After much deliberation, I have decided to support Bill de Blasio for mayor of New York City.
I thought long and hard, because I know and respect some of the other candidates.
I issued the following statement to the de Blasio campaign.
“I am proud to support Bill de Blasio for mayor of New York City. I support him because I believe he will be a great mayor with a fresh vision for the city, its families, and its children. It’s time for a change. Bill de Blasio knows that he must rebuild the city’s school system so that there is a good public school in every neighborhood. I endorse his plan to ask the wealthy to pay a little more in taxes so the city can provide universal pre-kindergarten for all four-year-olds and more after-school programs for middle-school students who need them. I am proud to stand with Bill de Blasio for a better New York City.”
Bill de Blasio understands that the mayor must stand up for all 1.1 million students in the New York City school system and make the system function well for all of them.
He knows that public education will suffer if the city continues on its present course of privatization, high-stakes testing, and closing of neighborhood schools. He understands that churn and disruption are bad for children, bad for families, bad for schools, and bad for communities.
Bill de Blasio recognizes that this is a time to build anew. It is time for fresh ideas, new thinking, a recognition that the life of every child is precious and that public education is a cornerstone of our democracy.
If he is elected mayor, I believe Bill de Blasio will use his position to strengthen public education, to listen to parents, and to give educators the respect they deserve for the work they do daily.
He realizes that schools can’t do the job alone, which is why he has pledged to increase spending for early childhood education and after-school programs and to reduce class sizes.
These are research-based programs that the children of New York City need.
Is he an idealist, as some charge? Yes. Does he offer hope for a better future? Yes.
Bill de Blasio will work to provide equal opportunity for all of New York City’s children.
This is his goal, and it is mine too.
And that is why I endorse him for mayor.
I have to agree. As a gay man, I wish I could support the gay candidate, but I am a dad with a son in public school, and that is my most important guide for how I will vote. I read your blog religiously and hope that in the end you are making a difference!
thanks, Mitch
http://www.gaynycdad.com/category/parenting-stories
I agree, too! I wanted to see Liu make it in the primaries. Unfortunately, it will not happen. But, I understand de Blasio’s platform and he has a very clear vision for NYC and its children. I do not want to see a semblance of Bloomberg’s education policies in 2014 and de Blasio will ensure that NYC gets a fresh start.
I agree as well!! As a NYC high school teacher, I want a mayor who is stakeholder as a parent in the city’s public schools. This empathetic perspective has already led to his promise to do two things that will affect NYC students: 1) Provide universal pre-k, by creating a tax on wealthy New Yorkers and (and this may sound odd to include in an Edu blog, but it’s not) 2) Reform “Stop & Frisk” (a practice that has had a terrible effect on my very own teenage (minority) male students over the years and one that I want to see go away -now). I’m excited at the idea of having this kind of mayor and am very very happy to learn that my favorite educator (you) had endorsed him. Yay!
Unfortunately, I too want to vote for DiBlasio too, and in doing so, I will be voting AGAINST the UFT endorsed candidate, Thompson. This will further split our already dysfunctional UNITY driven union in NYC.
So you intentionally helped to split the unions power and recognition in city politics even further.
I don’t answer to the union. I speak only for myself.
John,
I and many other NYC teachers stood with de Blasio. Weingarten has proven she can’t be a trusted union leader here in NYC. If you read the polls, every demographic went for de Blasio. I am sure many other unions also went against their leadership. And now the NYTimes is reporting that Quinn supporters will also back de Blasio. I doubt Diane has the power over each and every New Yorker or union member. But she does know who is best for education.
If the UFT wanted better representation for unions, they should have supported Thompson 4 years ago. Instead they claimed he didn’t have a chance in hell against Bloomberg. Yet he lost by 4% points. Imagine if Weingarten had given him the $2 million then.
But let’s also remember that Thompson agreed with Bloomberg about not giving us a raise. Now they seem to be rewriting history on that statement.
Bill de Blasio may turn out to be a great mayor for Education but I am perplexed at the attractiveness of increasing an already progressive NYC income tax without first examining level of current funding and where it is actually going. As France is discovering the net benefits may not be as great as anticipated.
It seems to me that low hanging fruit already likely exists in the massive NYC Education Budget.
a) Total 2012-13 Register 993,903
b) Filled Pedagogic Positions 89,533
c) DoE 2012-13 Budget $24.40 billion
d) 2012-13 Operating Budget $19.70 billion
e) 2012-16 Capital Plan Budget $11.20 billion
f) or $2.24 billion per year assuming level spending
g) Total Planned NYC Expenses 2012-13 $26.64 billion ( c + f )
h) *Per pupil total expenditure $26,803 (g / a)
I) *Per pupil operating expenditure $19.821 (d / a)
j) *Per teacher(?) operating expenditure $220,030
*Calculations derived from the above data
22/2/2013 per
http://web.archive.org/web/20130215000000*/http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/funding/overview/default.htm
Your numbers don’t work Bernie. The maximum end of the teacher pay scale is 100,000 (and change).
