Parents Slam School Budget Cuts
Thousands showed up to a protest in front of City Hall yesterday to decry budget cuts to city schools, according to The Times. In January the city and state forced schools to slash 1.75 percent of their current budgets, and bigger cuts are expected next year. Last year, however, the Department of Education pledged to…
Thousands showed up to a protest in front of City Hall yesterday to decry budget cuts to city schools, according to The Times. In January the city and state forced schools to slash 1.75 percent of their current budgets, and bigger cuts are expected next year. Last year, however, the Department of Education pledged to dramatically increase school funding, a promise it appears to be reneging on. This is all parents talk about, said Alicia Cortes, the parent coordinator at Intermediate School 302 in Cypress Hills, which had to reduce the scope of its after-school programs after it lost $107,000. We have been getting better for a while, and we thought there was a way to progress, and then all of the sudden there’s these cuts. You can’t cut off people’s legs and then expect them to succeed. The Bloomberg administration, however, is quick to point out that it has increased education spending 72 percent since 2002. Many Brooklynites are protesting the cuts, including The Windsor Terrace Alliance, which has put sample letters to elected officials on its website so parents can easily write to officeholders to express their displeasure with the funding measures.
Thousands Protest Budget Cuts Aimed at City Schools [NY Times]
Sample Protest Letters [Windsor Terrace Alliance]
Photo by wallyg.
As a public school parent I want to be upset about the cuts, but I think the financial situation of NYC is only going to get worse. We will look back on these present cuts as insignificant.
Still, it is insulting to place all these demands on schools and then yank the monies necessary to accomplish them. Since many schools had to *give back* money to the BoE in January, they have had to immediately cut tutoring and other academic support programs. This will in turn lower the school’s test scores, which under NCLB will potentially lead to financial penalties.
Some elementary schools are threatening to cut their pre-kindergarten classes. The state only pays for 2.5 hours of pre-K, and the schools have been paying for the remaining 3.5 hours out of their own budgets. Many schools now have to choose between full-day pre-K programs, which prepare young children for school success, and academic support for older children who probably weren’t prepared for school. Since the test is in 2nd grade, the pre-Ks are gonna get whacked.
Terrible, eh?
it is now time for Bloomberg to muscle up and take back the hundreds of millions of NYC tax dollars he’s trying to slip into Ratner’s pockets and put it back where it belongs: put it back into school funding and use it to aleviate the looming cuts in police funding. if Bloomberg doesn’t do this then he should be fired immediately. there is no excuse for enriching millionaire friends with tax money while real taxpayer services are being cut.
and to those of you new to New York City, when there’s no money, trust me, the city does not give a shit about you or your problems. Expect to hear this more and more often: “So what do you want me to do about it?” That’s the old motto of the NYPD.
Crime’s going up, school budgets are getting slashed, soon the police budget will get slashed and property taxes will go up. The financial sector provided the biggest portion of tax revenue for NYC, and now that the financial bubble has burst, expect more and more budget cuts for the next … well, years.
This is the 3rd budget cut since the fall and cuts now top 10%. Factor in the money also going to support ridiculous testing, politicized and misleading “progress” reports (using dubious metrics) there has been a significant misappropriation of monies away from the classroom, away from supporting teachers and students, directed away from the process of learning and into the pockets of private corporate coffers offering dubious consulting services and data processing. Bloomberg and Klein spin numbers, cut services and demean and isolate educators and claim to be holding teachers and principals “accountable.”
There is real need for support for an educational system that has been a political football since before I was a child growing up here in the city. Our world is facing what could well be an insurmountable environmental collapse. The seas are becoming deserts, global warming will exacerbate political strife globally (we are already seeing this in the countries surrounding the Sahara experiencing genocide and humanitarian crises). If we, as a society and as a community, don’t shift priorities soon we’re all going to be playing on the losing side. The place to start is in the schools.
There is no reason schools cannot be funded more generously. The measure of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable. Our children are among our most vulnerable. They deserve better. We deserve better.
Separate private school patronizer. No trust fund here – just hard work. Don’t rush to judgement – many private schoolers do not have TFs. Just sacrifice and good fiscal and life planning. My money, my choice and no tax break for not using the resources of the massive bureaucracy.
If all private including parachoial school children went to PS, the situation would be far worse.
My main point is that your anger is misguided and unhealthy.
10:10 that’s tacky and smug. Sure, there’s a topic to bring up regarding the possibility more people will choose private school over public, thereby making public schools even less supported by parents and the community. But to actually gloat over that shows a very weak character. We ourselves will choose private school b/c of where we live and other reasons, but to do that then simply not care about the public schools in your community is horrible.
But in the same respect, those who gloat over the prestige of their own public school and make fun of another neighborhood’s school, those people really lack character and morals too.
yea right, cos theres a housing shortage….
Thank god we’ve still got the $2 billion to construct Ratnerville.