The city is in discussions to move $250 million in funding to schools that are facing steep cuts due to lower enrollment, sources told NY1 on Wednesday.
Sources said a deal between the City Council and Mayor Eric Adams' administration for the funding is close — but not yet finalized. It comes after weeks of protest from public school staff and parents.
We know schools are funded in large part based on student enrollment and that enrollment has been declining in recent years. Back to the NY 1 story:
...the de Blasio administration used federal stimulus dollars to continue funding schools as if they had not seen enrollment declines.
The Adams administration opted to phase that out, using some stimulus funding to offset declines but ultimately reducing Fair Student Funding to schools that saw enrollment drop by $215 million.
At many schools, that has meant sharply lower budgets — which in turn has meant "excessing" teachers. That means a school can no longer afford to keep those teachers on staff, and while they remain employed by the city, they must seek a job at another school with vacancies.
Those teachers are still going to get paid, whether from a school's allocation or from the central Department of Education budget. There are no savings to the taxpayers from these "cuts".
I don't quite understand how the DOE says their budget is $38 billion, but there is even talk about cuts to schools.
Critics are already blasting this possible deal to restore some funding.
Tom Sheppard is the Vice Chair of the Board of Education (Panel for Educational Policy). He says this on Twitter:
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I fully concur.
We saw this from MORE UFT's Matt Driscoll also on Twitter:
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Matt is inviting everyone to speak at the Panel for Education Policy on the cuts this evening. It is a teleconference. You need to sign up to speak from 5:30-6:15 p.m. to be able to talk during the public comment part of the meeting.
Update: No Deal Yet
This is from City and State Pro:
Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday denied there's an agreement with City Council to boost public school funding by $250 million, following significant blow back after Council approved $215 million in Adams-backed cuts last month.
Details: The Council and the mayor were said to be close to a deal, according to a NY1 report, which noted the accord has not been finalized. Asked about it at an unrelated press conference on Wednesday, Adams told reporters he and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (no relation) “have been talking since before the budget was passed,” but a deal has remained elusive.
Update 2: NY Post backs up NY 1
Mayor Eric Adams and the New York City Council are “very close” on a deal to alleviate an expected $250 million in school budget cuts using funds already allocated to the Department of Education, sources confirmed Wednesday.
One source familiar with the negotiations said it “possible” the lawmakers will reach an agreement later Wednesday.
Another source described a deal as being “close to the finish line,” with some details to be worked out.
Four sources confirmed the deal — first reported by NY1 — to The Post, though one of them said the precise dollar amount was “unclear” and “no one truly knows” the figure.
An Eric Adams quote from the Post article:
“We have to be smart, we have to make the right decisions, and it’s not going to be the popular decisions, but we have to make the right financial decisions,” Adams said.
Since this isn't a layoff situation so excessed educator salaries just go from school to central DOE budgets, how are school cuts the right financial decisions?
34 comments:
Good. Never should have happened. I think this was incompetence and cynicism. But you never can tell about the systemic crashing of public education due to big money, politics and stupid ideologies. Proof that it’s happening? Well there are books about it, but obviously hard specific evidence would make the papers. And this kind of corruption isn’t like Watergate. Some ideologues really believe; lots of people buy what they hear and read
without going any further. And there are so many ways to hide this deceit, dress it up as best intentions, fund research, fund or collaborate with high-profile pols and operators, and on and on.
Almost forgot:
🧌 On
Board
NY BATs
“The cuts impact the money schools use to hire staff…it could also mean increasing class sizes just as state lawmakers passed a bill to reduce them.”
Why did Adams ignore the bill? Stay tuned as media connects his actions to millions in charter school PAC $ received recently.
Susan Edelman (5min ago)
"There's no deal in place just yet," @DOEChancellor says at start of PEP meeting
James all these liberal policies, dyslexia training, social emotional, and everything else shoving down throats is as wasted money as Difuckio wife misplacing 700 million for mental health.
For the near 1,000 teachers who had to leave the job for this ridiculous drug/vaccine that alone saves the city 80 million.
How on gods earth are we going to get anything over 2% raises with these type of concerns? Instead of complaining of how you lost we should all be focusing on this next contract which should suck. Going to cost 300 million plus for 2% raise. I cannot wait until you all see the REAL election fraud, think Biden the resident said he had cancer today lol.
Reema Amin (1hr ago)
Confirming @Jill_Jorgensen's scoop, two council sources say they're nearing a deal with City Hall on sending $250M back to schools to address budget cuts.
One source said the deal could be reached sometime this week.
https://nypost.com/2022/07/20/enrollment-declined-in-doe-nyc-schools-while-charters-grew/amp/
Anon2323 - you can stop celebrating, he doesn't have cancer. But where is your link proving the "real" election fraud. I suppose you can make all the claims your heart desires without having to post a link to anything.
Every time another corrupt politician fucks with the schools, they are at the same time fucking with democracy. Fuck the politicians!
Anon2323 has links we usually won't post because they can't pass rudimentary fact checks.
This is a massive story that weirdly has not gotten more attention. NY state awarded a $637M no bid contract to a single company for Covid tests. The family that owns the company has given Hochul $300K in donations
You mean anon 2323 is a delusional right wing hack/troll? I'm shocked, just shocked.
