GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

State senators have finally set a date for their return to Albany to renew mayoral control.

Liz Benjamin of the Daily News is reporting that senators will interrupt their summer recess to vote next Thursday on the school governance bill passed last month by the Assembly. The early-August vote adheres to the timeline set out by Mayor Bloomberg and the UFT when the mayoral control deal was brokered late last week, after the Senate had already decamped for the summer.

But the school governance saga won’t end once the Senate passes the Assembly bill, which adds some checks to mayoral control. Benjamin reports:

The Senate is moving ahead with its votes on chapter amendments despite the fact that the Assembly, which passed its mayoral control reauthorization bill in June, has not yet agreed to do the same.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver this morning reiterated that the only commitment he has given is to discuss the amendments with his majority members in when they return to Albany.

Outgoing UFT president Randi Weingarten, who played a major role in the Senate negotiations, told GothamSchools last week that conversations with Silver led her to believe that the Assembly will pass the chapter amendments. “You know the Assembly will in good faith look at the chapter amendments,” she said.

Union president Randi Weingarten said that she is going to “make some changes in the union” to correct the cue-card lobbying that happened at Monday’s City Council hearing, which she called inappropriate. Weingarten made the comments on Fox 5′s Good Day New York. (Here’s where you can view our slideshow of exactly what the cards the union sent to council members said.)

Yet despite her mea culpa, Weingarten defended the union’s right to help elected officials prepare for hearings:

You do your job as advocates — and we are fierce advocates — when you do everything you can to make sure that people are prepared. That’s your job. But you don’t do something that creates the appearance of impropriety.

I wrote to some union officials asking what exactly will change in the union’s lobbying practice, which they have argued is not the way they usually do business. I haven’t heard back.

The Daily News’ Liz Benjamin reported on the video earlier today. She also, generously, and, unfortunately, against convention, acknowledged that we reported this story first. Thanks, Liz!

Randi Weingarten (via Flickr)

Liz Benjamin reports that teachers union president Randi Weingarten has talked with Governor Paterson about possibly taking over Hillary Clinton’s senate seat:

Two sources confirm that “talks” have been had by the Paterson administration and Weingarten about whether she might be interested in joining the nation’s most exclusive political club.

O.M.G.!! This would allow a whole new who’s-the-next-Weingarten search. But Liz deflates with this statement from Weingarten:

UPDATE: Weingarten forwarded over a statement saying she is “very flattered and honored” to hear her name mentioned “given how many qualified candidates are under consideration to replace our great junior senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton,” and adding:

“However, I have a great new job that I am very engaged in – fighting for schools, kids and working people in the middle of the worst economic downturn of our lifetime.”

I’m very skeptical. I just got off the phone with a union insider who would almost definitely know if this was going to happen — and hadn’t heard a thing.

UPDATE. Weingarten’s full statement is below the jump. Suddenly I get the feeling Weingarten does not want the story to die completely. (more…)

Governor David Paterson answering reporters' questions at a less bleak time (via Flickr)

That idea that NYSUT, the state teachers union, has been pushing, about avoiding mid-year cuts to schools — it’s starting to look about as likely as Joel Klein’s mayoral campaign.

Governor Paterson made a speech this morning offering even more dire projections on the state’s budget gap for the next four years. Earlier this month the budget gap was pegged at $1.2 billion; now it’s at $1.5 billion, according to the Daily News. The cumulative, four-year budget deficit is a historic $47 billion. According to Liz Benjamin at the Daily News, the cuts Paterson will have to make in the next year will represent almost 25 percent of the state’s general fund.

The Times also has an early story up, which includes this quote from the governor:

“Don’t get me wrong, there will be hard and painful cuts,” he said in the address. “There will be no segment of this budget that will not be cut.”

When I spoke to NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi last week, he told me that Paterson was the single elected official who had not yet promised not to cut schools’ budgets mid-year. Maybe Paterson knew something the other Albany guys didn’t.

Paterson used the word “dire,” and it does look that way, but Liz Benjamin offers some recent history that puts the cumulative four-year deficit figure, $47 billion, into perspective:

That is the largest cumulative deficit in state history.

According to the state Budget Division, while the current deficits are the largest in absolute dollars in history, as a percentage of the general fund budget, they are similar to those faced in 2003-04.

In that year, the state closed an $11.2 billion budget gap, which represented 28.4 percent of the then $39.5 billion general fund.

A poll out today shows that New Yorkers don’t think legislators should cut education spending to make up the state’s $1-2 billion budget shortfall.

Only 6 percent of New Yorkers reached by the Siena Poll would cut education spending, while 69 percent would increase income taxes on the state’s highest earners, through a “millionaire’s tax” on those making more than $1 million a year.

The poll asked New Yorkers to select one of five options for how the state should make up the deficit: cut health care spending, cut education spending, increase taxes on the rich, increase other taxes, and don’t know/no opinion. The fewest respondents preferred cutting education spending.

The Assembly approved the millionaire’s tax back in August, but it won’t be discussed as planned at next month’s special legislative session to deal with the budget shortfall. Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver has abandoned his plan to push the tax during the special session because Wall Street’s crash has affected those who would be taxed, the New York Post reported today.

But Liz Benjamin at the Daily News reports that Silver says the option could resurface in the future. Back in August, it was estimated that the tax would raise state revenues by $2.6 billion annually, more than enough to close this year’s budget gap. Since then, earnings on Wall Street, which usually provides about 20 percent of the state’s annual revenue, have fallen precipitously.