Comments on: Education is not spared in city’s latest round of budget cuts

By: Mike Muntner

Mike Muntner — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 05:30:00 +0000

I am a nyc teacher. It’s my fifth year, and I just found out I was getting excessed on Friday as a result of budget cuts

By: Ellen

Ellen — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 19:37:00 +0000

What analogy would you like to use?

By: Curious

Curious — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:29:00 +0000

I agree. Schools with High #’s of poor students are consistently funded at close to 85% of fSF while larger mostly white schools get closeto 100%. The interesting thing is that no one in the media says anything about this.

By: Cantheydomath

Cantheydomath — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 10:13:00 +0000

You do realize that schools were funded at only 83% of their allocation this year? If they calculate what you need to run a school and then take away 17% off the top, how is this not a cut?

By: michael

michael — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 05:53:00 +0000

10 years in office and this is all the educational mayor can come with. I thought he needed the third term in order to deal with the cities fiscal problems. Bozo would have come to the same conclusion.

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 01:30:00 +0000

Watered down = fewer medallion sales = less money.

Larry’s right, it’s just one year, but it’s still important. Granted, I don’t drive a cab, but I’ve got to pick my interest groups like everybody else.

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 01:27:00 +0000

I believe it was via grants, presumably earmarked for idiotic technology, but I’m not certain.

By: Tommy Calderon

Tommy Calderon — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 01:16:00 +0000

The genius part is in slowly dismantling city agencies and abusing its employees while fattening the wallets of your developer and consultant friends and increasing your personal wealth.
Or maybe that’s the criminal part?

By: nycdoenuts

nycdoenuts — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 01:14:00 +0000

Yep. It’s the Day After Tomorrow and you’re Dennis Quad.

Or there could just be a recession on.

By: Tommy Calderon

Tommy Calderon — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 01:13:00 +0000

Accountability is your platform.
Buying a third term, in direct violation of the law and the wishes of the people, because you are the only one qualified to manage the city’s finances.
Your fiscal management policy is basically cutting the budget for basic services for 11 years straight while steadily increasing expenditures on no bid contracts and consultants.
You still have your job.
Accountability.

By: brooklyn mom 11217

brooklyn mom 11217 — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:56:00 +0000

Can you explain how the calculation process works? Anyone? The DOE seems to publish FAIR funding calculations annually for each school, but when I look at the documents for this year, the baseline percentage seems to have already been set in the prior year, and so for last year, and the year before, etc. All I can see are adjustments based on projected enrollments of populations (e.g., special ed). Where does the DOE’s discretion come in and how would I recognize it in the documents? More generally, what is there internal to the school that they evaluate when setting the percentages and how do we advocate for different treatment? This is an issue, as my kid’s school is at 83%, has a high-poverty population and yet has been slapped by the DOE every chance it gets.

By: Guest

Guest — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:53:00 +0000

Didn’t they all get denied tenure? Now they can’t prove they are good teachers, can they? Guess this tenured, senior teacher ain’t going nowhere.

By: Guest

Guest — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:51:00 +0000

No bid contracts. ARIS. Murdock. Fraud.

By: brooklyn mom 11217

brooklyn mom 11217 — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:46:00 +0000

Ha! My pet peeve! It’s equal measures sad and hilarious to see how impressed certain parents in my district (who I’m sure don’t even allow TV) are when on tours they see a classroom of first graders staring silently at the smartboard as the teacher clicks through science-y slides.

Curious – do you know who pays (paid) for your son’s school’s smartboards? It seems to me that there are grant moneys and incentives aplenty out there for useless classroom technology. Must be a gateway technology.

By: TeachmyclassMrMayor

TeachmyclassMrMayor — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:08:00 +0000

How will the schools improve if the money gets taken away from the educational consultants? Imagine, if just half of that money actually made it to the classroom. A fantasy, I know, but hey, one can dream.

By: nycdoenuts

nycdoenuts — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 00:01:00 +0000

Well, we can debate whether or not he should have tried to shove it down the City Council’s throat to begin with, but Stringer made the point that they’re ready to negotiate it with him. I’m not sure that working the democratic levers is best described as ‘watered down’, but the important thing to point out is that the ball is in his court on this.

What he does with it (come to a compromise or just slash every agency, thus creating a(nother) crises moving into budget season) is entirely up to him.

Based on his track record and his need to not be treated like a lame duck in his last fiscal year, I’m guessing crisis. There is nothing like a good crisis to bring everyone to heel.

By: Larry Littlefield

Larry Littlefield — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:18:00 +0000

The city has no business hiring anyone, no matter what happens to the ATRs.

As for the medallion thing, I’m agnostic. But regardless, it would only have lasted for one year.

By: Larry Littlefield

Larry Littlefield — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:17:00 +0000

Everything else is being cut more, in some cases far more. This has gone on for several years. NYC non-teacher spending not only was cut first, it was relatively low to begin with — even back in the days of the notorious Board of Ed.

Is it the economy? The stock market it is at a high level, and overpriced. NYC private employment has risen enough to offset all the losses of the Great Recession. Taxes have been increased, not cut.So what is going on?

Whatever it is, it is something that no one is prepared to talk about just yet, right?

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 22:57:00 +0000

Presumably that won’t be very easy — he got in this mess because the Council wouldn’t sign off on it. The taxicabs are intensely opposed, so any compromise will likely be a watered down bill that raises less revenue.

In the meantime, be sure to thank councilman Lev Fidler for filing this lawsuit. Thanks to Bill DiBlasio for his supporting brief, too!

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 22:52:00 +0000

Not really an apt analogy.