May 24, 2023 Our testimony at today’s budget hearings is posted here and below. We are very concerned about the continued shrinking of the teaching staff and the huge proposed cuts to the capital plan, both of which will make the goals in the new class size law difficult if not impossible to achieve. We […]
May 23, 2023 Though the NYC Comptroller and others continue to use figures for school budget cuts this year that refer only to the reductions made to their Fair Student Funding allocations, for the last year or so we’ve been calculating the actual level of the much larger cuts to their entire budgets, called their […]
May 22, 2023 On Friday, DOE posted what is purported to be their draft five- year class size reduction plan, in accordance with the new state law. As I was quoted in the Daily News, “It’s a big nothing burger. There is no plan. They’re hoping just to coast on enrollment decline until it’s too […]
May 15, 2023 Save the date! Our annual Parent Action Conference co-sponsored with NYC Kids PAC will be held Saturday June 10, starting at 9:30 AM at Seward Park Complex downtown at 350 Grand Street. There will be lots of fascinating panel discussions and workshops on a variety of topics, as well as breakfast and […]
April 25, 2023 It’s crunch time for the budget. We are now getting word from insiders that a budget deal may be finalized soon that would include allowing 22 more “zombie” charter schools above the cap, the number of charters which closed or never opened, which could turn into 66 more charters, due to a […]
Corrected link to Feb. capital plan and Michelle Joseph’s email address below. I have also added the email of another PEP member Lily Chan. Unfortunately, eight out of 23 PEP members still do not have their email addresses posted on the DOE website. Please also speak at tomorrow’s PEP meeting if you can about the […]
April 12, 2023 Dear all: The state budget is now nearly two weeks overdue, with negotiations showing little evident progress so far. As a result, Gov. Hochul’s controversial proposal to raise the NYC charter cap is still up in the air, that the city says would cost another $1.3 billion, over and above $3 billion […]
March 17, 2023 Hearings were held on Wed. before the Education committee of the City Council on the DOE preliminary budget and the Feb. amendment to the capital plan. During the hearings, the DOE admitted that they plan to cut school budgets even more next year, though they wouldn’t say by how much. Instead, the […]
Our education budget priorities for next year, FY 2024, along with Alliance for Quality Education, NYC Kids PAC and the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council are here and below . They are focused on the need for schools to have their budgets restored and the cuts made this year reversed, and for the capital plan for […]
March 5, 2023 The new proposed amendment to the 5-year capital plan for schools was recently released; you can check it out here. Compared to the capital plan adopted in June 2021, the DOE/SCA wants to cut the number of new school seats to be built by 38% — or over 21,000. This is inconceivable […]
Talk out of School radio show and podcast airs Sunday night at 7 PM on WBAI 99.5 FM or online at www.wbai.org when Leonie Haimson and Daniel Alicea interview guests and discuss issues affecting public schools in NYC, the state level and nationally. You can stream or subscribe to the podcast here; or at iTunes, Spotify or Google.
We held our annual Skinny award dinner Wed. June 28, 2023, honoring Rep. Jamaal Bowman, former Bronx principal and now a progressive trailblazer who is fighting in Congress to protect and improve our public schools. More photos on Facebook .
