The state is getting ready to turn Buffalo’s lowest performing schools over to a receiver. It sounds like Michigan’s emergency manager plan, created by Republican Governor Rivk Snyder. The emergency managers handed the schools over to for-profit charter chains. It hasn’t helped or even turned a profit.
On the ground in Buffalo, there are realities, like this story about a homeless boy who loved music. The music program in Buffalo public schools saved him.
But Buffalo can’t afford to have a music teacher in every school.
“Of all the elective programs in the city’s schools, instrumental music has been hit the hardest. During the 2012 school year, the program had 20 full-time teachers spread among the district’s 56 schools. According to the district’s budget posted on its website (page 41 of 70), this year the number is at 13.74 full-time positions and slated drop to 9.86 next year, when the supplemental and temporary funding the program has received from Mayor Byron Brown for the past two years expires. A Contract for Excellence grant boosts that number to 24.16 for the current year.
“Of those 24.16 positions, 14.1 of them are in high schools, leaving ten teachers scattered throughout the district floating between buildings, in some cases to teach one class per six-day cycle.
“Amy Steiner works in three different buildings to provide instrumental music instruction for 40 minutes once a cycle. “I can’t get anything going, and I’m a good teacher,” says Steiner, who was honored by Business First in 2010. “They are literally wasting money.”
“It’s not just teacher positions that have been defunded. The instruments have been neglected, too. The total budget for the program’s supplies is just over $4,000. The current budget for instrument repairs is zero. By way of comparison, the budget for extracurricular athletic programming is just over $3 million—six times greater than the total budget for the academic instrumental music program.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Perhaps the teacher’s union in Buffalo would be willing to give up the cosmetic plastic surgery benefit that cost the district $5.4 million last year in order to fund the music programs and others.
Source?
http://www.wkbw.com/news/plastic-surgery-costs-increase-in-buffalo-public-school-district
“Phil Rumore says teachers haven’t had a contract in more than 10 years, and the union has offered to drop the cosmetic rider a number of times, but the district hasn’t agreed to a deal.”
There is no new contract because NYS law says the last contract stays in place if a new agreement can’t be reached. The union has no incentive to negotiate because what they would get is likely to be less than what they have. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/why-does-buffalo-pay-for-its-teachers-to-have-plastic-surgery/251533/
Pure spin and misdirection. Not once has the union gone to the district and said “our membership would like to end this $0 cost-to-end-user elective cosmetic surgery benefit.” They want something in return. The song of the facelifts, breast augmentations, and chemical peels plays on.
I understand their desire to negotiate everything at once, but I think they would be better served by just unilaterally terminating this outrageous benefit. They’d inconvenience a small set of members and gain a huge amount of good will. I don’t think it’s even a valuable negotiating point because of the negative PR value.
Instead, this serves as a shining example of how the interests of teachers and students are not the same and how a publicly elected school board and a public sector union can agree to irresponsible future costs that do not remotely serve the mission.
And the Triborough Amendment (as it is called) is just one reason why I have to laugh when anyone talks about the undue influence of hedge fund managers on NY education politics. Any influence they have is completely dwarfed by the influence of public sector unions.
We do not have a plastic surgery benefit in Ohio and they still are cutting music and arts. Next example?
Are the taxpayers funding your schools to the tune of nearly $26,000 per enrolled student?
Who specifically is the “they”?
John said the plastic surgery benefit was the issue, not per pupil spending. He implied a link and suggested giving up this benefit would fund music programs. Tim, you bring up a different issue of per pupil funding. My point was if just plastic surgery benefits are causing cuts in music programs, Ohio counters that.
John, they is the Ohio state school board. Ohio had a 5 of 9 rule that encouraged music and arts programs. They (school board) got rid of it, causing cuts. They could also be the state legislature who cut school funding.
I’m not saying this is “the cause”‘, but it comes down to spending amounts and priorities. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to say that the state school board allowed the cuts to music, and that local, publicly elected school boards made the actual cuts in conjunction with superintendents when making budgets? And what other options were considered before making that decision?
5 of 8 actually.
OMG! Insanity.
Buffalo’s adopted 2014-2015 school budget was $806.6 million. Current state data shows the district’s enrollment is 31,815. This comes out to $25K and change per student, far above the NYS average (even more so when accounting for the much lower cost of real estate in Western NY), and much more than surrounding suburban districts. It’s even more than the tuition at the lovely Dewey-approved private schools in the area.
Something has gotten far off track if there isn’t money for music teachers and basic instrument repairs on that kind of a budget.
