Comments on: UFT: City’s special education reforms causing class size crunch

By: Jannagage

Jannagage — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 17:04:00 +0000

sure there is plenty of room, I read it all the time when a charter school needs space.

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Sorry, I forgot about fringe benefits (health insurance, largely). That’s anywhere from $3 billion to $4 billion on top of salaries and wages. So you’ve got something close to $9 billion in wages, and then benefits takes it up to somewhere between $12 billion and $13 billion.

By: Larry Littlefield

Larry Littlefield — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 13:01:00 +0000

Really, if we were starting over, I’m not sure even the union would want this: high spending, high class sizes, teachers bitter and de-motivated about their pay, even though a very high share of school spending (compared with other places) is on teachers. Moenitst teachers wouldn’t want it. Parents would be outraged if they knew the entire financial situation.

But there is no going back. Actually, for NYC back was as bad or worse, unless you perhaps go back to 1950.

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 02:12:00 +0000

More or less, but the detail on the nonwage expenses is sometimes elusive. And don’t forget the contracts for pre-k and “corporate” schools (mainly religious institutions). I’m thinking the cleanest picture may come from combining salary and contacts, but there will still be gaps of $4 billion to $5 billion in on the data sources I’ve found. I’ll get it eventually, though.

One thing that’s clear is that the “admin” expenses that Bloomberg and the DOE publish look severely understated, perhaps by 200 or 300 million dollars. Maybe it’s not “central admin,” but it’s “admin.”

By: Duh

Duh — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 01:49:00 +0000

Yea, except there no classrooms and schools available for ATR’s to teach these kids.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 01:11:00 +0000

So the annual operating budget (19.7 billion) contains about a billion for charter schools and 2 billion for special ed contracting. Take out your 9 billion, and that leaves 8 billion for busing, physical plant/energy, food, after school programs, supplies, and safety officers? is that right?

By: common sense

common sense — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 23:14:00 +0000

hmm-or they could give the 1800 teachers in the ATR pool permanent assignments and that would reduce class sizes dramatically without costing ANY additional money–they are already being paid–this is not rocket science just logic. And at 150 students per Teacher we are talking servicing 270,000 students—that should help alot!

By: East Sider

East Sider — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 22:32:00 +0000

Over the last few decades budgets have targeted grades for class size reductions, early childhood grades (K-2) and 9th grade English and Math classes (for a few years capped at 25) … currently class size is not a leadership priority. Add to this the principal as CEO philosophy … this is no monitoring except by the filing of grievances. The current administration spends hundreds of millions on accountability, not class size.

By: Larry Littlefield

Larry Littlefield — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 22:23:00 +0000

Why do we have the highest class sizes in the state if our per student spending on teachers is so high? Win for the UFT, loss of the children.

“Mulgrew said today that teachers had forgone a raise to get the limits that are in place now and that the union would look for ways to reduce class sizes more when it next negotiates a contract with the city.”

That’s something we can talk about when the pension fund is out of the hole from the last set of retroactive enhancements. Except that while the talk is going on, the UFT will just tell the state legislature to push through the next set of retroactive pension enhancements instead. It really ticks me off when the head of the union protests against the structure of spending it has created.

By: East Sider

East Sider — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 21:50:00 +0000

How much does it cost to reduce every class in the city by one student? I seem to remember with benefits about 100m

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 21:41:00 +0000

My final post today on this motherlode of data. Ever wonder what the breakdown is on the money DOE spends on “pedagogical” employees? Wonder no more, and see below. I couldn’t paste in the breakdown on “administration” employees, because the list of job titles goes on forever. For those wondering, there were 26 “aspiring principals” on staff in fiscal 2011.

