Chancellor meets with Parent Advisory Board

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein made his 5th trip to Queens to sell Mayor Bloomberg’s “Fair Student Funding” plan (FSF) to Borough President Helen Marshall’s Parent Advisory Board. This second major shake-up of the public school system in as many years is scheduled to take effect this July.
Accompanying Klein was Martine Guerrier, who was named the City’s first Chief Family Engagement Officer on February 8. Also attending was New York State School Regent Geraldine Chapey.
At the two-hour session in the President’s conference room at Borough Hall in Kew Gardens on Tuesday, March 20, Klein informed the nearly 50 attendees that in early April, the Department of Education (DOE) would send out surveys for every one of the 1.1 million children in the City’s public schools. He also said that unlike previous surveys, the responses would go directly to the DOE, instead of to principals. The results would be included in the new Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS) so that teachers, principals and parent groups would have up-to-date information.
Klein told the packed meeting that the purpose of his trip was to introduce Guerrier, explain FSF, give a progress report on preparations for it, and to get feedback on them. He got an earful.
The Board, made up of parents active in school affairs, Marshall and her Special Assistant for Education, RoseAnn Darche, had previously formulated a list of questions and engaged both City officials in two hours of occasionally contentious discussion.
A major concern in Queens is that because some schools have a greater number of experienced and more highly paid teachers, they would be effectively short-changed in non-salary budget under the plan.
Klein declared that provisions would be made to allow for existing salary requirements in each school. “There are some schools where we have a hundred applicants for one job opening, and others where we have twenty openings each year. We want all schools to have good teachers,” he said.
Klein explained that one focus of the new proposal was to improve schools by helping teachers do a better job. When asked why more was not being done to reduce class size, he responded, “Class size is important, but good teachers are more important. Ask anyone whether they want their kids in a class of seventeen with a bad teacher or twenty five with a good one, and they would rather have the good teacher.”
Many parents are still smarting from the January changes in school bus service, which were devised after a $17 million, no-bid contract to an outside consultant who “failed miserably” in another bussing plan, according to board members. They voiced concern that worse problems would surface if FSF takes effect in July, because the City had not involved local groups enough. “We are the voice of the voiceless, and we haven’t been sufficiently heard on this,” said one board member.
Another board member asked for closer review of principals in the aftermath of “empowerment schools” claiming that $150 thousand intended for educational improvement was spent improving one principal’s office. “I raised an issue about the principal, and the next day I was banned from the school building,” she said.
Klein responded that as they have no tenure, he had “no problem removing principals” who were doing a bad job.
Another cause of disagreement is the issue of Charter Schools, which the city supports and Marshall, a former teacher and PTA president, opposes. Klein observed that these privately operated schools have waiting lists, and the competition they offer promotes improvement. Marshall suggested that they diverted funds needed to “strengthen the public schools.”
When Klein responded that, “A lot of the trouble is the result of years of neglect. It’s going to take a long time to fix and Charter Schools are a good idea in the meantime.” Marshall suggested that he was “buying into a faulty process.”
Marshall wished Guerrier great success, but expressed concern that despite a staff of 1,400 and a $50 million budget, “things are just going to come down on her” too fast, given city insistence on implementing the plan this July.