The operating cost only covers pension and debt (and the debt should not be attributed to teachers at all).
Further, it doesn’t take into account the administrative costs of the DOE, technology costs, building rents, electricity, broadband, water, custodial costs, etc.
Teachers are not getting 200k a year even including their benefits – trying to even make it seem like that’s a possibility and that there is thus “waste” is sickening.
There is waste down at the DOE – but it’s not in your teachers or their salaries. Most teachers are NOT at the 22 year 100k a year mark.
He’s just dividing the number of “pedagogical positions” by the total operating expenses. It doesn’t tell you much more about how much teachers “costs” than the “spending per student” tells you about how much each student “costs.”
You got it backwards about operating expenses, though. Operating expenses cover everything *except* pension contributions and debt service. And operating expenses do cover most if not all of the things you list in your third paragraph.
FLERP:
Thanks for clarifying. I was trying to communicate the size of the issues that whoever is in charge of the school systems is going to have to deal with and the resources already at their disposal. Folks may not like the ratios but I bet they will be front and center in any debate on increasing taxes.
For what it’s worth, the average teacher salary in NYC is somewhere between $70k and $80k. (As of last year, it was $75,373 for general ed teachers and $71,435 for special ed teachers.)
FLERP:
Thanks for the data. That makes sense since the normal full overhead calculation for most service organizations comes in at around 2.2 to 2.6 times direct salary costs.
You’re right – that’s what I was trying to say Flerp.
Bottom line – it’s faulty math – you need to account for the buildings, supplies, and all the other “stuff” that makes a school, a school.
It’s not that the buildings magically come into existence and then you pay the rest of the money to the teachers which is what this simplistic calculation says.
M:
You need to read what FLERP said again. Then you need to think about these numbers in the context of any effort to raise taxes in NYC. Then you have to also factor in unfunded teacher pensions and health benefits which in 2010 were roughly $90 billion. The Mayor has to have answers for these questions as well.
M:
The numbers are accurate according to the definitions supplied by the NYC budget office. Operating expenditures do not include pension and debt interest. They are not included in Operating expenditures. Why they are not is a different issue.
I am not suggesting for one moment that teachers earn $200K p.a. A standard accounting metric in any organization is revenue/expenditure per employee. Another standard metric is revenue/expenditure per core employee. In a medical office it would be a revenue/expenditure per physician. In a lawyers’ office it would be per lawyer. These numbers are used to begin to identify where there is too much overhead among other things. If direct salary costs per teacher are, for the sake of argument, $100K then you have an overhead loading of 120%.
The total expenditure figure including 2012-2016 capital budget is where the new mayor will need to start to “size” the problem he/she has to deal with and the financial resources he/she will have at his/her disposal. NYC schools are a mind numbingly complex undertaking. It has more employees than 26 of the Top 50 Fortune 500 companies. It manages similar revenues to those of Nike, Raytheon, Eli Lilly, Xerox, Alcoa, and Capital One. It has 5 times the operating expenses of Facebook. The mayor is going to need some help.
More fun with numbers: Facebook has around 4,500 employees. The NYC DOE says it has around 135,000 full-time employees. That’s 30 times as many employees for five times the expenses (assuming you’re right about the ratio of operating expenses). So as an employment engine, the DOE gives you six times as much bang for the buck, and that’s not counting the billions that the DOE gives to private companies (technology, transportation, special education services, other school districts). Long live the state.
On the other hand, the NYC DOE doesn’t provide the invaluable services that Facebook provides, such as allowing me to click “Like” when I like something or providing a constant stream of photos of what my acquaintances ate for dinner.
Bernie: examining unfunded teacher pensions (which were not $90b in 2010. That much money wasn’t spent on teacher pensions that or any year at all and TRS offers no line in their report to indicate how much is unfunded (which is a ridiculous label to assign as it doesn’t exist. not even in Detroit)) during the height of the recession is choosing to embrace an unfair extreme. I understand your trying to make a point (and sure, I disagree with it) but the numbers you use border on cardstacking. One last thing: “pedagogical employees” is very misleading as the chancellor’s salary is also part of that. This past year, the UFT mailed just over 69,000 ballots to active teachers (as mandated by federal law and reported by their minority caucus MORE). That means that there were only app. 69,000 public school teachers last year (very little known, but easily checkable fact). Let’s start there, consider that that number was once much much higher and then ask whether there is money in the budget to be found.
