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The last months’ governance craziness overshadowed what had become a summer ritual: The process by which the city proposes how it wants to spend state Contracts for Excellence dollars, and the public gets to respond with its thoughts at formal hearings.

The hearings happen because Contracts for Excellence dollars are only doled out to districts that prove they will spend the money in certain kinds of programs pre-approved by state school officials.

But this summer, the New York City Department of Education skipped over the mandated date for hearings, which are supposed to occur in all five boroughs, without holding them. A public comment period will be postponed until the fall, but New York state plans to send the city the funds anyway, before that happens.

“Funds that are continuing last year’s Contract can be used,” a state education spokesman, Jonathan Burman wrote in an email. The “commissioner’s approval is required before funds allocated to new purposes can be used.” The state’s grim financial picture has meant that the city won’t receive any more Contracts dollars than it did last year.

An official at the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, whose lawsuit alleging that the city schools are historically under-funded by the state led to the creation of the Contracts for Excellence fund, said that the state’s logic makes little sense given the tough fiscal climate. (more…)

Via Flickr

Remember the Beacon teacher Helen Zelon flagged last month, who’s trying to save money by taking his classroom paperless? New York State’s education department is taking a page from his book, sort of.

The state is printing all tests on recycled paper this year, a change that will guarantee hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings, spokesman Jonathan Burman said.

Why hasn’t the state used cheaper paper all along? Burman explained that the department’s printing staff (yes, apparently there is an entire “Print Plant staff”) has been testing paper for a while and “only recently” discovered a cheaper recycled paper up to the testing office’s standards:

Where we typically used a 50 lb offset in the past, we can now get the same or better “opacity” (a key standard for Testing to prevent “bleed-through”) and brightness from a fully recycled roll (Note: we print from large rolls of paper weighing 1350 lbs each, not from individual sheets). So, by making this switch, we are saving the state money, getting better quality testing materials, and helping the environment all at the same time.

Exam materials that have color graphics are printed on the same expensive, non-environmental paper, Burman said.