Friday, January 05, 2018

The New Chanceelor Will Need To Eliminate The Administrative Bloat At The DOE.



























One of the major problems that the New York City Schools suffer from is that far too much money is diverted to the Central Bureaucracy at the DOE at the expense of the schools and the students. According to Leonie Hamson the Executive Director of Class Size Matters the number of top level administrators has doubled since the last year under the Bloomberg administration.  Moreover, the budget at the DOE's Central Bureaucracy has increased 70% since Mayor Bill de Blasio took charge of the schools,  Finally, there has been a 34% increase in the central staff expenses.

By contrast, the schools contimue to be underfunded.  The latest information from the IBO is that the average school only receives 87% of what "fair student funding" requires.  The planned increases to 90% has so far failed to materialized as money continues to be diverted by the DOE to other uses.  Furthermore, class sizes remain the highest in the State with far too many students, about 33%, in classes too large for proper instruction.  Finally, more than a half a million students, almost 50%, attend overcrowded schools and the DOE is falling behind in allocating funds to build new classrooms to accommodate the overcrowded schools.  With the expected influx of students from Puerto Rico,. the overcrowded can only get worse not better without additional funded to build more classrooms.

Yet, the DOE rather spend money on the academically struggling Renewal Schools by allocating 50 million dollars annually to the program that pays for consultants and  administrative bureaucrats, many of them failed principals or other failed administrators that found a refuge in the Renewal program.  In addition, the DOE continues to protect incompetent and/or vindictive principals and resists efforts by parents, students, and teachers to remove them.  The latest examples were at Central Parlk East 1 and Townsend Harris High School, where it took the media to help removes those principals.  Finally, the new Chancellor will need to address the ATR situation and the policies like school based fair student funding that penalizes the placement of veteran teachers.

To resolve the above issues the new Chancellor must eliminate the administrative bloat at Tweed that is the root of  all the problems listed above.  Once the administrative bloat is eliminated, then money can be freed up for lower class sizes, the solving of the ATR crisis, and the schools receiving adequate resource to operate for the benefit of their students.

9 comments:

Michael Fiorillo said...

It's more than a little ironic, since the old Board of Education, which had a passing resemblance to a democratic institution, unlike today, was always attacked by so-called reformers for its administrative bloat.

Now, we have the worst of all worlds: worsening conditions in the classroom, unlimited budgets for do-worse-than-nothing administrators at Tweed, a vicious, punitive attitude toward educators,and no input from parents, teachers or the union.

Anonymous said...

How about Tottenville h.s. The principal there has trumped up charges on 2 people including the chapter leader. Has effectively brought the school down in morale and achievement. Gets assistant principals to go in and change evaluations after they are entered into advance. The union has been made aware of all this, especially the exec board and higher ups. So why has nothing been done about this abusive principal after the union met with chancellor's reps

Anonymous said...

Chaz I have to disagree on this stance for the following reason. More money will never equal less students in a classroom because there is not enough space to house all of these students. Until the overcrowding issues remain in the city, there will always be overcrowding in schools. New residential buildings constantly go up but not new schools to house these students.

Unless money goes into new schools this is a problem that will not go away regardless of how much money they throw at reducing the size of classrooms with more teachers.

No space

Anonymous said...

Hey 3:53,
The same bullshit has been going on at Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn for years with Ari Hoogenboom. He has forced out teachers as well as administrators for years and gotten away with it.

Anonymous said...

Check out this article about M.S. 80 in the Bronx. There's been multiple issues with administration here, but the principal remains in charge.


https://nypost.com/2018/01/06/struggling-bronx-school-is-a-hellhole-teachers-say/

Anonymous said...

Namita Dwarka from WC Bryant HS tries to sleep with teachers' boyfriends and harasses the girlfriends out to have a clear path to the bacon. Classless Skank!

Anonymous said...

Skank.....just love that word. And when speaking of Namita, so appropriate.

Anonymous said...

Unbelievable.

Anonymous said...

Rumor has it that Ari Hoogenboom likes fidget spinners:

https://youtu.be/xnx8wQbaQqs