Comments on: Many principals to see a 5% cut tomorrow, even after stimulus

By: SHILOHDREAM

SHILOHDREAM — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:01:21 +0000

That’s strange. I noticed this letter was dated May 19th, 2009. I was hired in January of this year and my school is relatively new. In fact…several new teachers and paras were hired. Unfortunately the two new school aides were laid off, yet excessed school aides came to replace them so the laid off school aides only come back if one of the excessed school aides are absent. Go figure! what is going on? we are suppose to be meeting with UFT tomorrowin Dist. 26 at our school and a UFT meeting is mid december with Joe Klein. I still have no idea whats going on but If they decide to get rid of the paras aren’t they violating the childs IEP??? The two students I take care of desperately need my assistance, and have a learning disability. What will happen to them? Its time for the parents to protest now..! Violation of a state IEP, isn’t that against the state law for a child not to have a para? What if the child needs toileting or has a special need?

By: A principal explains how his 5 percent cut became 8.5 percent - Online Education in America

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:41:08 +0000

[...] how his 5 percent cut became 8.5 percent Posted in Uncategorized at June 5th, 2009 / // The 4.9 percent figure that Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has given for each school’s budget cut seriously [...]

By: Fedup

Fedup — Sat, 23 May 2009 00:14:40 +0000

The whole thing is a sham.. This entire administration was set up by a brilliant business m,an and his cronies who found a way to get their hands on that huge portion of the budget previously available only for schools and services to kids .. By spending milliosn to retain control the idae is to keep millions more flowing into the companies, corporations and consultants they so adore (IBM”s 100 plus million boondoggle:Aris system, AUSSIE’s, Teachers College CIE Consultants etc..).. The fact that they have a huge press office to spin everything yet cant male simple decisions without fear of ticking off the mayor is an indictment of this current governance model which relies more on perception and PR than real student growth..

By: Michael M.

Michael M. — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:35:20 +0000

Big D,
We have got to stop our mutual wasting of electrons on semantics. You introduced the word “increases,” and you (should) know full well the impact such a word has on the discussion.

No, not the same thing.

I’d rather we focus on the money being spent in Tweed, the money being spent BY Tweed on non-competed contracts, the money Tweed is forcing principals to pay for what was formerly a centralized function (e.g., SSO’s), the money spent by the so-called Office of Accountability, and, the money being spent to convince New Yahkers what a bang-up job the Chancellor (and by extension his boss) has been doing.

Last, maybe it’s just me, but I think of retired teachers’ pensions as a form of deferred comp. When one signs up to be a teacher, the up-front pay, the summers off, and the pensions are part of the total compensation package — part of the deal.

You want to benefit children rather than adults (false choice, btw)? Then please join me in a) protesting the 3.8% in-school budget cuts (net of our little tea party’s topic), and b) taking the Tweedy Army of standardized test-hawkers to the beach. One way. It’s sunny. They can find their way home.

By: Dissenter

Dissenter — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:08:06 +0000

Michael M. there’s no difference between “prior City obligations” on pensions and “increases in pension costs,” they are the same thing, and you know that these dollars are flowing into pension accounts and not into classrooms. There’s no way around that reality. As I’ve said before, if the schools were really set up to benefit children instead of the adults that work in them . . . . . .

By: Michael M.

Michael M. — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:57:19 +0000

Dissenter,
Let’s run the math, shall we?
From the article… $961M in stimulus funds less $625M for the operating budget equals $336M of stimulus funds for non-operating expenses (“benefits for retirees and other expenses”).
SO… your “huge chunk” is some amount of the $336M, which is at most some portion of 35% of the stimulus funds. Right?

Now to the point: the article doesn’t differentiate between “pension costs” — a prior city obligation — and “pension cost ‘INCREASES.’”

On the contrary, Klein’s memo mentions salary and benefit increases for ACTIVE teachers (which a 3.8% in-school budget cut ain’t gonna help with): “Since we value teachers and their critical importance to student success, we are paying them more, and as more teachers are staying in our system and the average level of seniority is rising, the associated salary costs are increasing.”

And if more of them retired, that would just fuel your argument further, no? It’s a big shell game. But blaming already-retired teachers for the Mayor and Chancellor imposing painful cuts that significantly impact the kids isn’t getting us anywhere.

By: Dissenter

Dissenter — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:28:21 +0000

You all are quoting from an article which also states that of the $1 billion in stimulus education aid, a huge chunk is going to pay for none other than pension cost increases for teachers. Is that what is meant when Randi Weingarten says that she wants education dollars to go “in the classroom?”

By: Michael M.

Michael M. — Wed, 20 May 2009 01:57:42 +0000

Re the “hold harmless” paragraph, and Ruben’s comment above:
My understanding was that the “hold harmless” provision was to prevent the Fair Student Funding mechanism (which covers city money only) from cutting into a school’s budget. But I have never heard it described as per the article, in effect as a zero-sum game relative to schools already fully benefiting from the FSF formula.

Note that stereotypes can be inaccurate. There are schools out there — such as my own kids’ school — that, pre-FSF, were getting $2k, nearly 20%, LESS per student than the city-wide average of $11k (of related city-based funds) in 2007. At the time I looked into it, there were also less advantaged schools — that were already getting more than average budget-per-student — that “hold harmless” protected. As the Chancellor knew full well. But dang, that slogan played well.

By: Michael M.

Michael M. — Wed, 20 May 2009 01:44:12 +0000

“…not ideal…” NOT IDEAL !?!

Note that in a system of roughly 1 million students, the “solid $405 million that schools alone will have to shoulder” is a whopping $405 per student. Over a class of 25 kids, that’s $10k. Bye-bye teacher’s aides. Bye-bye enrichment. Bye-bye all sorts of additional services.

And didn’t we go through this last year as well?

Maybe a DIFFERENT Chancellor would be in his boss’s (re-election) office lobbying on behalf of the kids, rather than defending a comparable amount of no-bid contracts to the state auditor, while Mayoral Control is on the docket in Albany.

By: Ruben

Ruben — Tue, 19 May 2009 23:24:23 +0000

“The cuts are so deep that the department is temporarily abandoning its plan to finish adopting a new funding formula that it said would make school budgets more equitable.” This is an outrage. Somehow high stakes testing is supposed to help close the achievement gap, but when it comes time to actually put its money where its mouth is, the DOE makes excuses for the persistence of separate but unequal schools.

By: John Hancock

John Hancock — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:23:00 +0000

Klein said principals are being told to “think hard” about cutting staff members or excessing teachers, but he said, “The decisions ultimately are theirs.”

Talk about peeing on your leg and saying it is raining. What a joke. If the public allows this to go on, without making a stink, we deserve the future we provide for our children.