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Mayoral School Control Less Assured in Senate |
Albany Impasse Ends as Defector Rejoins Caucus
By DANNY HAKIM
Senate leaders, sounding by turns apologetic, fatigued and self-congratulatory, started Thursday night to pass the scores of bills they had neglected during the leadership struggle. The stalemate had prompted anger from voters and local officials, and denunciation from newspapers across the state. “To all 19.5 million people in the state of New York, we apologize,” Senator John L. Sampson, a Brooklyn Democrat, said at a news conference. “Sometimes you have a dysfunctional family, dysfunctional family members, but at the end of the day, we understand that we are all one family and we are all home now. Home to stay.” Bills that await action include a measure that would extend mayoral control of the New York City school system. As they resumed the majority, the Democrats announced a new leadership arrangement under which Pedro Espada Jr., the Bronx Democrat who had joined with the Republicans last month, will be given the title of majority leader. Mr. Sampson will serve as leader of the Democratic caucus, and Malcolm A. Smith of Queens will be the Senate’s president for what several senators described as a transition period of an undetermined length. The duties of the three leaders were still unclear Thursday evening. Mr. Espada’s defection on June 8 threw the Senate into turmoil and hobbled the state government, making the body a national laughingstock as the feuding factions shouted and gaveled over each other in simultaneous legislative sessions. It led Gov. David A. Paterson to take the extraordinary step this week of appointing a lieutenant governor, Richard Ravitch, to clarify the state’s line of succession, though it is far from clear that the governor had the authority to do so. Republicans are challenging the appointment. Mr. Espada said he had ended his 31-day alliance with the Republicans because he had become convinced that Democrats were committed to overhauling the Senate and making it operate more fairly and efficiently. He characterized the intense battle that had consumed the Capitol as a family feud. “Sometimes best friends fight,” Mr. Espada said, adding: “I never left home. I had a little leave of absence. My brothers and sisters welcomed me back, and we come back stronger than ever.” But it appears that Mr. Espada may have been driven to make a deal to return as majority leader out of fear of being marginalized, because a separate Democratic faction was moving to establish a power-sharing deal with the Republicans. Indeed, the Democrats have become increasingly polarized, often along racial lines. Mr. Espada and other Hispanic senators have pushed for more influence from Mr. Smith and Mr. Sampson, who are black. Separately, the faction of seven white Democrats, led by Senator Jeffrey D. Klein of the Bronx, that had sought the power-sharing deal with the Republicans is especially uneasy with Mr. Espada, who faces investigations related to nonprofit health clinics he runs, his campaign finance practices and whether his primary residence is in the Bronx. Any arrangement they reached with Republicans would probably have pushed Mr. Espada aside. Faced with that possibility, Mr. Espada returned to the Democrats in exchange for a job whose power beyond its title is difficult to discern. The titles of Senate president and majority leader have traditionally been combined; the president is vested with special powers in the state’s Constitution, and the majority leader is not. As majority leader, Mr. Espada will receive a bonus on top of his regular legislator’s salary. Senator Hiram Monserrate, a Queens Democrat who initially sided with the Republicans along with Mr. Espada, played a key role in persuading his colleagues to allow Mr. Espada to return. Dean G. Skelos, the leader of the Senate Republicans, speculated that the Democratic caucus would break apart again. “This is my prediction,” Mr. Skelos said at his own news conference, his caucus surrounding him. “Within a few months, maybe six months, there is going to be so much discord within that conference that we’re going to be running the Senate, all right?” He added: “There are so many factions there that would like to, quite honestly, slit the other factions’ throat. I think it’s going to be very, very difficult to lead and govern.” The month of inaction has been frustrating in Albany. New York City lost $60 million in tax revenue because the Senate did not pass a planned authorization for a sales tax increase; the bill was expected to be taken up early Friday morning. The City of Yonkers faced a budget crisis because the Senate impasse held up revenue bills critical to having its budget certified. Senators were uncertain Thursday when or whether several high-profile issues stalled by the leadership battle, including same-sex marriage and changes in rent control laws, would be taken up. The regular legislative session ended on June 22. Mr. Paterson has kept the Senate in special session each of the last 17 days, including the Fourth of July, in an effort to increase pressure and end the stalemate. He also encouraged the state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, to withhold senators’ pay. “I’m very happy, as the senators are, that they’ve reached an end to their conflict,” the governor said late Thursday. “We are going to have to restore that to even attempt to win back the trust of the people of this state.” Mr. Paterson also raised the specter of calling the Legislature back again this summer to address the latest hole in the budget, which he said could be $500 million to $800 million. That underscored the reality that the Senate’s deadlock took place amid a particularly perilous financial climate. Even as the stalemate ended, disputes continued among the parties about how the Senate should be run. Democrats were noncommittal Thursday about adopting rule changes Republicans had tried to pass, but by early Friday morning the two sides issued a joint statement saying that they would work together to enact rules to make the body operate more fairly. “I believe there is a success story to be told,” Mr. Skelos said, “that we made them focus in a lot more on the rules changes we made.” Some Democrats are skeptical of claims of reform from a party that had hoarded resources during the more than four decades it controlled the Senate. As Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, a Manhattan Democrat, put it, “When you sell your soul and the check bounces, that’s a bad day.”
