Correction appended.
Parents of public school students will hold a press conference May 9 on the steps of City Hall to express their dissatisfaction with the way Mayor Michael Bloomberg has involved them in talks about his plan to change the formula governing school funding.
The press conference--scaled down from original plans for a rally--will come nearly five months after the Mayor's State of the City address, when he first announced his efforts to reorganize school funding. Since then, the Department of Education has held more than 100 meetings with over 6,000 parents, teachers, students, elected officials, and civic groups citywide about the issue.
In a statement released this month called "We Heard You," the DOE pointed to several ways that public meetings helped them refine the reorganization plan. Following suggestions, the DOE decided that schools will get enough money to pay all current teachers; no school will lose money in the 2007-2008 school year-even if it currently gets more than Bloomberg's new funding formula calls for it to get.
Many of the most vocal parents at public comment meetings hailed from districts that have received above average funds.
Despite the meetings, parents-including a contingency from Districts 3 and 5 on the Upper West Side and Harlem-still say Bloomberg's broad plan for reform was decided upon too hastily and will vocalize their frustrations next week.
"To try to do this huge latest proposed reorganization all at once by next fall without trying things out one by one ... is like trying to build an airplane while it's in the air flying," said Richard Barr, co-Vice President for Political Action on District 3 Presidents' Council.
Among other changes, the plan will demolish the larger regions that replaced community boards a few years ago. Schools would also be funded on a per-pupil basis, with additional funds given to schools with students in special education, students who receive reduced-price lunch, and English Language Learners.
Noreen Connell, executive director of Educational Priorities Panel, an activist group concerned with improving education in New York City, traced the origins of the funding scheme to the British school system. "We're emulating a public school system ... in London which is lousy."
Under the new funding scheme, principals will choose one of three external support options for the school: Partnership Support Organization, which will give a not-for-profit like the City University of New York power to help run the school, Learning Support Organization, which would give power to district superintendents, or the Empowerment Zone, a system in which the principal has full accountability.
Some schools are currently using the Empowerment Zone model, and results are mixed. "Empowerment schools are less than one year old and have not been evaluated via any quantifiable means," said a resolution passed by the Chancellor's Parents Advisory Council, a parents' interest group that lobbies the DOE.
"Many parents of schools in the Empowerment zone have found that their principals are less responsive to parental concerns ... there is no one to go to for help if their children are being treated unfairly," the resolution said.
Cecilia Blewer sends her daughter to Mott Hall II, an Empowerment school on 109th Street. "When Mott Hall II went into the Empowerment zone, the parent coordinator's cell phone stopped working," she said. "The principals have been demoted from community leaders and now they are middle managers."
"The Xerox machine goes down, the phone service has a glitch," Blewer said. "Whose job is this? This is going to have to be handled at the school level. It's not going to get handled."
The DOE is not the only force calling for school funding reform. The state education budget, passed at the beginning of the month, included a "Contract for Excellence" which looks to ensure that the billions of dollars the legislature added to the budget this year would get spent on a few key areas they believe will get results: class-size reduction, full-day pre-kindergarten, middle and high school restructuring, and improving teacher quality.
The state is also mandating that New York City plan to reduce class sizes in five years.
The first step for city lawmakers is to begin drafting a temporary plan to fulfill the Contract for Excellence and to bring these regulations to the public for comment.
Connell said that although the Contract of Excellence is well-intentioned, she does not believe it will actually be implemented and enforced in New York City. "The state education department does everything that NYCDOE wants," she said. "When the DOE started evading the very clear requirements of the early grade class size reduction program, the state education department did nothing."
CPAC's resolution is not the only way of postponing the changes. "We're hoping to get something together in District 3 so people can see that last week's détente solved nothing," Blewer said.
But at the same time, Mayor Bloomberg is coasting to the end of his eight years. "Mayoral control sunsets in 2009," Blewer said, explaining why some parents may not be getting active. "Everybody is waiting for the clock to run down on Bloomberg and [NYC Schools Chancellor Joel] Klein."
Sara Vogel contributed to this article.
Correction. The original version of this article incorrectly stated that parents would hold a rally on the steps of City Hall. Parents originally planned to hold a rally, but scaled down their plans to a press conference.