For any classroom in any school in any neighborhood in any corner of the city in excess of those limits — which are themselves the product of the decade-plus-long Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) lawsuit that the Bloomberg administration has done nothing to enact and wasted seven years to appeal — The DOE should build seats long term and provide bodies in the interim, so as to provide those children with what is their moral — and now legal — right: in the words of the trial judge, a “sound basic education,” the deprival of which due to large class sizes representing a “systemic failure.”

Those target numbers, as incorporated in state statute, and AGREED TO PREVIOUSLY BY KLEIN ET AL are…

TWENTY in K-3, and
TWENTY-THREE in 4-12.

Let’s put the focus back where it belongs, not on the PTAs in overcrowded schools turning away dozens of zoned kids, but on the Charter-Chancellor… and the Sardine-Mayor.

Most schools do NOT have private or CBO grants … its takes special expertise or political clout to access special funds.

I believe there are two policy issues:

1. Should parents be able to provide unlimted additional funding to their school? Does this exacerbate inequities in education based upon parent SES? and …2. Should parent voluntary contributions be funneled through the DOE … to assure tranparency, absence of nepotism, and, of course, to assure fingerprinting and backround checks …

I know many non-Title 1 schools in which parents cannot afford “hundreds” of dollars each to enrich instruction …

There are a number of funding streams that combine to provide funds to schools. FSF, Title I and C4E all have formulas that assign funds based on need. Many schools attract additional private or CBO grants like Robin Hood. Many based on “need” but none consider the other funding streams in their formula. Yet in all these funding sources, you would single out PTA contributions and block them.

Eva Moskowtiz compared two schools in her DN op-ed, PS 290 and PS 149. The later receives Title I funds of $1000 per child, incremental FSF funds of $900 and C4E of $400. CBOs may contribute even more. If a PTA non-Title I school will add a few hundred per child, is that really an “unfair” provision of additional services? Is that your argument? The PTA should be blocked from making that contribution?

Patrick

I seem to recall discussion here on GS that “hold harmless” — whereby schools would be insulated from absorbing the nominal hit to their budgets due to higher-than-average teacher salaries — was extended another year to 2009-2010.

Then again, a 5% budget cut (on the heels of the prior year’s cut) sorta swamps that, eh?

DOE formula create a baseline for school funding … and additional funding based on “need,” as defined by handicapping conditions, ELL, and SES status. Should schools be able to raise additional funding through parent contributions to provide additional services? This is a significant public policy issue … school with more affluent parents can create schools, lets call them public plus schools … that have greater services then provided by formula … unfair to less affluent parents, but, some argue, keeps middle class parents in public schools … addtitionally the monies are not filtered through the DOE, they are dispensed by the parents at the school … if I were a para or a school aide who was laid off and parent paid aides were retained I would certainly challenge … I know plenty of non-Title 1 schools where parents cannot afford to contribute hundreds of additional dollars … but, then agin, this is an election and a contract year.

DOE formula create a baseline for school funding … and additional funding based on “need,” as defined by handicapping conditions, ELL, and SES status. Should schools be able to raise additional funding through parent contributions to provide additional services? This is a significant public policy issue … school with more affluent parents can create schools, lets call them public plus schools … that have greater services then provided by formula … unfair to less affluent parents, but, some argue, keeps middle class parents in public schools … addtitionally the monies are not filtered through the DOE, they are dispensed by the parents at the school … if I were a para or a school aide who was laid off and parent paid aides were retained I would certainly challenge … I know plenty of non-Title 1 schools where parents cannot afford to contribute hudreds of additional dollars … but, then agin, this is an election nd a contract year.

Klein might as well feed the kids placebos so that when the kids grow (at roughly the same rate as kids in other cities), his boss can brag about their implicit nutritional value as justification for a third helping.

Oh wait…

You’re correct … principals have very little say over entering students … however … although the FSF formula is transparent I don’t know a principal who calculates per child … and, the School Progress Report offers an “extra credit” category for high needs kids (Special Ed, ELL, lower third, etc.) … a school w/ all Level 3 or higher kids who don’t show “progress” results in a mediocre Progress grade … targeting resources to students in the higher FSF, higher needs category can bump Progress grades significantly … it’s a complex world in schools these days …

At the risk of making a sweeping generalization, I have long wondered how much admissions decisions (to the degree any are at principals’ discretion) get swayed by FSF in light of School Progress Reports.

One of the philosophical goals of FSF is to make sure funding follows the kids, ostensibly to reduce avoiding admitting higher-needs kids.

To whit: If I’m a principal, even if FSF gives me all the funding I need to provide incremental services to students in those categories that warrant a few more cents on the dollar, and even if I indeed provide all those services, I’m going to be quite wary that even full serviced higher-needs students may pull down my school’s progress report grade.

Better to forego the FSF funding on those kids and protect my school’s test scores?

After all, principals’ bonuses are tied to School Progress Reports, which themselves are biased toward year-over-year “progress” (60%), as distinct from “performance” (25%).

If the average versus actual teacher salaries were the only thing that was wrong with FSF we’d be on easy street.

The more significant point with respect to the prior comments you made about the need for transparency and whether PTA-funded positions are “another CFE lawsuit issue” is that Title One money is used in poorer communities to create the same types of positions that the PTAs fund in better off communities. So far as I know both sources of funds are publicly disclosed.

We all have to watch out forthe tendency towards sweeping generalizations.

The only problem with FSF is using actual rather than average district salary. Students should carry funding with them … if the DOE had used average district salary and phased in the formula over a number of years it would have been applauded … the snag was that the “inventer” was Bob Gordon, an economist, now at the White House, who was a Klein consultant … and had no idea how schools work …

with 1000 or so paraprofessionals and adies laid off I wonder whether DC 37 will cave … or stand up for their laid off members …

The only problem with FSF is using actual rather than average district salary. Students should carry funding with them … if the DOE had used average district salary and phased in the formula over a number of years it would have been applauded … the snag was that the “inventer” was Bob Gordon, an economist, now at the White House, who was a Klein consultant … and had no idea how schools work …

with 1000 or so paraprofessionals and adies laid off I wonder whether DC 37 will cave … or stand up fpr their laid off members …

You have to look closely at the Title I monies that flow to many lower SES schools.

These funds are used, among other things, to fund aides and assistants with roles quite similar to those of the PTA-funded staff at higher SES schools.

Admittedly there are differences in outcomes between high and low SES schools. But as is so often the case, this is not easily explained by the difference in inputs like money or quantity of staff.

Under Fair Student Funding, which Tony Avella has just announced he would scrap, more funding flows to schools with greater needs, independently of Title I funds, which are determined at the federal level.

Good questions, hard to answer. But beating up on PTA supporters probably doesn’t get us much closer to the truth.

we hear the excuse that if we prevent the additonal funding the kids will flee to private schools …is that reaon enough to allow the additonal dollars? sounds like another CFE lawsuit issue …

transparency would be nice … how many aides? pay scale? which classes get the aides? If, as a parent, you don’t contribute, does your kid receive the benefits?

What is disturbing is that we have allowed affluent parents to create a new kind of school, a public-private school, that provides services to children well beyond what a school in a low SES neighborhood can provide …