Mayoral School Control Less Assured in Senate SCHOTT GRANTEE IN THE NEWS
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ There was a moment in mid-June when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg seemed confident the State Legislature would leave his power over the New York City school system virtually untouched. The Assembly had just approved a bill that maintained his control of schools, and the Senate, with its legions of Republicans friendly to the mayor, seemed poised to do the same. More than two weeks later, however, the idea that the bill will sail, unchanged, through the Senate appears more doubtful. In the strange world of Albany politics, the Senate’s 31-to-31 deadlock could mean the mayor would have to concede more than he would care to, even though the Assembly bill would most likely have enough support to pass if it were brought to a vote today. Though relations have been cordial lately between the two factions fighting for power in the State Senate, they remained without an agreement on Sunday evening. Senators filed into the Senate chamber just after 6 p.m. to comply with Gov. David A. Paterson’s call for an extraordinary session. But they quickly adjourned without taking any legislative action. The Senate is still reeling from a leadership crisis that has left it unable to function, but one possible outcome is that John L. Sampson of Brooklyn, the Democratic leader, could become Senate president. Mr. Sampson is seeking to amend the Assembly bill to give parents more of a voice in education decision-making, and he has also expressed support for curbing the mayor’s power to fire members of an oversight board, the Panel for Educational Policy, which must approve his policies. Critics of mayoral control say that the panel is toothless because the mayor appoints 8 of the 13 members and can remove any of his appointees on a whim. In its seven years, the panel has never rejected any of Mr. Bloomberg’s policies or proposals. If Mr. Sampson became Senate president, he could have the power to squelch any debate of the bill, even if a majority of senators wanted to bring it to a vote. However, various power-sharing arrangements being negotiated would make it more difficult for any single senator to scuttle a bill. And city officials cautioned that the leadership crisis could be resolved in other ways that could be favorable to Mr. Bloomberg. Further complicating the issue is Mr. Bloomberg’s ramped-up criticism of lawmakers in recent weeks. Mr. Bloomberg said last month that if the Senate changed one word in the Assembly bill, it would be the equivalent of telling the city: “ ‘We want to resurrect the Soviet Union. We want to bring back chaos.’ ” On Wednesday, he admonished lawmakers’ “reckless behavior” and denounced the stalemate in Albany as a “train wreck.” In response, Mr. Sampson convened a news conference and said senators deserved time to debate the bill, even though the 2002 law authorizing mayoral control expired at midnight Tuesday, forcing the city to hastily resurrect the old Board of Education that ruled city schools for three decades. “It’s called school governance,” Mr. Sampson said. “It’s not called mayoral control.” Mr. Sampson said he spoke with the mayor twice on Tuesday, but it appeared those conversations did not yield any immediate solutions. Asked on Wednesday if he had made any promises in negotiating with Albany, the mayor quipped, “I haven’t made a promise to anybody in a long time.” Billy Easton, a spokesman for the Campaign for Better Schools, which is lobbying for changes to the mayoral control law, said he remained optimistic that a compromise would emerge. He said that there was no “gaping gulf” between Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Sampson, since they both agree the mayor should have the power to appoint a majority of the Panel for Educational Policy. But he added, “You don’t have to read very far between the tea leaves to understand that the Senate Democratic leadership is saying they cannot be hurdled in this debate.” Mr. Sampson said in an interview on Thursday that he did not believe there were great differences in the goals of the mayor and senators who wanted changes to mayoral control. But he said the two sides needed to reconcile those differences in a bill that both could agree on. “The mayor has his passion,” the senator said. “His passion is to make sure that our children get a sound education. And our members have that same passion. A lot of our members have been educated in the public school system, and all our members want an opportunity to have some say and some input, especially when looking at the parental involvement piece, to make sure there is some accountability to that.” On Sunday, senators reported that some progress had been made on resolving smaller issues, like the division of resources and power in Senate committees. But the question of who would lead the Senate was unresolved. “Except the leadership issue, tremendous progress has been made,” said Senator Thomas W. Libous, a Republican from Binghamton. Senator Diane J. Savino, a Democrat from Staten Island, said she was confident an agreement could ultimately be reached but cautioned patience. “You’re talking about creating a new paradigm for the Senate,” she said. Senators seemed to be coalescing against the idea of removing the mayor’s power to fire members of the panel, despite Mr. Sampson’s prior support for the idea, according to supporters and critics of the bill alike. In addition, senators said that one solution being floated was forming a one-time coalition of Republicans and Democrats to pass the Assembly’s bill as is. Mr. Bloomberg has said that there appears to be enough support in the Senate to pass the Assembly bill, which preserves the mayor’s authority but adds a few checks, like limiting his ability to close schools and giving the Independent Budget Office the power to audit finances and data. Republicans would probably need only a few Democrats to join them, but the odds of Democrats’ breaking with their brethren are low, given the underlying power struggle in the chamber. “There’s more at stake here than just the mayoral control issue,” said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, which supports mayoral control. “It’s all part of a jigsaw puzzle.” Meanwhile, the leadership of the New York school system remains in limbo. The Board of Education convened for the first time in seven years on Wednesday and prolonged mayoral control by delegating its authority to the mayor’s appointed schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, until a new bill is signed into law.
