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Letters 99 February 11, 1999 The Hon. Claire Shulman Dear Borough President Shulman: As you know, the Educational Priorities Panel is a coalition of 25 civic groups that work together to ensure that the maximum resources go to the classroom for the education of public school children. From our inception as a coalition 23 years ago, we have a policy in opposition to taxpayer funded vouchers to private and religious schools. EPP is opposed to the Mayor’s proposal to initiate an "experimental" voucher program in one community school district to spur "competition." Here are our reasons: 1) The public schools in New York City are already in competition with private schools. There are 265,229 private school students from K to 12th grade in New York City, 55% percent of the total number of private school students in the state, 478,119, according to the latest SED State of Learning report. This exodus of middle and working class parents from the New York City education system has not improved, but instead has weakened the public schools, the city, and your borough.
2) The Mayor’s proposal duplicates an already existing, privately funded "experiment." Like other experiments in Milwaukee and Cleveland, this New York City demonstration project has so far shown only modest academic gains by low-income students in a highly disputed study done by a pro-voucher researcher. In contrast, class size reductions in Tennessee, Indiana and San Francisco as well as public schools in Queens that have gotten off the SURR list have shown robust academic gains by far larger numbers of low-income students, gains that are not under dispute in the research community. 3) The longest running "experiment" with vouchers has been in Chile, which provided vouchers to students over twenty years ago at the advice of economist Milton Friedman, the "free-market guru." This is what happened: the cost of private school education increased; middle class families supplemented government vouchers with an additional payment of fees; few private schools, including parochial schools, could be sustained in the poorer areas of Chile; and the public schools, starved of resources, got worse. The result? The International Monetary Fund has had to bail out the public school system of Chile, which used to have one of the finest reputations in all of Latin America. 4) The Mayor’s "experiment" could not come at a worse time, given that the Congressional process for the five-year reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has begun. Conservative forces in Congress are still intent on converting Title I into a taxpayer funded voucher program or a block grant, which will not benefit the city or your borough’s schools. Since New York City is the media capital of the nation, a well-publicized "experiment" here will only help these Congressmembers undermine President Clinton’s opposition to vouchers and block grants. The outcome of the Impeachment trial is far more certain than the deliberations around the FY 2000 federal budget. 5) The New York State Constitution’s Blaine Amendment specifically prohibits the use of taxpayer funds for religion, with the exception of school bus transportation. This means that litigation against the Mayor’s "experiment" with taxpayer funded school vouchers is likely to be far more successful than similar litigation in the Wisconsin and Ohio courts. There are very few private schools beyond religious schools that would accept a voucher for $2,300, so low-income families will have to wait years for the eventual resolution of litigation. The Mayor’s proposal is more of an ideological gesture than pragmatic strategy. We urge you to reject the Mayor’s proposal not only because it duplicates "experiments" that have so far not shown results but also because as an "ideological gesture" it will have the greatest negative impact on your large constituency. Of all the boroughs, Queens has the greatest number of middle and working class families, of all ethnic and racial backgrounds, whose children attend the public schools. They will not be eligible for these vouchers. What will be broadcast to them by this "experiment"? That the public schools have been abandoned by city officials? This will not make middle class housing in Queens more desirable, but less. The message that needs to get out is that there is a commitment to rebuilding city public schools. The Educational Priorities Panel has always looked to you as a Borough President who is genuinely committed to improving our public education system. EPP is the only city-wide civic group that we know of that is actively working to make the distribution of federal Title 1 funding and state Pupils with Compensatory Education Needs (PCEN) funding fairer so that schools in your borough serving low-income students can turn around their performance. Our meetings with you have resulted in greater efforts on our part to advocate for more capital funds for your borough at both the city and state level so that all elementary school children can have class sizes of 20 students. Reducing class sizes will help turn around public schools in all boroughs, in both low-income and higher-income communities. It will make their local public schools far more desirable, especially to middle class homeowners in Queens with the means to move to the suburbs. In closing, we would like to express our deep sadness at the untimely death of Betty Silverman, whose expertise, judgment, and sense of humor we valued highly. She was a public servant in the highest sense of the word. Sincerely, cc Ms. Terri Thomson, Member of the Board of Education of the City of New York |
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