day-en-u,” which means “it would have been enough.” It’s a long litany of all God’s blessings, and after each verse recounting another divine gift, it repeats the chorus, “If that were all God had done for us, it would have been enough.”
I certainly don’t mean to imply that the budget is God-given or even that any one part of it would have been enough by itself, but all together after 14 years of CFE it seems almost miraculous, especially after all we’ve been through to get it.
Perhaps most important, the class-size mandate and the other accountability requirements show that the governor and state legislators are telling Tweed that they must listen to parents and educators and be answerable to them and to the public at large. Obviously your message got through.
We will need to build on this solidarity with parents to continue the fight against those aspects of the reorganization that we believe would hurt our schools and, more generally, to put the public back in public education. That’s why we’re holding a rally on May 9 at City Hall. No question, the class-size language in the state budget is an important part of putting our schools back on the track to success. But when it comes to schools and our kids, it is not enough. It may be huge, but it is only a step. The real “dayenu” will come when all our students can not only dream their dreams, but also achieve them.