A tenure winds down
By RICK KARLIN, Capitol bureau ALBANY -- Soon after he pulled into town from Vermont in his Volvo, Richard Mills placed a series of colorful cardboard blocks on a mantel behind his desk. They spelled out a simple one-word message: "Standards." Now, almost 14 years later, the blocks remain in place, although they'll come down after Tuesday, Mills' last day as state education commissioner. Just about everyone comments on the blocks, which were made by a BOCES student in Ulster County and contrast sharply with the office's somber dark wood paneling and leather furniture, with black-and-white portraits of past commissioners overhead. "Symbols are important," Mills, 64, said during an interview Friday. "This is a very straightforward way of reminding everyone it's about standards." Mills' tenure as commissioner has been all about standards. Raising academic standards for all the state's students and instituting tests to make sure the goals have been achieved has been the centerpiece of his mission since arriving in New York. Do a Google search of Mills' name and "standards" and you'll get more than 80,000 hits. No matter what the topic or circumstance, he found a way to tie it to standards. Whether it was a discussion with his bosses, the state Board of Regents, about high school graduation rates, school safety or the way exams were designed and administered, Mills would eventually make the connection with standards, or, as he sometimes termed it, raising the academic bar. "It's probably time to increase the bar again," Mills said earlier in the month during a Regents meeting to discuss a recent uptick in high school graduation rates. To be sure, Mills' timing was fortunate. During the mid-1990s there was a national move toward standards, culminating in the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act that mandates students nationwide take English and math tests in grades 3 through 8. New York was well equipped to ride that wave, with its existing system of elementary school tests and high school Regents exams that had traditionally been for college-bound students. Mills, with some exceptions, turned the Regents exams into the state's standard graduation requirement. There have been bumps along the way, including ongoing questions about whether the standards simply led to more dropouts among struggling students, and episodes like the 2003 math Regents, in which two-thirds of the students failed, triggering a do-over. Through it all, Mills stuck to his mantra of raising standards, and those who worked with him say they respect him for that. "He got us all focused on what children should know and he got us focused in a consistent direction," said Tim Kremer, executive director of the New York State School Boards Association. "He was like the guy who would grab the ball and he would run down the field as fast as he could and as far as he could until someone tackled him." "There was a serious effort to make sure that all kids get a serious education," said Bob Lowry, associate director of the state Superintendents Council. Back in November, when Mills said he was leaving at the end of the school year, the council published a scorecard of sorts, where they noted that he brought New York to the forefront of efforts to raise academic achievement. Indeed, instituting higher standards was a political as well as bureaucratic challenge. Some of the biggest improvements in the standards push have been at urban schools, where lots of poor or minority students were historically written off. Raising expectations forced those schools to do better, but suburban educators decried what they said was a "one size fits all" approach, explained Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch. But Mills persisted, said Tisch. While he came to the Empire State from Vermont, Mills previously worked in New Jersey where he served as an adviser to former Gov. Thomas Kean. That experience, along with his neutral Midwestern accent (he was born in Illinois), and measured, thoughtful demeanor served him well as a kind of human counterpart to the hyperbole that permeates so much of state government, even in discussions of education. "He was always approachable and open to listening," said Richard Iannuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers, the state's major teacher union, which has both agreed with and debated the Education Department on various issues. Certainly Mills leaves behind some unfinished work, such as revamping the vast state Education Department. "The department is bureaucratic, aloof,'' read part of a 1996 Rockefeller Institute study, after which Mills vowed to overhaul the agency. There were some changes but the department, which is arguably underfunded, still gets its share of criticism. "The agencies take on a life of their own," remarked Scott Wexler, a former Albany school board president who recalled the struggles he had with bureaucrats over issues like approval for new school construction. Wexler, though, doesn't really blame Mills for the permanent bureaucracy, saying "There's only so much you can upset the apple cart." Rather than turning over carts, Mills said he viewed his job as running a relay race in which the torch is ultimately passed to another person and which the competitors are endlessly pushing for a faster lap time. "It should be a stretch," he said. After Tuesday, Mills plans to shift gears, saying it's time to do something else. While former education commissioners can easily become college lecturers or work as education consultants, Mills said he plans to take a break and then pursue something entirely new, although he says he's not yet certain what that will be. For the immediate future, he plans to go canoeing in the Adirondacks, followed by a trip with his wife to Iceland and then South Africa. "When you stop, it's really important to realize that you've stopped," he said. "It's important to look at it like you are embarking on a new adventure."
