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Winter 1999 (v3#3)

School Facilities: Classroom Crisis

The shabby state of buildings where over a million children are educated is a constant reminder and visible symbol of policies and bureaucracies in disarray. For parents, school staff and civic groups, the seeming inability to ever get repairs done or to end overcrowding leads to the suspicion that New York City children do not count for much in the political calculations of officials who make budget decisions.

Year after year, the same issues crop up in the newspapers in a seemingly endless barrage of headlines about overcrowded schools, fumes from coal-fired boilers, and crumbling facades. The tragic death of a Brooklyn girl from a brick falling off a school roof prompted the usual fingerpointing and the appointment of a commission by the Governor to investigate the School Construction Authority but not another penny for school repair. Yet the biggest crises in school facilities loom dead ahead and have only rarely been mentioned by the press.

Over the course of the next several years the Board of Education must come up with thousands of new classrooms in order to reduce class sizes in grades K-3 to an average of 20 students (see article on p. 4) and to accommodate tens of thousands of four year olds in prekindergarten classes. At the same time, the city’s school system must prepare students to meet higher Regents‚ learning standards (see article on p. 6) that call for hands-on science experiments, necessitating the upgrading or construction of science labs in every city school. The Chancellor’s proposed $11 billion Five-Year Capital Plan makes a good faith effort to deal with these challenges but, given fiscal limitations, falls far short of meeting facilities needs, estimated at more than $28 billion by New York City Comptroller Alan Hevesi.

If fully funded and carried out to the letter, an unlikely scenario, the Five-Year Capital Plan only provides for one-third of the needed science lab upgrades. What are the prospects for students meeting science requirements in the remaining schools? When it comes to the system’s space needs, the outlook is also murky. For a document that covers the period 2000-2004, the Five-Year Capital Plan admits to addressing "capacity needs" only through 2002. In other words, the Chancellor acknowledges that the system can’t keep up with space needs and projects a continuing gap between needs and reality. To meet the projected 75,600 seats needed by 2002 the plan relies heavily on a slower rate of enrollment growth in the coming years and on a rather risky proposal to add 14,400 seats via a "year-round" schools pilot program that the legislature has refused to support in the past.

In recent years there has been some progress made at the state level, due mainly to efforts by the Assembly, in getting more funding for Minor Maintenance, in securing a regional cost index in Building Aid, and in getting more funding for Building Aid. Other attempts by the legislature to improve school facilities include passage of 1997’s $2.4 billion School Construction Bond Act, which was later defeated at the polls, and 1998’s $500 million RESCUE plan that was subsequently vetoed by Governor Pataki. Indeed, the governor seems less than enthusiastic about increasing funding for school facilities claiming, instead, that the less than $1 billion spent statewide on Building Aid is sufficient. Some claim that the governor’s appointment of a commission to investigate the SCA is a ploy to avoid greater investment in school infrastructure.

EPP’s concern with school facilities is focused on the instructional impact on students. Buildings that are overcrowded and in disrepair provide unsafe and unhealthy learning environments. Moreover, if we’re serious about improving city schools, we must invest in strategies, like prekindergarten and smaller class sizes in the early grades, that are proven to better student achievement. What can be done to improve conditions in school buildings and address the shortages of classroom space and up to date science labs? We have come up with the following list of oft-cited school construction problems and possible solutions to them:

#1 Is the SCA the culprit? The Governor, Mayor and Chancellor point to the poor performance of the School Construction Authority, as though it was an "out-of-control agency." But there is no Robert Moses at the helm of the SCA bucking the authority of elected officials. The Governor, Mayor and Chancellor, through their appointive powers, control this agency. Is the SCA a convenient whipping boy? An excuse for lack of investment? Or has this agency been overwhelmed with too many projects? Editorials always compare educational costs in New York City to "a national average," which is particularly ludicrous when it comes to construction. The Engineering News-Record Construction Cost Index shows that in March 1998, construction costs in New York City were 148% of the Index’s 20-city average. A better measure of SCA’s performance would be to compare this agency’s construction costs with those of other public sector agencies doing construction in the New York City area.

Solution: Allow other public sector construction agencies, in competition with the SCA, to bid for school repair and new construction projects.

The State Board of Regents in their November Conceptual Proposal suggest that the Board of Education should evaluate the benefits of involving the Dormitory Authority in school facilities projects. The Board of Education’s proposed Five-Year Capital Plan makes the suggestion that they be allowed greater access to the construction services of the NYC Department of Design and Construction. Rather than eliminating the SCA, why not allow multiple agencies, already in existence and with good performance track records, to compete for school projects?

