Testimony of UFT Vice President for Middle Schools Richard Mantell before the New York City Council Committee on Finance
Good afternoon. My name is Richard Mantell, and I am Vice President of Middle Schools for the United Federation of Teachers. On behalf of our members and the 1.1 million students we serve, it is a privilege to come before you to discuss the Fiscal Year 2016 Executive Budget as it relates to New York City’s public schools.
Before I begin, I would like to thank Chairwoman Ferreras, Chairman Dromm and members of the Council for their tireless advocacy on behalf of our students and our dedicated educators. Thanks to leadership by you and Mayor de Blasio, the rollout of universal prekindergarten has been a huge success, with the program continuing to grow. Your hard work and commitment has also allowed the hiring of hundreds of additional school guidance counselors and the restoration of funding for summer programs for middle school students, which have both filled critical needs for children. We commend you for your dedication to these valuable programs. Our school communities are stronger thanks to your leadership.
New York City’s public schools are moving forward into a new era. New initiatives such as PROSE are allowing teachers and administrators to design and implement programs that meet the unique needs of their school populations. Newly dedicated time for professional development and newly created teacher leadership positions are empowering educators to improve their skills. Similarly, the dedication of time for parent engagement is strengthening the school-home connection in ways we’ve never seen before. And, perhaps most importantly, struggling schools — now considered Renewal Schools — are finally getting resources and support that were never extended to them by the previous administration.
All of these initiatives are evidence of our collaboration with the Department of Education and the effectiveness at the school level of our collective bargaining agreement. While some of these programs grew out of our new contract, others are now working because for the first time in more than a decade, we have an administration that supports our schools. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish in a short period of time when you have an educator at the helm of the Department of Education.
Our schools are moving forward despite the harmful roadblocks put up by Governor Cuomo, the most egregious of which is his refusal to properly fund New York City schools under the Campaign for Fiscal Equity court settlement. The state owes our city’s public schools $2.5 billion, according to an analysis by the Alliance for Quality Education earlier this spring, which amounts to roughly $2,600 more per student.
The governor’s failure to meet the state’s constitutional obligation to adequately fund public schools has led to record-setting inequities in school funding across the state since he has been in office.
It also amounts to a disinvestment in New York City public education that, if left unaddressed, will create challenges and problems for our schools in coming years.
The contrast between the governor’s priorities and the city’s progress in public education could not be more striking. As we work collaboratively with the DOE to help our students learn and grow, the governor is focusing his efforts on the political agenda of the 1 percent. Hedge fund special interests are pushing an education tax credit that would siphon more funding from our public schools and put it in the pockets of the superrich. They are also lobbying hard for an increase in the charter school cap that could lead to more than 250 new charter schools in New York City, taking space from already overcrowded public schools and draining tens of millions of dollars in rental costs from public coffers.
Any increase in the charter cap is unnecessary and uncalled for. New York City charter schools have 2,500 empty seats right now, enough to fill four elementary schools, and an additional 27,000 charter school seats are approved to come on line. Parents and educators understand the threat that Governor Cuomo’s education agenda poses to our public schools. That’s why they have spent the last six months fighting hard to protect our public schools. And it is why the Council’s leadership and support continues to be critical.
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Teachers know best what supplies will make the biggest impact on their students’ achievement. Yet New York City public school teachers daily confront resource shortages in our schools that curtail what they are able to achieve. Teachers dream up creative lesson plans and design innovative projects to help their students learn and grow. But time and again, they bump into the reality of a half-empty supply room and broken equipment. That’s where Teacher’s Choice comes in — and why it has, frankly, proven invaluable.
Let me share some of the stories that teachers told us.
Charles Di Benedetto, a high school English teacher at Richmond Hill HS in Queens, has used his Teacher’s Choice funds to build a library of graphic novels — to accompany the study of texts such as Frankenstein and Macbeth — for his struggling readers because “every student needs a way to enter the lesson and to be comfortable with the material.”
Anthony Valentin, a social studies teacher at Stuyvesant HS, the city’s elite high school, spends his Teacher’s Choice funds in addition to hundreds of dollars of his own money every year on technology assets — software, batteries, speakers, cables and other equipment. “Technology support within my school is spotty since one person is given the impossible task of servicing hundreds of staff members and thousands of students,” he says. “It’s a miracle that most computers have not ceased functioning.”