City Education Department misspent $283 million earmarked for needy schools: report
BY MEREDITH KOLODNER The Education Department improperly used $283 million in state money earmarked for high-needs schools to plug a budget hole, a new report says. Money earmarked for smaller classes, better teachers and programs for English language learners, was used to pay for shortfalls created by the Bloomberg administration's budget cuts last year, the report charges. Albany allocated the funds to settle a lawsuit in which the court found that the state was underfunding city schools. "It took more than a decade to do this," said Helaine Doran, deputy director of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which filed the lawsuit and produced the study. "This money was supposed to be spent strategically on high need kids to deliver on their right to an equal education." By law, the money must go mainly to high poverty schools with low test scores and graduation rates and large numbers of special education students and English language learners. Last summer the City Council restored $120 million of the cuts Mayor Bloomberg made, but most of that money went to low needs schools. Education Department officials said they used the funds to make sure that no school lost money, regardless of its student population. "The [state] recognizes that when you have a declining budget, [the earmarked] money has to be used to maintain programs," said Photeine Anagnostopoulos, the agency's chief operating officer. About $30 million of the special dollars went to fund regular summer school classes. That decision deprived those schools of funds that should have been used to improve bilingual programs, add prekindergarten classes or extend the school day, the report says. Education Department officials said that decision was legal and "kosher," but some parents were dismayed. "The most important thing that it would have meant is reduction in class size," said Josh Karan, a member of the parent council in an upper Manhattan school district that initiated the lawsuit. "Smaller classes would mean a lot to kids in my district."
As Law Expires, Bloomberg Moves to Keep Authority Over Schools
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was set to lose control of the New York City school system at midnight Tuesday, but despite dire predictions of chaos from the mayor and others, it appeared that the nation’s largest school district would continue to operate largely as usual. The shift of power, from Mr. Bloomberg’s hands to the clutches of a yet-to-be-appointed Board of Education, came after an impasse between Republicans and Democrats in the State Senate thwarted attempts to renew mayoral control of schools, which the Legislature authorized in 2002. The law set June 30, 2009, as the day the mayor’s control would end if it was not renewed. At a videoconference with Gov. David A. Paterson in Albany, Mr. Bloomberg said the expiration of the law would mark a “nightmare flashback” to the days of the old Board of Education, which had a reputation for constant friction. But while authority over schools now technically rests with the seven-member board, the mayor is expected to retain his authority by persuading at least two borough presidents to appoint people favorable to his policies. The mayor picks two board members and each borough president names one. Mr. Bloomberg’s allies were reaching out to borough presidents on Tuesday in hopes of earning their support. The Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, and the Staten Island borough president, James P. Molinaro, have said they expected their appointees to be philosophically in tune with the mayor and to support the ideals of mayoral control. Mr. Stringer said he would appoint his legal counsel, Jimmy Yan, to the board on an interim basis as he conducted a search for a permanent member, if one was needed. “Maintaining the system has got to become paramount, not political expediency, not political gamesmanship,” Mr. Stringer said. “You can’t let education issues be driven by the courts.” Ruben Diaz Jr., the Bronx borough president, said he expected his appointee, the former Hostos Community College president Dolores Fernandez, to challenge the idea of retaining the schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, and he said she might seek to overturn the mayor’s policies. “Whether it’s existing policy or future policy,” he said, “you can anticipate that will be challenged.” Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn borough president, said he planned to appoint his chief of staff, Carlo A. Scissura. Mr. Stringer and Mr. Markowitz called for an immediate meeting of the reconstituted Board of Education on Wednesday. Under the old system, 32 neighborhood school boards were responsible for overseeing middle and high schools in their districts and for hiring superintendents. Since Mr. Bloomberg took control in 2002, those boards have been turned into parent councils and stripped of their power. The chancellor now appoints superintendents. Mr. Bloomberg said there was no clear way to resurrect the old system when summer school is beginning and schools are contemplating staffing and curricular options. “Every decision, from personnel decisions to policy decisions, will be subject to litigation and uncertainty,” he said. He added that he would try to keep Mr. Klein, the man he appointed chancellor, in office, because Mr. Klein is under contract. The mayor’s staff has also considered going to court to seek an extension of mayoral control until Albany votes on the matter. As the prospects of Senate action dimmed on Tuesday, supporters of mayoral control — including the City University of New York, Harlem community groups and charter schools — flooded reporters’ inboxes with statements of support. The crisis in the chamber showed few signs of resolution. The Assembly passed a bill in June that retains the core elements of mayoral control but adds several limits on the mayor’s authority, like curbing his ability to close schools and approve contracts. Many Senate Democrats, however, have made clear their intention to challenge the bill and push for more parental input in education decision-making. While the Assembly’s bill most likely has enough support from Republicans and Democrats to pass, it faces the obstacle of Senator John L. Sampson of Brooklyn, the Democrats’ new leader and a critic of mayoral control, who could prevent it from being debated. In a statement, Mr. Sampson said Democrats “have real concerns which should be discussed and addressed before passage of this legislation.”
