STATE BUDGET INFO

EPP Comments on NYC proposed Contract for Excellence
(how the NYC Department for Education plans to use CFE funds)
 
NYC Department of Education Hearing
Manhattan
July 11, 2007
 
            My name is Noreen Connell and I am providing initial comments on behalf of the Educational Priorities Panel. We were founded as a coalition to drive more funds to the classroom for the benefit of students. Within this short period of time given to the public and the incomplete information provided by the NYC Department of Education on its proposed Contract for Excellence, I have to say that I have more questions than comments. Here they are:
 
Question #1: Is there a full accounting of city funds available for the Contract for Excellence and educational improvements, specifically for class size reduction? The chart on DoE’s web site about the spending for the proposed plan states that the public school system received “approximately $700 million in new State aid and $300 million in new City aid, for a total of $1 billion.” But this is not correct. The Mayor’s Executive Budget in January 2007 stated the city will contribute over $500 million towards the CFE settlement and this estimate was reflected in the Governor’s Executive Budget calculations for the CFE settlement. The total new funding is not $1 billion but $1.2 billion.
 
            This missing $200 million is a rather important omission. NYS budget law, specifically Section 13-a on page 51 of A.4307/S.2107 states that the priority for the city’s contribution towards the CFE settlement shall be “on appropriate class sizes.”
 
Question #2: Does this proposed plan satisfy the requirements under state budget law that Contract for Excellence and CFE settlement funds must supplement, not supplant current baseline funding? The information provided by the DoE does not provide enough details to answer this question. For example, 1,300 new teachers are to be hired for class size reduction, but no baseline figures are provided as to how many teachers would have been hired without class size reduction. Up through the 2003-4 school year, an average of 6000 new teachers were hired each year to replace teachers who were retiring or who had quit. What the public needs to know is the number of replacement teachers that need to be hired and the additional teachers above that number that will be hired to reduce class size.
 
            I seriously question whether CTT classes constitute class size reduction. While EPP has been a strong supporter of inclusion, CTT classes represent an increase in class size for special education children. Moreover, whether or not there was a CFE settlement, DoE was scheduled to increase the number of these classes anyway. More importantly, the characterization of CTT classes as class size reduction does raise questions of supplanting since special education students are provided extra weights. I noticed that two thirds of the “class size reduction” in District #5 represented CTT classes and for most other districts almost half of the “class size reductions” represent CTT classes. A DoE memo on the funding of new CTT classes directed to the issue of supplanting would be helpful.
 
Question #3: Has CFE and the proposed Contract for Excellence targeted funds to higher need students? The DoE chart breaking down contract for Excellence programs by district was helpful. Obviously, EPP did a per-pupil funding analysis of the seven highest-poverty districts and the seven lowest-poverty districts to evaluate the distribution of funds. We found that, on average, high-poverty districts received $270 per student, about $110 more per pupil than lowest-poverty districts ($160). The surprise was the differences in per-pupil funding within each group. For example, in the low-poverty group, District 2 received $215 per pupil while District 29 only received only $111 — a $100 difference. In the high-poverty group, District 12 received $403 per pupil, twice as much as District 19 ($199).
 
            EPP’s original criticism of the Fair Student Funding system is confirmed by these calculations. The student-need weights for poverty and English Language Learners were so low that the major shift of funding was not towards higher-need students but simply schools and districts with lower average teacher seniority. This has resulted in poor targeting of Contract for Excellence funds. Had the weights been closer to state student-need weights, there would be a better targeting of funds.
 
Question #4: Why does the proposed New York City Contract for Excellence plan for class size reduction vary so dramatically from the city’s CFE remedy plans submitted to the courts and even from the goals of the current capital plan? Legal briefs submitted by the Corporation Council to the NYS Supreme Court and to the court-appointed Referees stated unambiguously that class sizes from kindergarten to grade three were to be reduced. The Children First capital plan used capacity calculations for reduced class size in these grades to 20 students for determining districts that needed new schools and classroom additions. Yet this proposed plan states that class sizes in the elementary grades will be reduced by only 0.3 of a student.
 
            If every Title 1 school was given the funds to hire one new teacher for kindergarten, so the benefits of pre-K program were not entirely lost, this class size reduction would cost a total of $36 million. The absence of any plan that conforms to assertions made before the courts is shocking.

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