Letters 98
EPP March 1998 Recommendations on State Budget Educational Initiatives

March 26, 1998

The Hon. George E. Pataki
Governor of New York State
Executive Chamber, State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224

Dear Governor Pataki:

The Educational Priorities Panel is a coalition of 25 civic groups that have worked together since 1976 to monitor the impact of federal, state, and city funding on the quality of instruction and services to New York City’s public school students.

We were please to see that your State of the State address highlighted three initiatives in education that promise a significant improvement in the academic performance of public school students: class size reductions in the early grades, pre-Kindergarten for all four year old children, and additional instructional time for children who are at risk academically. We believe that the last initiative is the "sleeper" in this year’s budget proposals, because it is another indication that your administration and the Regents are working together to refashion school funding so that it supports better learning. By removing additional instruction time from the 4.5% limit on state school aid increases, you are eliminating a major disincentive for school districts to experiment with lengthening the school day and or year for children in need of additional instruction. It will prove cost effective as fewer children will repeat a grade or be referred to special education.

We understand that there is a strong possibility that the state budget negotiations may conclude by mid-April. Our coalition has agreed to the 10 recommendations that follow, but we want to begin by discussing at greater length our first four recommendations:

1) Move up implementation of the early grade class size reductions for SURR Schools. Our assumption is that the start date for this initiative was postponed one year because of the delay in the adoption of the state budget and because of the challenges posed by school overcrowding in many districts. EPP’s review of school utilization data show that the majority of low-performing schools in New York City are not overcrowded. A considerable volume of research from Tennessee, Milwaukee, and the Educational Testing Service shows that smaller classes, especially in Kindergarten and first grade, lead to documented increases in student performance even in the absence of other supports. In New York City SURR schools, almost 60% of third graders test in the bottom quartile of test takers on standardized reading tests. While EPP understands that a small amount of additional state funding for SURR schools might be included in this year’s budget, much of this funding will go to technical assistance and staff development. In the long-run this will help to turn around these school. But children who attend SURR schools need to be helped as soon as possible. In a year of record state budget surpluses that will allow the senior citizen’s STAR exemptions to be implemented sooner, we hope that some funds could be made available to help the state’s most academically neglected young children to begin a successful start in school.

2) Address critical school facilities needs in this year’s budget. The passage of the School Bond Act would have provided the funding to bring most schools to a state of good repair and to provide additional classroom space so that school districts could fully implement the pre-Kindergarten and class size reduction initiatives. But now that the Bond Act did not pass, emergency measures must be taken to provide state funding on a priority basis to schools where the lack of repairs pose a potential risk to children, where there is severe overcrowding or where technology cannot be introduced because of antiquated wiring and other problems, such as lack of AC current. Investments in pre-Kindergarten, class size reductions, and computer technology must be accompanied by an investment in school building capacity. For these reasons, we support Assembly Speaker Silver’s proposal for multi-year funding at an annual appropriation of $500 million to meet these critical facilities needs. At the school district level, it should be possible for this funding to be "leveraged" so that as many projects as possible can be initiated.

3) Consider school-site decision making as part of a strategy to improve capital repairs in New York City. The continuation of School Construction Authority is an issue in this year’s legislative session because of the numerous newspaper stories about its failures. It should be remembered that the SCA was created by the state in 1989 as a "solution" in response to numerous newspaper stories about the deficiencies of the Board of Education’s building and major repair program. What concerns the Educational Priorities Panel about the seeming rush to impose yet a third layer of oversight is that too much centralization may be part of the problem in the current capital repair and leasing program. We have learned from California superintendents and school principals that site-based decision making about repairs and leasing has resulted in more thoughtful planning, better problem solving, and the reduction of central office "traffic jams" where too few managers are responsible for too many projects. Under considerable oversight of school district facilities managers, California schools are allowed to prioritize their repairs, choose between private contractors and district repair staff, and locate available space for leasing. In contrast, New York City parents and school staff remain powerless and frustrated over top-down, and sometimes uninformed or hurried, decisions made by distant bureaucracies. Yet another concern of the Panel is that a new layer of centralized authority will not be provided with enough management staff to end the "traffic jams." The Educational Priorities Panel asks that you proceed with a "solution" to capital projects management in New York City after carefully considering what resources are needed for better centralized oversight as well as where there could be decentralized decision making.