Harlem Success Academy expands further into P.S. 123 in Harlem
Friday, July 3rd 2009 Classrooms being packed up without teachers or principals knowledge at P.S. 123 in Harlem. No one was expecting the moving men when they arrived Thursday morning at PS 123 in Harlem.
Published: July 5, 2009 The $100 billion education stimulus package gives Education Secretary Arne Duncan unprecedented leverage to energize the languishing school reform effort. Mr. Duncan has said from the start that he wants the states to transform about 5,000 of the lowest-performing schools, not in a piecemeal fashion but with bold policies that have an impact right away. The argument in favor of a tightly focused effort aimed at these schools is compelling. We now know, for example, that about 12 percent of the nation’s high schools account for half the country’s dropouts generally — and almost three-quarters of minority dropouts. A plan that fixed these schools, raising high school graduation and college-going rates, would pay enormous dividends for the country as a whole. Mr. Duncan can use his burgeoning discretionary budget to reward states that take the initiative in this area. But Congress could push the reform effort further and faster by granting the education department’s request for two changes in federal education law. The first would be to come up with new federal school improvement money and require the states to focus 40 percent of it on the lowest-performing middle and high schools. The second change would allow the secretary to directly finance charter-school operators that have already produced high-quality schools. Charter schools get public money but often are exempt from curricular requirements and other rules that govern traditional public schools. Currently, high-quality charter-school programs often go begging while states finance charters that are worse than the traditional public schools they were meant to replace. The problem is underscored in an eye-opening study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes. The study, which looked at schools in 15 states and the District of Columbia, showed that 17 percent of charter schools provided a better education than traditional public schools in the same states. But charter backers and state officials were startled to learn that 37 percent of charters offered a worse education than children would have received had they remained in traditional schools. Mr. Duncan confronted this issue directly at a charter school alliance meeting held in Washington last month, pointing out that the states needed to do a much better oversight job and that failing charters needed to be swiftly shut down. High-quality charter models like the ones used by the KIPP program have a role to play in the plan, the goal of which is to change the cultures of chronically failing schools. Charter operators could be brought into some schools, but other schools might need to simply force out the current staff and bring in a new one. In other cases, states will need to shut down chronically failing schools and enroll students elsewhere. The secretary should focus intently on the dropout factories, the relatively small number of schools that produce so many of the nation’s dropouts. Efforts at especially difficult schools will need to include social service and community outreach programs, modeled on those already in place in the Harlem Children’s Zone in Upper Manhattan. Mr. Duncan is on the mark when he says the country needs bold action. It can no longer tolerate schools that have trapped generations of students at the margins of society and locked them out of the new economy.
