Education Report

On February 10, 1999, NYC ADA Education Committee Chair Evelyn Jones Rich testified before the NYC Board of Education on the Expense Budget 1999-2000. She addressed a number of concerns we have about schools, and proposed four initiatives to help revitalize the school system:

 

1) Reject Charter School Experiments. ADA continues to oppose charter schools and vouchers, which take money away from public schools. Also, the experiments with charter schools have shown only modest improvements for the investment required, and even those gains are arguable.

 

2) Initiate Staff Development Programs. Studies have shown time and time again that the most important asset to learning is a good teacher. Along those lines, money should be put to work to hire and train better-qualified instructors for our schools.

 

3) Adopt a multi-year budget, especially in the area of instruction. Too often schools do not know how much funding they will be getting for the next year, and are thus unable to plan ahead and make meaningful investments. With multi-year budgets, schools would be able to properly plan.

 

4) Create a new position of Building Manager for sites hosting two or more schools within a building. Some schools share their space with other schools, maintaining separate principals and administrations. This often causes problems with division of space and assets. A Building Manager would be able to properly administer.