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Faulty city targeting of state Contract for Excellence funds blasted at hearings do-over

by Michael Hirsch

Aug 7, 2008 12:25 PM

The new round of hearings, like the first round, heard speaker after speaker lambaste the city Department of Education for not aggressively lowering class size or using the funds in a manner that directly assists students. Chancellor Joel Klein, once again, did not make an appearance at any hearing.

At the Manhattan hearing on July 30 at Brandeis HS on the Upper West Side, speakers slammed the DOE and its C4E plan for spending $100 million to expand collaborative team teaching (CTT) under the guise of class-size reduction and for again planning to use C4E dollars for existing — and not new — programs.

Teachers and parents gave a big thumbs-down on July 29-30 to the city’s plans to use the state’s sizable Contract for Excellence (C4E) dollars at borough public hearings that the state had ordered the city to redo.

The city scheduled the second set of borough hearings — squeezing five into two days — after the State Education Department, acting on a complaint filed by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, said city hearings in June were out of compliance with state regulations for, among other reasons, presenting a plan that did not sufficiently specify where C4E dollars would go and failing to consult with stakeholders before drawing up the plan.

The C4E program is part of the additional education funding for city schools resulting from the resolution of the 13-year Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit by parents against the state for not providing city schoolchildren with the state’s constitutionally required “sound, basic education.” The C4E funds amount to $386 million a year, but for New York City to receive the money the DOE was required to develop an acceptable plan for spending the funds in appropriately targeted areas.

To comply, New York City agreed to reduce average class sizes systemwide starting in the 2007-08 school year, with a special focus on high-needs, low-performing schools, in return for the increased state dollars. Four other proven education reforms were also funded: increased student time on task, teacher and principal quality initiatives, middle school and high school restructuring, and full-day pre-kindergarten and kindergarten. Further modification added another must-support initiative: model programs for English language learners.

Nevertheless, a UFT-commissioned independent analysis of DOE data on its class-size reduction plan showed that for the 2007-8 school year, class sizes either roughly stayed the same or increased. Worse, little progress was made in reducing class sizes in struggling schools.

Among the some 30 speakers testifying at the Manhattan hearing — each was given a maximum of two minutes to critique a plan only released a week earlier — UFT Vice President for Special Education Carmen Alvarez excoriated the DOE for conflating CTT and its smaller teacher-student ratios with smaller class sizes. While calling herself a strong supporter of the two-teachers-in-a-classroom initiative, which she said is proving invaluable in the context of special education classes, Alvarez pointed out, “CTT was never designed to reduce class size, and C4E is not supposed to fill budget gaps.” She also blasted the DOE for “no systematic plan to lower class sizes.”

Murry Bergtraum HS Chapter Leader John Elfrank-Dana attested that “reducing class size is our best shot for our children to succeed,” and Pat Jowitt, PS 138 PTA president, slammed the DOE because “not one red cent is going to kids in District 75,” as one child held up a sign reading “I am also the future of this country.”

Helene Doran of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity charged that the city was “allocating only CFE dollars to higher-need, lower-performing schools, and providing little or no tax levy dollars.”

Granville Leo Stevens, a parent who’s seen five daughters go through the school system and has himself been involved in city school issues for 30 years, said that attention had to be paid not just to overcrowded schools and districts, but that “support for low-performing, underutilized schools that need better teachers” was a must.

At the Staten Island hearing at the Petrides School on July 30, Staten Island Borough Rep Emil Pietromonaco questioned the DOE’s decision to use $10 million for the New York City Leadership Academy, a training program for aspiring principals that previously was privately funded. He also said public hearings on such an important subject should not have been held in the “dead of summer.”

The DOE’s updated plan is posted on the DOE Web site at www.nyc.gov/schools/. At the site, search for Contracts for Excellence. While no further hearings will be held, the DOE is soliciting additional written testimony. Feedback can be submitted by e-mail to Contracts

ForExcellence@schools.nyc.gov. The public comment period continues through Aug. 23.