City Council Blasts Mayor's Education Reforms
BY RICHARD GENTILVISO

Bloomberg caught many by surprise with his announcement of more significant school reforms.

Opposition to a second major reorganization of the city's public schools is mounting.

A resolution, passed by the City Council last week, seeks to have the Department of Education (DOE) delay implementation of the school reforms until the potential impact has been fully assessed. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the education reforms during his State of the City address in January.

The city council resolution also calls upon the DOE to consult with educators, parents, community leaders and other interested stakeholders regarding the recent school reforms. Region 4, Community Education Council (CEC) District 30 was also to vote on a resolution rejecting the new school reforms on Friday evening, March 30.

In his January speech, Bloomberg caught many by surprise with his announcement of more significant school reforms, given that students, parents, teachers and administrators were still adjusting to the initial round of changes imposed in 2003 by the mayor when he was first given the authority to do so by the state legislature.

The mayor's proposal includes four new initiatives: +Public School Empowerment +Accountability +Fair Student Funding

+Teacher Excellence

Under the Empowerment Initiative, principals who agree to meet student performance targets are mostly left on their own without direct supervision.

The council resolution notes the Empowerment Initiative is "less than one year old and there has been substantive evaluation of this initiative on students' academic achievement".

CEC 30 is particularly concerned with the Fair Student Funding proposal since it intends to fundamentally change the school financing system by equalizing funds for schools of similar size and population, On the surface it seems fair, but schools in middle-class neighborhoods have disproportionate numbers of more experienced teachers, who are also more highly paid. "Financially penalizing schools for having experienced teachers over time, will likely lead to a less qualified teaching force in our schools," states the CEC 30 resolution that was to be voted on last week.

The city council and CEC 30 resolutions are both critical of the absence of class size reform in the new DOE proposals. "The reforms focus on overall structure rather than proven initiatives that directly impact the classroom, such as those highlighted by the courts in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, including small class size, teacher quality and adequate instrumentalities of learning," says the council resolution.

"Reaffirming the fact that our schools and classrooms are severely overcrowded and our children's quality of education is suffering from this ongoing crisis," the CEC 30 resolution states DOE has made "little or no progress in reducing class size, even though the state's highest court found classes in city schools too large in all grades to provide children with the Constitutional right to an adequate education."

The DOE, in statement quoted by NY1 News on March 29, said, "During the past two months we met with 5,000 parents, educators and community leaders in more than 100 meetings in every borough to discuss the reforms."

But the city council, in its resolution, called community consultation minimal by DOE and said their plan to put more reforms into place by the next school year "may not leave a reasonable amount of time for principals, teachers and parents and other interested stakeholders to make informed decisions about changes to their school".

The CEC 30 resolution said parents and teachers at numerous public meetings "have urged DOE to stop this new reorganization from going forward, because of the substantial risk that rather than improving our schools, it will lead to further chaos, instability, and budget cuts."