An open letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein:
Where does a parent begin when addressing your complex and seemingly unfair initiatives and programs you have set forth to us, the families and students of New York City? There are so many issues to raise that it is hard to select just one important issue, but at this time you have left us no choice because if we don't fight this issue we lose almost every battle of success for schools. The issue is the budget for NYC schools.
Last year, the Department of Education rolled out the Fair Student Funding initiative. This funding was to achieve three major goals: increase equity while preserving stability, improve student achievement and make school budgets more transparent.
What we have seen so far are tight budgets and tough choices to be made by school teams and administrations. All of these goals will be lost with the proposed budget cuts - I apologize, these are not proposed cuts but effective immediately. Principals were e-mailed on Jan. 30 and told their budgets would reflect the cuts the next morning. I suppose that the statements made about Fair Student Funding have now lost their credibility and they are no longer true.
In a letter, Kathleen Grimm, deputy chancellor for finance and administration, states that all agencies are required to cut 1.75 percent from their budgets for the 2008 fiscal year. She also states that in past years, when the city has had to cut back, it exempted the Department of Education. Many of us can attest that this is a falsehood.
She also goes on to state that the DOE will cut back where they can on central staffing, as well as transportation, food, repairs and maintenance, information technology initiatives, assessments and purchasing. If schools are to be accountable and audited constantly as their finances are scrutinized for every penny, I believe the DOE should also be accountable for their expenses that our money for education is providing for them. The costs associated with testing and grading, quality reviews, the infamous report cards, surveys and salaries of the many DOE officials in the Tweed building continue to grow, with a number of DOE officials earning more than $190,000 a year, the highest by far of any city agency. Estimates made by the public advocates office of the total cost of new data collection, new tests, and the rest of the initiatives may be as high as $335 million.
Why should schools bear the burden of 1.75 percent cuts?If the DOE truly holds principals accountable, why should it take so many bureaucrats to achieve this?
If we had to make a joke of this, we can ask, "How many DOE officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?" And the answer would be, "As many as it takes to test over and over again, the one who screws it in and then some more to grade them and then some more to decide if they are achieving the goals we think they should have and then see if the person screwing in the bulb can achieve those same goals without the light bulb." But this is not a joke. This is the future of America: our children and their education.
This budget cut can mean the increase of class sizes, the loss of wonderful programs, art initiatives and technology, and the loss of more teachers, even though they must remain on the payroll until hired elsewhere. I hope and implore parents, educators, City Council members, Assembly people and everyone who is not a DOE official can help us get back to education the way it should be and help us keep the money in the schools. The DOE has failed the parents this year with its lack of support. Please don't fail our children.
Jane Reiff
Flushing
Last year, the Department of Education rolled out the Fair Student Funding initiative. This funding was to achieve three major goals: increase equity while preserving stability, improve student achievement and make school budgets more transparent.
What we have seen so far are tight budgets and tough choices to be made by school teams and administrations. All of these goals will be lost with the proposed budget cuts - I apologize, these are not proposed cuts but effective immediately. Principals were e-mailed on Jan. 30 and told their budgets would reflect the cuts the next morning. I suppose that the statements made about Fair Student Funding have now lost their credibility and they are no longer true.
In a letter, Kathleen Grimm, deputy chancellor for finance and administration, states that all agencies are required to cut 1.75 percent from their budgets for the 2008 fiscal year. She also states that in past years, when the city has had to cut back, it exempted the Department of Education. Many of us can attest that this is a falsehood.
She also goes on to state that the DOE will cut back where they can on central staffing, as well as transportation, food, repairs and maintenance, information technology initiatives, assessments and purchasing. If schools are to be accountable and audited constantly as their finances are scrutinized for every penny, I believe the DOE should also be accountable for their expenses that our money for education is providing for them. The costs associated with testing and grading, quality reviews, the infamous report cards, surveys and salaries of the many DOE officials in the Tweed building continue to grow, with a number of DOE officials earning more than $190,000 a year, the highest by far of any city agency. Estimates made by the public advocates office of the total cost of new data collection, new tests, and the rest of the initiatives may be as high as $335 million.
Why should schools bear the burden of 1.75 percent cuts?If the DOE truly holds principals accountable, why should it take so many bureaucrats to achieve this?
If we had to make a joke of this, we can ask, "How many DOE officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?" And the answer would be, "As many as it takes to test over and over again, the one who screws it in and then some more to grade them and then some more to decide if they are achieving the goals we think they should have and then see if the person screwing in the bulb can achieve those same goals without the light bulb." But this is not a joke. This is the future of America: our children and their education.
This budget cut can mean the increase of class sizes, the loss of wonderful programs, art initiatives and technology, and the loss of more teachers, even though they must remain on the payroll until hired elsewhere. I hope and implore parents, educators, City Council members, Assembly people and everyone who is not a DOE official can help us get back to education the way it should be and help us keep the money in the schools. The DOE has failed the parents this year with its lack of support. Please don't fail our children.
Jane Reiff
Flushing
