Thursday, March 02, 2017

IBO SAYS MORE CITY MONEY GOING TO CHARTER SCHOOLS

One doesn't need to be a genius to see that the New York City Department of Education is spending more money on charter schools. The Independent Budget Office in a new report does a review of the spending and they conclude there is a steady increase for charter schools. Thanks to Harris Lirtzman for sending this out.

Here is a part of the IBO report:

Payments to non-DOE schools continued to grow in absolute  and in relative terms during the de Blasio Administration as existing charter schools continued to fill out their complement of grade levels and new charter schools opened. The increase in charter school payments has been partly offset by a decrease in spending on special education private schools in recent years. The preliminary budget anticipates payments to non-DOE schools in 2018 of $3.6 billion, or 43 percent more than in 2013, the last full year of the Bloomberg Administration. In absolute terms, the increase in funding for non-DOE schools during the de Blasio Administration budgets (2014–2018) is similar to the increase over the last few Bloomberg Administration budgets (2009-2013): $1.1 billion versus $1.2 billion, respectively.

IBO continues further down:

Payments to charter schools are expected to continue to increase through 2021 due to both increasing enrollment and likely future increases in tuition levels. Generally, charter school tuition is based on DOE per-pupil spending with a two year lag, increased by a factor determined by statewide per-pupil spending patterns in recent years. This formula was superseded in 2015 through 2017 by an act of the state Legislature, which substituted fixed per-pupil increases for those years rather than the formula-driven amounts. IBO anticipates that the Legislature will reapply the charter school formula for 2018 and subsequent years. This will likely result in an increase in charter school tuition as DOE’s recent per-pupil spending increases are reflected in the charter tuition formula.


The city has experienced continued growth in charter school enrollment in recent years with growth expected to continue steadily in the near future. Currently, over 100,000 students, or 10.5 percent of the total enrollment in DOE-managed schools, are enrolled in charter schools. Enrollment and the related spending on charter schools grew steadily through Mayor Bloomberg’s last term and has continued to grow through the de Blasio Administration. 

Has the UFT's so called friend Mayor de Blasio and new friend Governor Cuomo done anything to slow charter expansion to invest more in public schools that must educate every child that comes through the doors?

The remainder of the increases in education spending are coming our salary increases and expanded programs such as pre-K. Here, it should be pointed out that the IBO report expects costs for our retroactive payments to continue to take up more DOE money but an expert from the IBO has already explained how payments to us will not be a huge drain on the city's treasury.

3 comments:

  1. The last article stated how bad the contract was and how the city has so much money, then here you act surprised that we are getting screwed again. Get used to it. We have set the precedent of 1 percent raises, cant wait for the wonderful November 30, 2018 negotiation. By the way, how come we havent gotten the TDA back to 8.25 since the city and state are no longer in financial peril. Still, 8 years in, we've gotten almost no retro, and only half of the 8 percent of raises. And we are still getting the shit beaten out of us by students because of an ignored discipline code, not to mention admin abuse.

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  2. Well those nicely furnished rooms with nice rugs and a computer for every student aren't going to pay for themselves. Meanwhile, you have kids in decaying buildings that can't even get proper air conditioning and textbooks that are 20 years old.

    The DOE should be ashamed of its sham job it is doing with the traditional public schools.

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