Patrick hints at hike in gas tax
By Matt Viser Governor Deval Patrick signed a budget yesterday that imposes more than $1 billion in additional taxes on Massachusetts residents and visitors, most of it through the first increase in the state sales tax in 33 years, even as he declined to rule out a future boost in the state gas tax. Patrick, whose earlier proposal for a 19-cent-per-gallon increase in the gasoline tax was largely ignored by the Legislature, continued to make the case yesterday that the tax could be necessary to put the state’s transportation network on sounder financial footing. “We haven’t done that yet. We haven’t finished that work yet,’’ Patrick said, when asked if he would keep pushing for a gas tax. “And whether that’s the gas tax or something else, we’re going to have to face those issues, I think sooner rather than later.’’ Patrick aides said afterward that the governor had no current plans to push for a gas tax increase. The governor made his comments as he signed a $27 billion budget that includes increases in the state’s sales, alcohol, satellite television, meals, and hotel taxes. Even while putting his signature on the budget, Patrick continued to try to distance himself from a first-in-a-generation increase in the state’s sales tax, which on Aug. 1 will rise from 5 percent to 6.25 percent. “The sales tax is not my first choice, and not the preferred course,’’ he said. “It’s the course that the Legislature pursued. I preferred, and still do, more targeted revenue measures that raise, from a particular source, revenue for particular needs.’’ In signing the budget, which is $400 million less than the plan House and Senate lawmakers approved earlier this month, Patrick vetoed nearly $150 million worth of spending proposals. He also cut $217 million in funding for county sheriffs, although that funding will probably be restored through a bill that consolidates sheriffs departments throughout the state. The budget takes effect tomorrow, the first day of fiscal year 2010, although the Legislature will probably attempt to override several of Patrick’s vetoes. The budget cuts funding for noneducation local aid, in some cases up to 15 percent, but provides a record-high $4 billion in education funding for cities and towns, due in part to $167 million in federal stimulus money. The budget relies heavily on one-time sources of revenue, using $1.7 billion from federal stimulus funding and $215 million in state reserves. Spokesmen for House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray said they were still reviewing Patrick’s plan. Even while issuing a series of vetoes, Patrick submitted a $269 million supplemental budget, which includes $70 million to restore healthcare coverage for 30,000 legal immigrants that the Legislature had cut. “This is without question an austere - and in some respects, painful - budget,’’ Patrick said in a late-afternoon press conference held in his office. “It contains many unavoidable spending cuts and they, many of them, will have a painful impact.’’ In his vetoes, Patrick cut from a wide range of spending areas, including $25 million for senior care, $7.6 million for trial courts, and $250,000 for the State House park rangers. He also sliced roughly 5 percent of the funding for children’s mental health services that were ordered under a federal class action lawsuit known as Rosie D. Those services were supposed to start rolling out today. “The families have been anxiously awaiting these services and it’s incredibly disappointing that the governor is not maintaining his commitment,’’ said Lisa Lambert, executive director of the Parent Professional Advocacy League, which represents about 4,000 families. Patrick’s budget also included $400,000 to restore funding for a Washington, D.C., office that critics have said is a waste of funding when Massachusetts has a 12-member Congressional delegation. The Legislature had eliminated all funding for the Washington office. “While raising taxes on families by a billion dollars and cutting services to the needy, Governor Patrick is trying to waste money on a Washington office when he has a Congressional delegation full of Democrats,’’ said Tarah Donoghue, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Republican Party. Patrick had said he would agree to the vast bulk of the lawmakers’ spending and budget plan only after they agreed to a significant overhaul of the state’s ethics, pension, and transportation laws. Over the past two weeks, House and Senate lawmakers approved plans on each of those items, all but forcing the governor to sign onto their sales tax proposal. A portion of the new tax revenue from the $1 billion in tax increases will prevent a previously planned toll increase on the Massachusetts Turnpike, and could help alleviate fare hikes for MBTA riders. But Patrick continued to say yesterday that that approach may not provide enough money for a permanent fix to the state’s transportation problems, which include agencies in massive debt and crumbling roads and bridges. Patrick’s plan for a 19-cent-per-gallon increase would have raised about $500 million for transit, compared with an estimated $275 million in new sales tax revenue slated for transportation. Patrick aides stressed that there was no current plan to push for a gas tax hike, but reiterated that the governor thinks there should be a long-term financing plan for the state’s transportation network. They would not specify what funding source that would be, or when they would push for it. “The governor has been clear: He backed a dedicated revenue stream to support the state’s long-term transportation needs. We will have to revisit this challenge at some point down the road,’’ said Joe Landolfi, Patrick’s communications director. “He also said that it is a crummy time to ask people to pay more. And he is not pushing for a gas tax increase on top of today’s increase in the sales tax.’’
Charter Schools Win a High-Profile Convert