The per pupil spending for Scarsdale is $30,607. They have many less special needs and English Language Learners….and you can bet they have an excellent music program.
You are barking up the wrong tree here: nothing would make me happier than for New York to adopt a system of school funding like Vermont’s, where property taxes are collected by the state, districts can’t self-fund, and aid is distributed on the basis of student need.
But this is the unions and a lot of white people’s worst nightmare–no more $30K+ year Scarsdales and Bronxvilles for the unions to point to and holler “inequity!!!” and watch as costs spiral ever upward, and while taxpayers are willing to swallow the bitter pill of a $20,000+ property tax bill if it’s for their own kids, they sure as hell won’t be on board if the money is going to kids in Yonkers, Brentwood, and the Bronx instead. That defeats the whole purpose of living in an intentionally and systematically segregated district in the first place!
So for now you’ll just have to take solace in the fact that Scarsdale isn’t getting much if anything in state money; that when adjusted for local costs of living, $25K in Buffalo compares very favorably to $30K in Scarsdale; and that there is nothing stopping the voters of Buffalo from spending as much as Scarsdale if they decide that is an important priority.
The Census Bureau’s School Finance data for the Buffalo School District show that in 2013 total per pupil spending was $18773, and instructional spending was $11303.
Files are at http://www.census.gov/govs/school/
Budget totals include a lot of things that do not make sense to count in per pupil totals.
Yes, I hear this argument a lot with respect to the New York City school budget, that a couple billion here and a couple billion there “don’t count” because . . . something.
Whether it is capital expenses, debt payments, or fulfilling obligations to retirees, it is funding that is ostensibly necessary to run a modern school district, and the people who are footing the bill probably don’t care about whatever distinction you are attempting to draw.
But here is the adopted 2014-2015 Buffalo City School District budget (NB: the 2015-2016 budget takes Buffalo close to $26,000 if enrollment stays flat): http://www.buffaloschools.org/files/filesystem/2014-15%20budget%205%2014%2014.pdf. Please let me know which ~$200,000,000 you feel doesn’t make sense to count in per-pupil totals (or which $200,000,000 the district should try to wriggle out of).
You were drawing comparisons. So it is a good idea to use the data on which a comparison can be made.
Another aspect of the Buffalo School District budget is that 82.5% of the revenue is from the State. Since NYS’s tax system is somewhat progressive (better than most states in that respect), since there are many high-income people in NYS, and since Buffalo is a very low-income city, this works out well for the City of Buffalo.
New York does have a relatively progressive state income tax, but at the same time school districts rely heavily on local property taxes, which tends to be regressive. On average, the wealthiest communities (almost all of which are non-integrated suburbs of New York City) spend more per pupil than anyone else. But the large city districts still outspend just about every other district in the US.
All high school students that live within the City of Buffalo are eligible for a free Metro Bus Pass, even if they attend a Catholic high school outside the city limits – the Buffalo public schools pay for that! When my niece was expelled from a Catholic school a few weeks before the end of the school year, the Buffalo public schools had to send a tutor to her home for the remainder of the school year – how much did that cost? The public schools carry a lot of responsibility that charter and private schools don’t.
Don’t worry, Buffalo, things are looking up. People are moving there from Brooklyn — BROOKLYN!
I can almost smell the artisanal kimmelweck baking already and you know the new arrivals will have banjos. Who needs music class?
“. . . you know the new arrivals will have banjos.”
I don’t understand the reference to “having banjos” at all. Can you please explain. TIA!
Duane, I’m poking fun at a stereotype of cultivated Brooklyn consumerism: Amish beards, vintage folk instruments, artisanal foods, Apple watches, $2 million 800-sq-ft condos, etc. Apologies for an “inside baseball” reference
Now you got me double confundido with the “‘inside baseball’ reference”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_baseball_(metaphor)
Thanks, I’ll check it out, hadn’t heard that term either.
Interesting, the term now makes sense!
At one point they were talking about eliminating ALL instrumental music.
Principals are given a budget and they need to decide where to spend the “salary” funds. Often they must choose between a part time math teacher vs a part time instrumental teachers. (Numerous subject area teachers have to split their time between schools – sometimes traveling daily.)
Extra funding allowed some of those elementary schools to get sort of instrumental program in addition to what the principal requested,
It sounds like there should be lots of funding, but it doesn’t seem to end up in instruction that directly impacts the students. Budget cuts are continually made so schools are short staffed and then people wonder why there are problems within the district.