Any review of SCA performance, especially if the ultimate recommendation is for its elimination or restructuring, must be perceived as fair and objective. One of the reasons that this independent agency was created was that the Board of Education was viewed as too vulnerable to political pressure. Killing off an independent agency triggers a multitude of political interests. If the SCA is abolished, there may be years of wrangling in the NYS Legislature and among the City Council, Borough Presidents, Governor and Mayor over who "controls" or "has a piece" of the agency that does school construction in New York City. Remember, City Council Speaker Vallone’s initiative for $1.4 billion was delayed by two years over this type of political fight. Due to inter-agency conflict, a similar two year delay took place in converting coal-fired boilers when a pilot project was transformed into a project to be funded by the Environmental Bond Act. Given this history, we are justified in fearing that eliminating the SCA or restructuring it may create an unconscionable delay in the repair and construction of schools. Legislation allowing the Board of Education to use other agencies’ services would avoid a time wasting political fight.

#2 Can two different systems of state facilities funding co-exist? Assemblyman John Faso, in explaining his opposition to the 1997 School Construction Bond Act at a hearing sponsored by the Regents, questioned why the state should provide direct funding to school districts for capital repairs and construction, when the state already provides reimbursement for capital costs through Building Aid. This same rationale was used by the Governor one year later, when he vetoed the legislature’s allocation of $500 million for the school repair RESCUE Program that would have provided direct funding to school districts. Maybe it is the current State Building Aid formula that should be ditched. On projects approved before July 1, 1998 New York City gets only 53% of its capital costs reimbursed through building aid, while the reimbursement for the rest of the state averages 70%. For projects approved after that date, reimbursement rates will rise to 63% and 80% respectively, but the gap will remain.

Worse still, the "spend-to-get" structure of building aid has resulted in crumbling school buildings in low-wealth school districts and all five of the state’s major cities, so Building Aid does not work for the majority of students in the state. While there is some attempt to level the playing field in Operating Aid, in Building Aid the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Despite the equalization effect of the Building Aid Ratio, lower-wealth school districts do not have the same ability to initiate capital projects. Reimbursable facilities funding is akin to offering gasoline coupons – they provide no benefit to people who do not own cars. Given that it is far more of a "failed system" than the School Construction Authority, why isn’t the restructuring of Building Aid up for discussion in Albany?

#3 Why so little preventive maintenance funding by BOE and other school districts around the state? After a decade of "deferred maintenance" for school buildings, there was a modest investment in the Board of Education’s 1989 capital plan. But there has been no sizable increase in the Board of Education’s own maintenance program to prevent the need for major repairs in the future. Even after a 1990 report by the Hay Group that New York City spent less than any major city on minor repairs, preventive maintenance still represents only 1% of the Board of Education budget. The Chancellor’s proposed Five-Year Capital Plan states that its allocations for preventive maintenance will increase from $137 million in FY 2000 to $274 million by FY 2004, which is an improvement but may only represent anywhere between 1.4% to 1.9% of the Board’s budget, depending on the size of its overall budget. Even this increase is primarily funded by the state’s Minor Maintenance program. Other school districts are doing no better. Are there some counter-productive bean-counter strategies at work here to push operating costs into capital expense items? Are building repairs at the school-level being held hostage to efforts at the district office to get more of these costs funded by the state? Isn’t this a penny-wise, pound-foolish strategy as roof repair projects age into roof replacements? Is the structure of State Building Aid creating deteriorating school building conditions?

#4 A little-bit-for-everybody funding or targeted funding? Current state facilities funding ignores the element of need and priority. After a two-year struggle, City Council Speaker Peter Vallone finally succeeded in getting $1.4 billion added to the Board of Education’s capital plan. The rationale for this investment was that whole buildings were on the verge of being "lost" because of the need for roof replacements, facade reconstruction, and pointing. However, when the first year’s projects were identified a surprising number of small projects were listed, and it was stated that by the end of a three-year cycle, every school would have at least one capital repair. Did political considerations, in other words making sure that every Council District would benefit, dissipate funds needed to save school buildings in the greatest state of disrepair?

Now there are complaints that all the urgent work has not been done. But New York City at least ranks school projects by needed repairs, while the State Education Department and most other school districts have no criteria for capital repair and new construction projects. The Educational Priorities Panel has long been critical of inequities in the Operating formula in State School Aid, but these pale in comparison to those created by the current structure of Building Aid. School districts with underutilized school buildings in a state of good repair can draw down state dollars while less affluent school districts, unable to find the funds to make critical capital repairs or to build new schools to reduce extreme overcrowding have less access to State Building Aid. The result of this thoughtless state funding policy is that children with the greatest needs are educated in the state’s worst school environments.

Solutions :

A. Restructure or eliminate the Building Aid formula for future projects. Eliminate "spend-to-get" funding entirely.

B. Significantly increase funding for Minor Maintenance so that after a five-year or seven-year phase-in, the state funds at least 80% of school district preventive maintenance, adjusted for school district wealth, regional cost factors, utilization and age of buildings. Ensure that state funding for preventive maintenance is at a higher level than state funding for capital repairs and new construction.