By JON KELLER Tom Menino, the longtime Democratic mayor of this city, is not known for rocking the boat or for eloquence. But earlier this month he stunned many in the city when he gave a powerful speech about school reform. The speech took aim at the lack of progress in dozens of low-performing, inner-city Boston public schools, many of which have not met adequate yearly progress for five years running. "To get the results we seek -- at the speed we want -- we must make transformative changes that boost achievement for students, improve quality choices for parents, and increase opportunities for teachers," Mr. Menino said. "We need to empower our educators to quickly innovate and implement what works." With that, Mr. Menino abandoned nearly two decades of personal opposition to nonunion charter schools, which have been bitterly resisted by Massachusetts teachers unions and their political allies. "I believe that the increased flexibility that charters provide can . . . help us close the achievement gap," he declared. "Betrayal," cried the Boston Teachers Union on its Web site, decrying the "glee" with which Mr. Menino's "sudden turnaround" was greeted by "anti-public school and anti-tax zealots." That's a typically hyperbolic reference to Massachusetts' growing legions of charter-school supporters, an ideologically-diverse group that includes the Boston Globe's liberal editorial page, a bipartisan group of state officeholders who've funneled billions in new revenue into the public schools, and at least 13,000 pro-charter Boston taxpayers -- the 5,000 families with children in charter schools and 8,000 on waiting lists to enroll. But the inflammatory rhetoric of the Boston Teachers Union reflects the alarm triggered by Mr. Menino's speech. "He has really thrown down the gauntlet to the union," notes Linda Brown of the charter-school support group Building Excellent Schools. "He's responding to an enormous overcurrent and undercurrent of public pressure over the fact that nothing is changing in too many schools. He's used his political acuteness to see there's a perfect storm." What flashed on Mr. Menino's radar screen so urgently? Political pressure, most notably from the Obama administration, which has explicitly linked charter-school expansion with access to $5 billion in new education reform funding. "States that don't have the stomach or the political will, they're going to lose out," Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the Associated Press recently. "That's $5 billion, b-i-l-l-i-o-n, up for grabs," moaned Mr. Menino in an interview with me. "I've gotta sit here sucking my thumb because I can't get reforms?" Credit pride and anger for Mr. Menino's change of heart as well. While he is a prohibitive favorite to win a fifth term this fall, two of his challengers have pointedly endorsed charters and needled him on the lingering failures of many city schools. His palpable embarrassment over his inability to overhaul Boston's schools is compounded by the sight of -- in his view -- lesser cities forging ahead with uncapped charter growth. Mr. Menino tried to accommodate union resistance to charters by experimenting with unionized "pilot" schools that allow limited managerial flexibility in making personnel and budget decisions. But those experiments are failing to improve education and unions remain opposed to charters. "The straw that broke the camel's back," Mr. Merino told me, came when a principal of one of the struggling school accepted a grant from ExxonMobil to give teachers small bonuses when their students excelled. The unions "took us to arbitration," Mr. Menino said, essentially killing the bonuses. So for good measure the mayor included a call for merit pay in his blockbuster school-reform speech. "Every time we try to do a reform they stop it." Vestiges of Mr. Menino's anticharter past and his cautious political instincts remain. He wants to convert 51 failing public schools to "in-district" charters under the control of the city. Initially these schools will be nonunion, but unions may be able to organize their teachers down the road. Still, if results don't improve or the unions block his plan, Mr. Menino vows to lobby for lifting the state's restrictive cap on the number of "pure" charter schools. "Charters are a vehicle to get the reforms we need," he says. Resistance in the state legislature to charter expansion is already wearing out the patience of even sober civic leaders like Paul Grogan, president of the Boston Foundation, a large private philanthropy. Creating more charters "couldn't be a more urgent matter," he told a legislative committee recently, adding that further delay "borders on criminal." The Boston Foundation recently released a study noting that students admitted to charter schools were doing much better than the children they left behind in regular public schools, and better than students in those pilot schools that the mayor supported. The report found, for example, that students in pilot schools did not improve above regular public school students in eighth grade math. Charter-school children vastly improved their scores. With Mr. Menino now pressing for more charters, Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick could soon be under tremendous pressure to do more than pay lip service to the idea. The governor has so far professed support for charters, then supported policies that hamstrung them. For example, he has called for easing caps on charter schools -- but only in the worst-performing districts and with restrictions that force them to toss aside the lottery system they use to select students and instead adopt quotas for special education and English-as-a-second-language students. It's unclear if such charter policies will meet Mr. Duncan's federal-funding smell test. It definitely doesn't satisfy Ms. Brown of Building Excellent Schools. "He cannot keep kicking popular opinion and political sanity aside," she says. For Mr. Patrick, whose poll ratings are sagging low enough for some to wonder if he can win re-election in 2010, all of this has to be worrisome. The pro-charter rhetoric from Mr. Menino -- who is usually ranked alongside Sen. Edward Kennedy as the state's most popular politician -- is a flashing warning light. He can continue to cave into the teacher unions. Or he can get in line with demands of the Obama administration and offer unqualified support for charter schools. Mr. Menino, for one, is already well down that path. He says that his own children are eyeing Boston charter schools for two of his grandchildren next fall.
MORE EVIDENCE LINKING ABBOTT FUNDING TO IMPROVED STUDENT OUTCOMES
STUDY DOCUMENTS DRAMATIC GAINS FOR BLACK AND HISPANIC STUDENTS Another research study has linked the additional funding provided to New Jersey’s 31 urban school districts under the landmark Abbott v. Burke school funding case to improved student outcomes. The latest study, by Alexandra Resch at the University of Michigan, found that the additional dollars directed to the urban districts were largely spent on instruction and support services and resulted in "a significant positive impact on 11th grade achievement."
