Looking Backward, Looking Forward, Education in New York City

A week ago, early on Friday afternoon you may have noticed a “whoosh,” across the city, no, not the Canadian wild fires, New York City educators exhaling, the end of another school year.

An odd year; campaigning to elect a governor in a tight race against a maga-Trumper whose “thank you” was fighting tooth and nail to eliminate regional charter school caps and create another hundred charter schools in New York City, a failed attempt after holding up the state budget approval for a month.

On again, off again contract negotiations with hundreds of “actions:” rallies, teach-ins, leafleting across the city culminating in a tentative contract at the last moment. The contract was overwhelmingly approved  with a record number of members voting.

The new teacher contract, by November, 2027, raises teachers salaries to $151.271 and starting salary to $73.349 and paraprofessionals to $56,751.

The contract provides a number of “student pathway initiatives,” impressive steps forward.

A relationship with the Department of Education, at times, conciliatory, at times combative.

An agreement, with caveats, to work with the Department to move all schools, phased in over two years, to phonics-based early literacy instruction.

Looking forward, what challenges will face teachers in the 23-24 school year?

The first: will kids show up?  

The school system has seen dramatic losses in students over the pandemic years, and the reductions appear to have waned.

For the first time since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, New York City’s public schools expect student enrollment to hold mostly steady across the five boroughs in the coming year, according to education department.

Projected enrollment is expected to drop 0.6% in K-12 across many of the city’s public schools, down from a more than 2% decline in the 2022-23 school year and just under 6% drop the year before.

While some schools will see budget cuts due to loss of students the vast majority will not see cuts.

The class size reduction law phasing in the schools will begins in September, the reduction will phase in over five years.

The UFT and the CSA, the unions, must approve the phase-in plan and have not agreed to the current Department plan.

Many education advocates cheered when Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law last September a five-year plan to reduce class sizes in New York City’s public schools. 

For the first year, however, the city’s education department plans to make no changes …

Under that plan — which is supposed to spell out how the city will meet the law’s new requirements — class sizes will remain the same in September. That’s because the education department says that enough of its core classes — an average 39% — for K-12 exceed the requirements in the law for the first year of the plan. (The plan only affects city-run schools, not charters.)

But, for future school years, education department officials are bracing for some big expenses to comply with the law. They estimate it will cost $1.3 billion a year for new teachers when the plan is fully implemented as well as about $30-$35 billion in capital expenditures to construct new spaces or reconfigure old ones. 

With the COVID recovery federal dollars ending next year the class size reductions will be challenging for the city.

The action will be in Albany

Will the governor, once again, add eliminating the regional charter caps in her budget?  The governor’s State of the State message in usually the first week in January and preliminary budget at the end of January.

Mayoral control sunsets on June 30^th, 2024, unless the legislature and the governor change the law New York City school governance reverts to the pre 2002 law, which is highly unlikely.

The mayor would like to see a lengthy extension, legislative leaders, reflecting their constituents, want to see changes, although at the moment there are no specific plans. The legislature could appoint a commission to recommend changes to the legislature, with a mayoral primary in June, 2025 the mayor wants to resolve in the upcoming legislative session and avoid making mayoral control part of a June ,2025 primary campaign.

The tri-annual UFT leadership election takes place next spring and the caucuses, the internal union political parties will be vying in the upcoming elections.

Retiree Health Plans are being vigorously litigated, will the current Senior Care plan survive, or, the Aetna Medical Advantage Plan, or, can the mayor impose a plan, or, proposed legislation, the NYS Health Act (Read here) replace Senior Care and Aetna, stay tuned.

An illegal scheme to raise dollars for the Adams mayoral election resulted in indictments, the culprits trying to gain influence with the mayor? Was the mayor aware of the scheme?  Is public advocate Jumanne Williams, next in line for Gracie Mansion, ready to run New York City?