Charlene Johnson, a pre-K teacher at PS 64 in the East Village, spent her Teacher’s Choice last year on caterpillars so her 4-year-old, tactile learners could see metamorphosis with their own eyes. If Teacher’s Choice funding is restored in September, Johnson told us, her first priority will be to furnish her classroom’s dramatic play area. “For social-emotional development, that’s very important because in dramatic play, you have to interact with one another,” she says. “I also start to hear language develop — I have English Language learners, and dramatic play is one of the first areas they really took to.”
Rachel Tully, a 3rd-grade teacher at PS 1 in the Bronx, said her Teacher’s Choice funds go to making sure every student has the basics. “Many of my children are in shelters, so you can only imagine what their life is like when it comes to what they want and what they need,” she says. “With Teacher’s Choice money, I buy an extra stash of notebooks, pencils and folders, every little thing they use. It makes all the difference because they know they’re prepared. Imagine needing supplies — it’s a little thing for us to give it to them, but for them it’s like the biggest thing in the world.”
These stories demonstrate that when teachers have the freedom to purchase their own materials for use in schools, they can address critical needs and accomplish amazing work in the classroom. We encourage members of the Council to visit our campaign website and read some of the hundreds of stories that teachers have shared about how they have used Teacher’s Choice to enhance classroom learning.
The need is great. Teachers spent an average of $500 over and above last school year’s Teacher’s Choice allotment of $70, according to our inaugural teachers’ survey. At our Spring Education Conference just a week ago, more than a third of the teachers present said they are spending more than $1,000 of their own money every year on classroom supplies. In what other profession are workers expected to supply their own tools to do their jobs?
Teachers received $220 in Teacher’s Choice funds before the 2008 recession hit. The program was eliminated in Fiscal Year 2012, and ever since then educators have received a fraction of the pre-recession amount. With the city’s economy now recovered, we believe it’s time to restore Teacher’s Choice. We are asking the City Council and the mayor to restore the program to its pre-recession funding level of $20 million.
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Community schools remain one of the most beneficial initiatives supporting our schools, and this groundbreaking movement continues to grow, in large part due to Mayor de Blasio’s strong leadership on the issue.
At its most basic level, the community schools model gives teachers and administrators a host of additional tools to help our students learn and thrive. On a larger scale, community schools can strengthen entire communities by addressing the needs of children and their families in a holistic manner.
The NYC Community Learning Schools Initiative (CLS) is built on close partnerships with nonprofit organizations, public agencies, businesses and community schools networks that all share common goals. Community schools partner with local businesses and organizations to create or bring in sustainable programs such as for mentoring and tutoring; food and wellness; vision and dental health; and physical and mental health services. Under the community schools model, these services and programs are seamlessly integrated into a school’s daily operations. It is a comprehensive approach that emphasizes collaboration between teachers, parents and nonprofits.
Because every school population and neighborhood is unique, successful community schools each need different plans of action. This can only be achieved through informed decision-making, a comprehensive needs assessment and true community engagement at the school level.
There’s been huge interest and support for community schools since the union launched its initiative in 2012. Our program now has more than two dozen schools, and there is a critical need to build capacity to manage the model’s expansion.
We ask that the Council again provide support to the CLS program. This year, our hope is to secure $1 million from the Council to develop a program that will align mental health services with the needs of our various community schools. Over the last three years, our community schools have found that one of the top needs identified by both parents and teachers is to provide more mental health supports for the students. This is critically needed to address the dearth of mental health services available to students and families in many city neighborhoods and in most schools.
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There’s no denying that smaller class sizes provide students with more of the individualized attention they need. Yet, according to the preliminary Mayor’s Management Report for FY15, 31 percent of students in elementary and middle schools and 44 percent of high school students are in buildings where enrollment exceeds capacity. Meanwhile, enrollment continues to increase across the five boroughs.
Despite this dire reality, the capital plan as it currently reads will meet less than half of the projected need. We need to do better.
While the capacity program within the plan has been increased by $400 million, the vast majority of that additional funding, $310 million, has been allocated for prekindergarten classrooms. A worthy endeavor to be sure, but that means the new capacity program only adds 100 seats, increasing the total from 32,500 seats to 32,629.
