President's Perspective
A simple message — but loud
Mar 13, 2008 3:18 PM
Randi Weingarten
Personal note: As we went to press, the word broke about a criminal case involving Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Our hearts go out to his family at a time like this. Obviously all this will have a huge impact and we are monitoring the situation as closely as you would expect.
I started teaching at Clara Barton HS in 1991. The city’s economy was faltering. Thousands of classroom paraprofessionals were facing mid-year layoffs, which were narrowly averted only when UFT members pitched in by deferring part of their paychecks (in an agreement that also secured the mid-winter break). Still, the budget crisis continued into the next school year unabated.
School buildings that had never recovered from years of “deferred maintenance” after the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970s deteriorated even further. Classrooms leaked, mold flourished and plaster crumbled.
(An interesting historical note: The neglect of the education infrastructure continued until the UFT sued the city shortly after Mayor Giuliani took office. After a full trial and court decision, the city was told the city building codes applied to schools, and was ordered to enforce it. That court order and enforcement, which stand to this day, plus two big capital plans — one in Giuliani’s tenure, one in Bloomberg’s — have helped reverse the infrastructure problems.)
At Barton, we kept chalk in our pockets because we never knew where the next piece was coming from and copy paper was meted out in reams per teacher per semester. Typically, toward the end of the year, there was none left and you either dug deeper into your own pockets or used the backs of old hand-outs. In schools throughout the city, teachers played musical chairs, switching chairs from room to room as needed, but still, many students had to sit on the radiators. We shared single sets of textbooks among several classes, which meant students couldn’t take them home to read. And every so often, some newspaper would express shock and dismay after discovering classroom science books that, 30 years later, predicted human travel to the moon! And, of course, teacher salaries lagged a good 25 percent behind those in the suburbs. It was those conditions that we described to the court in the soon-to-be-filed Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit.
Fast forward 17 years to 2008. New York’s highest court finally disposed of the CFE case leading to an April 2007 agreement between the state and city to a four-year plan to raise education spending substantially. The budgets now under discussion in Albany and at City Hall were to be only the second installment of that plan. But now, just as we are about to realize the fruits of that long litigation, the specter of crowded and crumbling school buildings, bigger classes and insufficient instructional supports has started to rise again.
I don’t want to overstate the case. Truth is, we are in a much better place now than we were at the start of the fiscal downturn of the early ’90s. The Bloomberg administration, in conjunction with the state Legislature, City Council and two governors, has added billions of dollars to the board of education’s budget in the past six years. The budget cuts that the city recently announced — though a serious step backward — don’t reach the magnitude of those I remember in the ’90s. At least not yet. Still, it’s a sobering reminder to realize that without our ongoing vigilance the improvements of the last decade are so tenuous and our children are so vulnerable to the vagaries of stock market, real estate and business taxes. It should not be that way.
In the span of only two months, the education budget has been sent reeling by a triple punch: immediate mid-year cuts of $180 million, most of which were imposed on individual schools; a 5 percent reduction in next year’s budget, and just last week, a threatened additional 3 percent cut on top of that. At this rate, the schools could easily find their funding slashed by $800 million to $1 billion when their doors open in September.
Numbers in that stratosphere are hard to comprehend; they mask the realities on the ground. “Everybody can make do with a little less,” the mayor remarked. So the UFT surveyed chapter leaders to find out how their schools were absorbing the immediate fund reductions.
The most common immediate service cuts were after school and weekend classes and tutoring services (48 percent) — vital for our weakest students — and clubs and extra-curricular activities (36 percent) — just the things that kids need to relieve the unrelenting focus on test preparation during the school day. Next largest on the cutting- room floor were teacher training and professional development programs (23 percent) — which may include already diminished mentoring and other supports for new teachers that are so important for teacher retention. In addition, half of the responding schools cut book and supply orders, the effects of which may not be felt for months.
Still, it’s true that in some schools, even immediate cuts approaching $100,000 are being made with little visible effect to the casual observer.
But multiply that four or five times for next year, and the impact could be catastrophic.
Equally unfair is the fact that the changing economy has put students (and their teachers) under more pressure than ever before to achieve a well-rounded education so they can compete in the world. No Child Left Behind, in my judgment, has made it worse, not better, despite its good intentions. And frankly, I have not noticed anyone even asking, much less easing the requirements for students when government wavers on its responsibilities to them.
So, for all these reasons, and so many more, advocacy groups and elected officials have rallied around our Keep the Promises campaign.
Haven’t our children waited long enough? They don’t have the opportunity for do-overs!
By the time you read this, our first of two big actions in March — our annual Lobby Day in Albany — will be over. I expected it to be particularly impassioned. Hundreds of parents and activists will be joining us to visit their legislators to urge them to restore the full amount of state school aid promised. The storm around Gov. Spitzer won’t dampen that zeal.
Just as we went to print, the New York State Assembly kept its promise by proposing a plan that restores funding to enable the lowering of class size, the building of classroom space and other key reforms, and included language to try to stop the city from imposing its cut. To help fund the restorations, they included a modest, temporary income tax surcharge on individuals who earn $1 million a year or more. We believe that those who have benefited the most during good economic times can afford to help our children. We are very grateful to the Assembly and Speaker Silver for keeping the promise.
The next action — a rally at City Hall on March 19 — is where your participation is vital. A street demonstration is needed, right now, in the city to show we must keep the promises as well. The more people speaking with one voice the more effective we will be.
If you’ve been following the budget saga in the newspapers this year, you have probably realized that it’s become a particularly nasty political fight, with enough blame and finger-pointing going on in every direction to leave your head spinning and even to inspire, once again, threats of secession by some rash politicians. With this week’s news, the situation will probably get nastier and more destabilized. Remember, our message is simple: Keep the promise. All the parties signed on to the April 2007 agreement. All that we ask on behalf of the children of New York City is that those promises be kept.
That is the simple message of the March 19 rally. Ask your UFT chapter leader how you can sign up. Every voice counts.