Leonie Haimson (just now)
The deal for $250M would fall short of the overall cut to school & far less than $760M that most council members called to be sent to schools. NYC officials STILL have not clarified exactly how much money is being cut from school budgets. ny.chalkbeat.org/2022/7/20/2327… Unacceptable!
The DOE doesn’t really need more money. Unless they use it to lower class size, which they won’t, it will just go towards bureaucratic bloat as usual.
Mara Tucker
I will be emailing all the PEP members who couldn’t even find the backbone to vote “no” on an apparently meaningless budget vote to restore egregious cuts to NYC Public schools. You should all be ashamed of yourselves and have failed as education advocates.
John C. Liu
Do smaller class sizes impact student learning? What is the best way to reform the high school lottery and admissions process? Is mayoral control the best form of school governance? All are invited to provide their ideas, suggestions and criticisms about NYC’s public schools.
https://twitter.com/liunewyork/status/1550125828482027521?s=21&t=JCfPE-dFERsX7w573tWXBQ
Money impacts student learning.
Negligence upon the behalf of the UFT has left us unsafe in the schools this summer. Teachers are not being given testing kits and if you test positive you lose 5 days worth of pay in ch683. The official line is that you will probably get those days back upon grievance. Anybody want to guess how many teachers in Paris are taking the tests when the school offers? Yes that makes you feel very safe!
I have no doubt there is that connection, however, there is NO way media will make those connections. They do not do this kind of work these days.
We are talking about the budget cuts. If you want to debate the 2020 election, this is not the right posting.
SHSAT Sunset
Parents are outside @NYCSpeakerAdams office to demand full restoration to public schools
Patrick Jenkins
NYStrategist
Fighting for full restoration for what?? More trash? P.S. 223 has a 29% on level rating for reading and a 33% on level rating for math, and yet a 93% advancement rate? And we wonder why so many kids need remediation AFTER graduation.
SHSAT Sunset
Now you're resorting to name-calling?
I'm just pointing out a missing fact that ethics requires you to provide yourself.
You're a highly paid lobbyist for charter schools. Shouldn't you disclose this before critizing public schools on a widely used public forum?
Missing back-and-forth^
SHSAT Sunset
I'm guessing that tweet is billable to your charter school lobbying clients?
Jenkins
Losers always hating. Keep trying.
6:38 did you ask for a testing kit? I'm sure they'd be happy to give you one.
There will be no difference in the failure of the NYC DOE if the 250 million is restored or not. That fact alone, that it won't make a difference, is incredible. As another contributor stated, this money will be issued to the bureaucratic money pit.
The DOE needs a complete overhaul and return to the service of education as opposed to the corrupt system that is currently in place. There are a lot of people making a lot of money, yet the children remain educationally and morally bankrupt.
Does anyone know why we don't get our summer pay stubs anymore?
When funds do get restored or just suddenly appear for whatever reason, while teachers and admin are in the middle of things, and teachers are suddenly told they have like two days to pick from a very limited selection of textbooks and/or other resources, the result is usually negligible in terms of student support. This is part bureaucratic bungling, part doing things on the ultra-cheap and part what we’re going through now, having to go through
a lot of nonsense to get basic funding. Basic funding! Teacher’s Choice comes nowhere near what teachers must shell out in many schools just to have the basic materials to be able to teach appropriately.
Politicians demanding funding is political theater. Half the people commenting on this blog could run their school better at half the budget.
A layoff of the thousands DOE central bureaucrats and the entire DOE legal staff of clowns and the rest of the DOE bloat at tweed could actually save the $2 billion dollars needed to reduce class size and actually improve educational outcomes.
However, the Mayor and his patron billionaires (hedge fund billionaires and their ilk) are at war with public education and with unions.
They want to privatize, privatize and privatize. This means more government $$$$ for their greedy hands to leach onto.
So they will wreck public education. That in a nutshell explains the constant mismanagement of the DOE by the mayors. It is explains the
political obsession with mayoral control.
The People’s Plan
(Amount to restore)
@NYCSpeakerAdams
@NYCMayor: advocates &
@NYCComptroller
say school cuts are $1.7B-$469M. Anything <$469M is selling schools short & does not reverse the damage of YOUR decision to defund schools in June. Show that you stand w/ parents, teachers & schools & fully #RestoreTheCuts!
“According to two sources within the City Council, the Adams administration has offered to restore $250 million in funding to schools only if the council will agree to sign a joint statement that future cuts to schools will be necessary in later years unless enrollment rebounds or the state or federal government provide additional money.”
https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-school-budget-negotiations-between-the-mayor-and-city-council-hit-an-impasse
This is all a work! On both sides it’s a work. I believe that.
So $38B for 1 year isn’t enough? What a joke.
Well, why also have tuitions to private schools skyrocketed? Teacher salaries haven’t. Where exactly does all the money go?
8:01 My school wastes a teachers’ salary on TC consultants and TC workshops. Twice as many APs as needed. 450 million is a conservative number for school based waste citywide. Now add in district offices, central, etc…
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