10 thoughts on “New York City Schools Face Financial Pinch”

1. Kiersten,

   Closer to home, Cranston’s schools are facing a financial pinch and declining performance reports.

   Andre

2. Andre, Where did you see info about declining performance reports? I would like to know more about that.

3. Andre tells me that Supt. Scherza spoke at a recent CEAB meeting and said that the performance numbers soon to be released indicate that our high schools are “sliding backwards.” More on this later when information becomes available.

4. Let’s see…sliding backwards, after 4 years of Steve Laffey…Nah. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

5. Andre:

   Any idea what numbers Supt. Scherza is referring to? If it’s NCLB results then it would be generally following the elementary numbers that came out a few weeks ago — Cranston’s schools are not failing, per se, but fewer are in the “exceeds standards” category (or whatever the terminology is these days).

   School officials are sure to use this to make the case that they need more money (as is typical, not only in Cranston, but everywhere in the state), when the real culprit is the school committee’s recent contract agreement.

   Now, I am not taking issue with the concept of “fair” teacher pay and benefits — it’s the political reality that the school board did not furnish the city with a cost impact analysis for all three years of the contract, so we have no idea what it’s going to cost in the long run.

   And not to split hairs, but the school board DID propose increases of almost $10 million a year the last four years as the city was trying to climb out of the fiscal hole. And now they’re going to get tax increases to fund the teachers’ contract (which, legally, the city is forced to pay). How this is going to “help the kids” is beyond me, quite frankly. If anything, the academics are going to get LESS money now than before, even with the expected tax hikes that will be needed to pay the staff.

   klaus: I’m with you. To put a finer point on it, this news follows four years of Laffey tearing into the school department, brow-beating the teachers’ union and the crossing guards, and holding back state aid payments that were legally promised to the schools. Causing that kind of disarray at the top — and putting the school administration on the defensive, where they were far less likely to compromise — clearly trickled down into the classrooms. Also remember that both of the high school principals retired this past year; that had to have an effect on the management of East and West.

6. Jesse, Thanks for joining the conversation here. I’ve been reading your comments for a while at rifuture.

   I have a hard time reconciling the need to pay our teachers well and the need to not drive people out of our city who live on fixed incomes. My goal is to get our state and federal politicians to push harder for funding on these levels. My understanding is that there has been a pullback in funds for education coming from the federal level in the past 6 years (even as NCLB has made more demands) and this has to be recognized as the culprit and the money needs to come from that level. If we can fund the war in Iraq with a deficit, we can fund decent education for the future of our nation.

   So before we increase taxes, I hope we can look at getting money from other sources. Or borrowing against hope for more funds coming federally in the future?

   I was at my daughter’s swim meet today (with the soon-to-be ex-mayor — we both love swimming and seeing our kids have a good time — at least we have that much in common!) and it occurred to me that the difference between barely funding the schools and funding them well is like barely being able to swim (to keep yourself from drowning) and being able to swim well — for long periods of time, competitively. I want our schools to train our children like a swim team does, not just making sure that they can keep themselves from drowning, but teaching them how to pace themselves, how to use style and form, how to improve their skills over time.

7. Unfortunately, Kiersten, there is a big difference between what we want and what we can afford at the local level. Pushing for more money from State and Federal levels is absolutely necessary, but we need to brace for the very real possibility that our taxes will be increased next year in order to satisfy the voracious appetite for dollars that our school system has.

   And brace you should.

   At the Omnibus meeting on Tuesday, December 12th the School Committee and School Department will present their three year budget projection and the increase will be a staggering $27 Million.

   Roll that around your tongue a few times for full effect.

   I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the budget increases sought by the School Department year after year are simply unsustainable. The taxpayer cannot afford it.

   The School Committee already needs to find $1.2 Million to balance the smoke and mirrors budget they passed earlier this year.

   Maybe they’ll just ask for all of the City’s Budget Stabilization Account and call it even, the rest of the city be damned.

8. Mark, Thanks for your comment and for your efforts to raise awareness about the financial plight of our schools and how it impacts local taxes.

   I started this thread with an article from the New York Times about how Governor Spitzer, a liberal democrat, is going to be faced with possibly giving the schools less than the 6 billion he had talked about in his campaigning. Similarly, I wonder if our local Democrats will be in that rock-and-a-hard place position of needing to ask our schools to forestall increases — obviously not in the next 3 years, but after that, when we are kind of taxed to the max. Although in 3 years, we may have a different national leadership who are willing to pass down the funding that would alleviate some of the burden on local taxes.

9. While I agree with Mark and Kiersten, there is an even more fundamental “cause” for the problem.

   For the most part, wages of taxpayers are not increasing. In fact, median wage has been dropping every year that GWB has been in office. Wages for college grads are dropping, too.

   As Mark pointed out, continued increases for teachers’ wages is unsustainable. However, this is true in large part because of conscious policies taken (or not taken) by the federal gov’t. Wages for most people are stagnant or dropping; they are increasing for the top 1%.

   Repealing the Bush tax cuts on the top income levels would be a place to start. Because they have NOT had the promised effects on the economy. Virtually the only people who have benefited have been the top 10% of wage earners. The top 1% have been the biggest beneficiaries.

   In the meantime, they tell us that education is the key to economic prosperity–while cutting funds available for education.

   And, btw, I have a ton of stats and cites for everything I’ve said. It’s in Census reports, BEA stats, BLS stats, BusinessWeek and a whole lot of other places.

10. Kiersten:

    Thanks for the ‘nod’ to my posts on rifuture.

    I wish it were as easy at it seems on this board to have a reasonable conversation about education funding. The problem is, school administrators do everything they can to inject emotions into the dialogue (“We’re taking care of your kids!”), and in Cranston the last 4 years, Laffey has answered with his own PR campaign of anger and vitriol (“They’re wasting your money!”).

    To your question of how our local officials will fare in the short term, I think having Tony Lupino on the Council will be some help. He’s seen as the “ambassador” to the School Board, after having served 8 years there. If he and the Council can maintain a civil tone (and, given his background, arm themselves with good information so they can ask smart questions), it may be more likely that the school department will work with them, rather than retreating behind the walls of the Briggs Building.

    When we look at state funding, the real issue is the way it’s handled, i.e., with the same wheeling and dealing as every other bill. There’s no objective standard, like was proposed in 1996 by Richard Fleury from West Warwick. His plan called for a base amount for each city and town’s students, say $9,000 per student. School districts would get their Title I (Special Ed) money direct from the feds to boost that number, and towns would still have the right to raise their own taxes of they wanted to pay more. Part of the idea, as I recall, is that state sales taxes would be directed to the funding so that local property taxes would drop.

    Unfortunately, this plan went nowhere.

    But it’s clear we need something different, though as I said previously, Cranston is in good shape politically to deal with the existing system. We have a Dem mayor, Dem Council and all-Dem General Assembly delegation, plus Charlene Lima is #3 at the House. We may still be in line behind Providence, Pawtucket and Warwick in the school funding sweepstakes, but I think we’re in better shape.