The shortfalls remain vast. For example, the SCA’s enrollment projects the number of students in Queens high schools will grow to just over 92,000 students in 2021-22, up from 79,000 in 2011-12, an increase of 13,000. Considering that SCA was already citing a shortfall of over 5,000 seats in Queens high schools in 2013, an analysis is needed of how the current projected increase of 13,000 students will be accommodated.
There are two goals for creating new seats: Eliminate existing overcrowding, and provide for enrollment growth due to new residents and new housing. We urge the Council and the de Blasio administration to consider doubling the number of new seats allocated within the capital plan, and we have proposed a method to begin paying for them.
The UFT held a news conference earlier this year to advocate for reducing class sizes for kindergarten through grade 3 to no more than 15 children. We proposed that the city could pay for this by closing tax loopholes that allow some 90,000 nonresident absentee owners of luxury properties to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, cheating the city out of hundreds of millions of dollars of much-needed revenue every year.
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Beyond the class size and overcrowding issues, I want to comment on a few other aspects of the capital plan. We commend the city on committing to remove the 350-plus trailers, called temporary classroom units or TCUs, stationed outside our schools, which will restore long-lost playground space. That is an important step in the right direction, and this program must stay funded until all TCUs are removed. Likewise, we are encouraged that the plan to replace all light fixtures containing PCBs by December of next year remains funded and on track. Work on the remaining 370 school buildings still on the list must be completed by the deadline.
If the governor were to begin funding CFE, it would allow the city to make additional investments into the Capital Investment Program. Currently, the school system continues to struggle to get its buildings into a state of good repair. Because of inadequate funding, only the most serious deficiencies continue to drive the CIP program, and there’s not enough funding to keep up with demand. According to the capital plan amendment, there are now at least 170 buildings that are over 100 years old and in desperate need of repair. We have a Renewal School in the Rockaways still operating with a temporary generator because damage from Hurricane Sandy has not yet been repaired.
Another area where we can make a strategic investment that will help both the long-term environmental and fiscal health of our city is by installing solar panels on the roofs of our school buildings. It's not only an opportunity to go green and save money, but solar panels and rooftop gardens also give teachers new tools to build lessons around.
Twenty-four schools are already in the process of receiving solar panels as part of Mayor de Blasio’s green buildings plan. Once they’re all installed, experts say the power they collectively generate will equate to pulling 600 cars off the road. It’s a great first start, and there’s much more we can do. We've been working closely with the Central Labor Council, the IBEW and ALIGN on a proposal to install solar panels on as many as 1,000 school buildings. The first step of this ambitious plan is for the city to assess the entire DOE schools portfolio and pick the best locations for solar installations. To do so would require the appropriate expense and capital funding for solar, electrical and structural drawings and for bid specifications for those schools identified as being fit for solar.
With regard to school technology, the Smart Schools Bond Act may eventually be helpful in building high-bandwidth connectivity and increasing the ability of classroom-based student use of digital resources. But Governor Cuomo has yet to detail a plan on how money will be distributed or spent. Our schools also need non-classroom technology initiatives such as upgrades to student information systems and network security and other enhancements to administrative and management systems. Without knowing any specifics on how the bond act funding will be distributed, the $650 million in technology allocations under the capital plan do not begin to address the standards that the school system is hoping to achieve, the details of the program or how expansive it will be in reaching a large number of schools.
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Lastly, as I mentioned earlier, the expansion of UPK has been a welcome and important development for our city, one that will produce lasting positive effects for generations. As we continue to support investment in UPK, we must also put resources into Family Child Care Providers that are also UFT members and which so many of New Yorkers depend upon. These programs accommodate children as young as a few months old. Many parents rely on family child care providers for their flexible hours and proximity to where the parents live or work. But access remains an issue. According to the city’s most recent estimate, only 27 percent of income-eligible families currently receive a child care subsidy. We can do better.
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Every New York City public school student should be able to receive a high-quality education at every city public school, and our dedicated members work hard every day to meet the varied needs of our students to make that goal a reality. We have an enormous opportunity to use the city budget to strengthen our schools and improve outcomes for our students, which is why the Council’s advocacy cannot be overstated. Simply put, our collective responsibility is to support these educators and ensure that they have the support and resources they need to meet the challenges they face, including oversized classes and a lack of essential supplies.
Thank you for the time and opportunity to articulate our thoughts and concerns about the upcoming budget. I am happy to address any questions that you may have.