Weekly Highlights How often do you have one of those moments when you look around you and truly believe that you are among people who not only can, but will make a difference in our world? Even as folks who work on a daily basis with grassroots organizations and community activists, this Tuesday's trainings - focused on youth organizers and their capacity to make real change - was an inspiring event! Organized by the Youth Policy Initiative, we gathered with nonprofit staff and student activists from across the state to discuss how they talk about government - and how they interact with their communities. For more information on this exciting day, see Community News below. With the importance of ongoing discussions surrounding our state budget priorities and tax policies, we only hope that we can all be as engaged as these young adults are. That is why we are renewing our offer to provide Train the Trainer sessions in your community! For more information on how you can be a founding member of one of our regional member-training teams, see below under Civic Engagement. Here is a look at what else has been going on across Massachusetts: Civic Engagement Goal: By 2013, the voice and input of the state's multi-racial, multi-ethnic communities will create a counterweight to the currently dominant voice and will be tangibly reflected in the public decision making process. Get Involved: Now more than ever, it is critical for concerned residents to weigh in on the important decisions being made by legislators and state officials. That is why ONE Massachusetts is offering updated trainings - in English and Spanish - designed to give Massachusetts residents the tools they need to understand the implications of tax and budget policies and to advocate effectively on all areas of public policy. To take place in a free Train the Trainer session - either for your own education, or to become a ONE Massachusetts Regional Trainer - contact one of the following ONE Massachsuetts staff members:
• Boston Residents - Ask Your Questions! MassVOTE wants to know what questions you would like asked of the Boston Mayoral and At-Large City Councilor candidates. Contact Cheryl Crawford at MassVOTE with your questions today! Updates: Revenue Goal: By 2013, a fair, adequate, and stable tax system will be implemented. It will raise sufficient revenue so that state and local governments can fund the array of services needed. With policymakers still scrambling to erase the red ink in the current fiscal year, the Senate passed a $646 million supplemental spending bill that includes $64 million for the Boston Medical Center, spending the House opposes, setting up a likely conference committee on budget fixes for the fiscal year that has 26 days remaining. Legally required due to a $1.5 billion downgrade in tax projections, Patrick's budget rewrite, overdue by about two weeks, lowers spending by 2.5 percent below projected fiscal 2009 levels and by roughly 3.8 percent below his original fiscal 2010 budget, calling for $794 million more in cuts. [State House News Service] [More on Governor's Budget - including above video - at Boston.com] Government Reform Goal: By 2013, a transparent, accessible and accountable state and local policy-making process will be in place. In a joint statement, the three leaders said, "The news of yesterday's indictments and the nature of the charges are deeply disturbing. All three of us have put forth serious proposals dealing with ethics, lobbying and campaign finance reform, the details of which are currently being negotiated in conference committee. In light of the recent developments, we believe it is critical that we stand united in our shared commitment to restoring the public trust. Therefore, we have agreed that ethics reform legislation will be passed and signed into law swiftly that includes the best provisions from all three of our proposals. We owe the people of Massachusetts nothing less." [More information on Ethics Reform: Emily Rooney Video, Boston.com] Outside Section 7A calls for Secretary of Administration and Finance to create and maintain a searchable website detailing the costs, recipients, and purposes for all appropriations, including contracts, grants, subcontracts, tax expenditures and other subsidies funded by the state government. The database will include state revenue sources and expenses including the "quasi-public" agencies. The web portal shall be accessible to the public and updated on a regular basis. Outside Section 15 will allow a meaningful review of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent each year in tax credits for various initiatives from historic preservation to brownfields restoration, to economic stimulus to employment. For more information on the letter, or on budget transparency, please contact MASSPIRG. Community News Exploring Attitudes About Youth & Talking About Government Over one hundred and fifty community advocates - both adults and students - gathered Tuesday to explore deeply-held beliefs in the United States surrounding our government, and the perceptions of youth in our communities. Because research has proven that teens are often somehow seen as both 'our hope for the future' and 'the cause of all of our problems," the group explored ways to effectively communicate about their activities within our communities to build safer, healthier places for all of us to live. A few facts about the Millenial Generation (those born between 1982 and 2003) that surprised some attendees included the following:
This has certainly been an interesting week, and today’s events were no different. As Republican Senators filed into the chamber this morning, a group of protesters led by Citizen Action chanted “Voters Not Donors” and “Senate Not For Sale.” At the same time, protests in Buffalo and Rochester were also taking place – Buffalo’s in front of the State Office Building, and Rochester’s in front of the Paychex offices (Tom Golisano’s company). Today we sent a strong message that a billionaire’s political power grab will not silence the people’s reform agenda – legislation that would create affordable health care and housing, environmental protections, marriage equality, and public financing of elections. And throughout the week, you made calls and sent emails and faxes to key members of the legislature. Our actions this week have really made a difference. We’ve made it clear that New York State government must work for all New Yorkers. Yesterday, we asked you to take 3 actions: call the Democratic Senator(s) closest to you, sign up to be a Citizen Action First Responder, and fill out a friends and neighbors list. Today, we need you to do it again: Thanks so much for everything you’ve done this week!
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The Snap Schott is distributed by the Schott Foundation for Public Education. For more information, please visit www.schottfoundation.org. |
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