C. Provide state funding up front to school districts for capital repairs or new construction only on the basis of objective criteria of need and proof that preventive measures have been taken before capital repairs become necessary and that schools have been fully reconfigured before new school construction is proposed.

EPP is impressed with the Regents’ current proposals to insert some rationality into Building Aid by requiring that each school district create a five-year capital facilities plan, a priority ranking of projects, and maintenance reserve accounts. They would curb the practice of deferred maintenance by instituting multi-year cost allowances. We particularly support their proposal to target state resources to the 100 school buildings most in need of immediate modernization and repair. We were also surprised to learn that school districts can go back 17 years to whatever Building Aid Ratio is most favorable, a "hold-harmless" provision that isn’t much altered by the Regents’ proposed 20-year limitation on the most favorable ratio. As long as there is a state incentive to move operating costs into the capital budget, school districts will find a way to do so unless the financial incentive is removed. State funded preventive maintenance coupled with state funding only for the most critical projects could dramatically improve the state of school buildings around the state as well as curb wasteful spending practices. All school children in this state would be assured of adequate environments for learning, and taxpayers would be assured that their money was spent wisely.

#5 Instructional improvement plans should drive construction plans, not vice versa. For example, in 1996 the Citizen’s Budget Commission promoted the idea of "the extended school year" to allow for split sessions as a means of reducing costs and overcrowding. But the instructional day of students would be reduced from 5 hours and 20 minutes by an hour. Instead of attending school for 180 days a year, students would attend school 220 days to make up for shorter instructional days. Does reducing the length of the instructional day help meet the enormous challenges facing the New York City public school students in meeting the new, higher Regents testing standards? The Board of Education’s proposed Five-Year capital plan mentions the possibility of a "year-round" school pilot program involving 8 high schools and 20 elementary and middle schools, concentrated primarily in Queens, to boost capacity and reduce overcrowding. Under this scheme schools would be in use all year, including summer, but different groups of students would attend on staggered schedules for the usual 180 days. The irony is if the instructional school day was lengthened for a targeted group of students who were falling behind, high school overcrowding could be even more dramatically alleviated. Currently, one out of every four students in New York City stays for a fifth, sixth or seventh year of high school, according to one system of tracking students over a seven year period. The Board of Education, using a four-year tracking system, shows that one out of three students does not graduate on time. No matter what methodology is used, a key factor in high school overcrowding is delayed high school graduation. Any year-round or extended school year proposals should be evaluated for their impact on at-risk students and for the possibility that they will increase delayed graduation rates and overcrowding. But this is not the only disconnect between capital budget planners and educators. By the end of the proposed Five-Year Capital Plan, a little over a third of New York City school science labs will be upgraded, even though by 2004 Regents’ science tests will depend heavily on "hands-on" lab experiments.

This "disconnect" is also reflected at the state level. While EPP understands the rationale behind restricting class size reduction funding to teachers’ salaries, we did not understand why the legislation for RESCUE did not earmark some portion of funds for building classroom space.

Solutions: A. Oppose any "year-round" or "extended-year" proposal that reduces the possibility of extra-time for students at risk of academic failure or delayed high school graduation.

B. Future state facilities funding proposals should give priority to investments with a direct bearing on improving student outcomes, such as Early Childhood Centers and upgrading science laboratories.

C. The state should require local capital plans to evaluate the impact of instructional improvement plans on facilities as well as potential instructional risks.

EPP believes that instructional improvement is a key to reducing capital costs. An excellent evaluation study, the 1990 report of Tennessee’s experiment in early grade class size reductions, documents a measurable reduction in referrals to special education. If class size reductions are implemented in kindergarten and first grade, as this research suggests, space now used for special education classes could become available for general education. In turn, if small class sizes become the norm in high-needs school districts, there is a greater likelihood that IDEA requirements for "least restrictive" environments for children with disabilities will be successfully implemented. Even though the Chancellor has entered an agreement with the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education to reduce inappropriate referrals to special education, the proposed Five-Year Capital plan provides no analysis of the impact on capital needs if the special education population is reduced or if more of these students are educated in the general education classroom. On the state level, the failure of the legislature to adopt a more neutral funding system for special education continues to create facilities problems for school districts by encouraging segregation and inappropriate referrals.

Finally, the Regents’ higher standards for high school graduation should be recognized as posing a potential risk of increasing overcrowding in high-needs districts. If these school districts do not get sufficient and timely funding for high quality staff development, a much higher proportion of students will not be able to graduate within 4 years and high school overcrowding will become more severe.

School Facilities: Classroom Crisis
Governor's Budget Threatens Small Classes
Education Higher Standards: The Need For More Time and Money
Standards Delivery
Community Mobilization: Moving Parents To The Front Lines On School Funding Reform
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