4) Support special education funding reform that succeeds in meeting both goals of IDEA. New York State’s system for funding special education has had two unintended consequences: some school districts have as many as 20% of their students in special education programs and other districts, most notably New York City, have a high proportion of their students in segregated placements. It is clear to the Panel that the Regents’ reform proposal has been reformulated to meet the concerns of districts with high special education student populations, most of them at low weightings. Starting in fiscal year 2000, these districts will be given seven years within which to develop programs to prevent inappropriate referrals. In the first two years, special education allocations will no longer include weightings. Then in the next five years, there will be a phase in of funding based on school district enrollment and poverty. It is only in the 2002-03 school year, when 40% of special education Public Excess Cost Aid allocations will be based on enrollment and poverty, that any of these districts will begin to experience funding disincentives for overreferrals. In fact, these school districts will be provided with a significant financial incentive to reduce their placement rates far sooner than the 2002-03 school year, given save-harmless provisions.

The Panel’s concern is that while this transition plan supports the challenges faced by over referring districts, it may not be adequate to support the challenges faced by districts with a high number of segregated placements. In 1993, EPP did a cost analysis of several models for inclusion, and we were surprised to find that contrary to our hopes, it was not cost neutral if there were reductions in class size along with consultant teachers. By union contract, most general education class sizes in New York City are limited to 32 students, but the collective bargaining agreement also allows schools to increase class sizes to prevent the formation of classes with less than 16 students. For this reason, it is not unusual to have classes from 4th to 12th grade with 40 students in New York City public schools. While EPP supports the "Quality Assurance Intervention Grant Program," a temporary $5 million grant program for 100 school districts and community school districts, the purpose of these grants is capacity building for school staff, not the funding of additional staff to make inclusion succeed. Even with save harmless provisions, there is no financial incentive for segregated-placement districts to develop high-quality inclusion programs. EPP wants special education reform to succeed not just in meeting the timelines for IDEA compliance, but most of all, we want this reform to succeed with children. We urge you to drive more funds to both Educationally Related Support Services Aid and the Quality Assurance Intervention Grant Program to allow for some pilot projects in inclusion with different size classes and for their assessment. We also suggest that the two-year transition period from 1999-00 to 2000-01 be re evaluated to see where there could be more of an incentive for inclusion, similar to the incentives for over referring districts.

We have these additional recommendations:

5) Increase this year’s allocation for pre-kindergarten programs by $20 million. Current state per-pupil allocations for this initiative are a disincentive for school districts to initiate and expand this program.

6) The target number of four-year-old children to be served this first year should only be reduced if more full-time slots can be created by public and private pre-school systems through flexible funding mechanisms. The new work requirements of welfare programs as well as the numbers of parents who are full-time employees have resulted in some underutilized half-day programs. The need in New York City is for more full-day pre-school programs.

7) As part of the $500 million in funds for facilities, earmark funds for the construction of early childhood centers for 4 to 8 year old children in the most overcrowded, high-poverty community school districts. Because of their smaller size and lower costs, these centers can be constructed at a faster pace than full-sized elementary schools. Besides creating the classroom space to fully implement the pre-Kindergarten and class size reduction programs, these centers can encourage the integration of health, education, and social services.

8) Significantly increase payment of prior-year claims. These claims now approach a total of $867 million for New York City alone. A significant payment of this prior-year aid amount would be the first step in solving this long neglected problem.

9) Postpone consideration of the proposal to create a multi-year cost allowance for individual school buildings. As described in the Regents’ school aid proposals, in order to encourage better maintenance, districts would not be eligible for additional building aid for similar construction or reconstruction on a school building for a period of 10 to 15 years. The impact of this ban on large school districts such as New York should be carefully considered. Contracts for multiple capital roof replacement or plumbing projects by a single contractor have proven to secure lower costs . While in an ideal world it is better to do all major renovations for a school at one time, it may not be cost effective or possible. The age of many of our city’s schools as well as the limits on the city’s capital plan also mean that successive capital repairs are done as different systems breakdown in a school or as the money becomes available. As for recovery of costs for shoddy capital repair work, New York City has been an aggressive litigator from what we have been able to learn from anecdotal evidence. Without further information, EPP fails to see the need for these new restrictions on building aid claims.

10) Support Standards Implementation Aid and Eliminate the Transition Adjustment for Extra Instructional Time This recommendation of ours comes last, but it could just as well have been placed first on our list. Our assumption, from your State of the State address, is that you are supportive of these efforts to improve student learning. These initiatives, particularly Concentrated Standards Implementation Aid, provide additional support to children in school districts most at risk of academic failure when the Regents’ new test standards for high school graduation are adopted in 2002. While all the state’s school districts will have to re-tool and improve their instructional programs to meet these higher standards, the challenges facing New York City public schools in meeting this deadline are enormous. Currently, one third our students do not graduate and a quarter of the students who graduate take an additional 1 to 3 years of high school in order to pass a battery of 8th grade skills tests. In essence, we will be facing significantly higher dropout rates and higher delayed graduation rates unless higher academic standards are accompanied by more instructional supports in high needs districts.

Sincerely,

Marilyn Braveman, Chairperson
Noreen Connell, Executive Director