12 Month Special Education Asst. Principal: $21,782,074
12 Month Special Education Supervisor: $2,323,168
Administrative Education Analyst: $57,986
Adult Educat Teach – Reg Sub: $718,964
Adult Education Teacher: $14,352,916
Adult Educator Assistant Coord: $185,152
Aspiring Principal: $2,407,899
Assistant Principal : $356,652,822
Assistant Principal Assigned: $167,907
Assistant Superintendent: $16,300,556
Community Supertindent: $4,705,883
Cse Chairperson: $1,446,686
Deputy Assistant Superintendent: $374,904
Deputy Chancellor: $67,667
Deputy Community Superintendent: $1,191,115
Deputy Regional Superintendent: $896,412
Director: $189,618
Educational Administrator Csa: $76,021,686
Educational Administrator Uft: $560,380
Guidance Counselor: $233,265,105
Guidance Counselor Assigned A: $1,840,345
Guidance Counselor-Reg Sub: $27,430
Lab Specialist/Assistant: $10,512,835
Local Instructional Supervisor: $6,554,043
New Leader: $647,186
Principal: $232,691,287
Principal Assigned: $2,401,383
Psychologist In Train – Reg Sub: $711,953
Regional Instructional Superintendent: $956,678
School Medical Inspector: $175,260
School Medical Inspector – Reg Sub: $69,103
School Psychiatrist: $73,196
School Psycholgist: $104,727,723
School Psychologist – Reg Sub: $41,816
School Secretary: $173,053,187
School Secretary-Reg Sub: $38,205
School Social Worker: $126,324,041
School Social Worker – Reg Sub: $25,198
Supervisor: $5,199,517
Supervisor Assigned: $2,430,497
Teach Asst Vocation – Reg Sub: $1,571,553
Teacher: $4,229,742,811
Teacher Assigned A: $33,811,632
Teacher Assistant – Reg Sub: $802,787
Teacher Attendance: $29,701,926
Teacher Resource Room: $220,590
Teacher Special Education: $1,310,863,992
Teacher Special Education-Reg Sub: $1,435,962
Teacher Trainer: $939,233
Teacher-Reg Sub: $8,062,434

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 21:27:00 +0000

This may be the start of a side-project of mine. See the attached screenshot. Fiscal 2011 wages paid to DOE employees. Very interesting. Thank me later.

By: leonie haimson

leonie haimson — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 21:24:00 +0000

“Parents regularly cite class size reduction as a top priorities [sic] on the Department of Education’s annual surveys” No, parents regularly cite class size reduction as THE top priority on the DOE surveys. See “For 5th Year In A Row, Parents Indicate Desire For Smaller Class Size, Survey Says” at http://shar.es/uN851 via HuffPo.

I also don’t know what this means: “Citing both logistical constraints and research that has documented
achievement gains from smaller classes only in limited contexts, the Bloomberg administration has never made class size a priority. ” Only the last part of that sentence is true. There are literally scores of studies showing gains from class size reduction; and the research on this is crystal clear, as the Institute of Education Sciences points out. 86% of NYC principals say that they are unable to provide a quality education because of excessive class sizes. Allowing the DOE to claim otherwise is giving them a free ride.

By: Ellen

Ellen — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 21:15:00 +0000

Kids are zoned for schools. For too long it was the policy of the DOE to ship kids all over the place. It was rare that they attended the zoned school, with their brothers and sisters, their cousins and friends, their neighbors. Can you imagine? They were going to walk to school. They weren’t being put on “the banana bus” and shipped out.
I, as a parent can go to PTA meetings in the neighborhood for all of my kids I, as a parent, will get to meet the teachers and staff at the school instead of running to two different schools. If I have the time to volunteer, I can do it much more easily at my local school.
And, not for nuthin’, the kids with special needs who are the first to attend their local schools are kindergarten aged, 6th graders and 9th graders. Yet this coverage makes it seem as if every school is being engulfed in a wave of kids with special needs.

The DOE is trying to address the issue, albeit after the NY State Ed. Dept. pushed them on it. They deserve no kudos, Yey, here is the President of the UFT citing my child with an IEP as the reason a school is over crowded. Nice goin’ Mikey. Add some fuel to that fire.
You didn’t win any friend here.

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 20:26:00 +0000

I would like to know how Quinn, Thompson, Stringer, and every other mayoral candidate intends to lower class sizes. Not just a statement that class sizes should be lower. How, in detail, with numbers and dollars. How much space needs to be built or leased, how many teachers need to be hired, and how all that’s going to happen. Until I see that, I’ll continue assuming that nobody is serious about this problem.

By: East Sider

East Sider — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 20:03:00 +0000

How many schools with oversize classes have vacancies which they have not filled, not wanting to hire ATRs, and hoping that Tweed will lift the hiring freeze?