People have been blaming NYC’s ballooning pension costs on the recession for five years. This will be a banner year for the fund’s returns. If you think this is so the height of the recession, then maybe you think we’re in a long-term slowdown. If so, that means the pension fund is far more underfunded than it appears.
TRSNYC does in fact report how much it’s unfunded. In the last annual report, it stated that amount as about $23 billion (59% funded). That’s based on the same actuarial assumptions that the fund uses to determine the required employer contributions (a decent standard).
FLERP:
I see your $23 billion figure here
Click to access cafr.pdf
It is strange that Pew cam up with such a different figure. I will have to look at their report more closely.
They probably were working off the 2010 report, and they may have been using a market valuation of the assets and the obligations, rather than actuarial. I don’t think NYC TRS reported its funded ratios until its most recent report. In the one I cited, there’s another table that shows the gap between assets and obligations as about $42 billion when measured on a market basis.
And the retiree health care is indeed essentially zero percent funded. Nobody’s complaining.
This is why Bill de Blasio doesn’t have a plan to reduce class sizes.
FLERP
Given the massive size of the unfunded health care liabilities – I am not even sure who owns the liability – do you have a sense of how it plays out under Obamacare?
Bernie and FLERP, there are times when I think the two of you are actually one person. Let me remind you that this is an EDUCATION blog. Take your discussion of unfunded health-care costs elsewhere. There must be another blog where you can talk, or just write to one another by email.
But Bernie and urbaned started it!
Seriously, though, I think there is nothing more important to public education than the finances of public education. It affects every level of services. It’s why no candidate has a credible class size reduction plan (assuming they have a plan at all). It’s why there are fewer and fewer teachers in NYC schools every year. I think it’s dead on this particular thread, though, so you won’t see any more here from me on the topic.
nycurbaned:
Good questions since I cannot find a definitive source. The $90 billion I mentioned was for both pension and health care, This source
Click to access Pew_city_pensions_brief.pdf
indicates that in 2009 the unfunded pension is $44 billion and healthcare is $70 billion. I will have to track my earlier source. The numbers may well have shifted with the recovery of the stock market – but I think the actuarial assumptions about real rates of return for most pension funds are totally unrealistic for the current and foreseeable future.
Regardless of the precise amount this unfunded liability will or should have first claim on any additional tax revenues in any new administration.
Bernie,
Instead of trusting Pew, I encourage you to trust the TRS reports. Which by law must be accurate.
Now no one ever said that the employees would fund their own benefits. The taxpayers (those who are able in a progressive society) must accept the responsibilities behind the cost of having an advanced society (that’s the whole ‘If you like roads, you should like taxes’ argument which I fully endorse). Through that context, there are no mandates in NYC (who’s budget must be balanced each year by law) that are not, at some point, funded.
I appreciate the points your making (even if I disagree with them). But making them on a post that endorses a populist candidate for mayor, and with such detail, is a bit worrisome. Does the mere presence of a populist candidate call all of these budget concerns into question? Have we suddenly decided that the education budget couldn’t use more funding? I mean, I don’t know. But what I do know is that the proposed tax on more affluent New Yorkers will ensure that every child will have full day pre-k (something that I, as an upper middle-class teacher couldn’t even afford for my own child (and which I went into (revolving) debt for). The numbers (not these numbers) may well say that that’s just an excuse to for me to feel good about a new tax on the “rich” but if that’s the case -if you’re indicating that this proposal is an example of class war here in the city- then let’s discuss that instead.
It’s tough to follow comments on DRs blog, so I’m going to let you take the last word If you want. Be well
Teachers pay into both their pensions and health care. Without these benefits, salaries would have to greatly increase. I also hope Weingarten stops using our pensions to go into the construction and landlord business. She is a supporter of building apartments for teachers, aids and others who are not well-paid. Perhaps if she supported a candidate who doesn’t want people to be put in a have and have not position, she would support deBlasio.
I ran into DeBlasio when he was campaigning one day and asked about the mayor’s role with the public schools, and in particular about testing. He said his decision would be to require only the legally mandated minimum of testing. He got my vote at that minute.
What’s the legally mandated minimum?
“No Child Left Behind requires that, by the 2005-06 school year, each state must measure every child’s progress in reading and math in each of grades 3 through 8 and at least once during grades 10 through 12. In the meantime, each state must meet the requirements of the previous law reauthorizing ESEA (the Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994) for assessments in reading and math at three grade spans (3-5; 6-9; and 10-12). By school year 2007-2008, states must also have in place science assessments to be administered at least once during grades 3-5; grades 6-9; and grades 10-12. Further, states must ensure that districts administer tests of English proficiency–to measure oral language, reading and writing skills in English–to all limited English proficient students, as of the 2002-03 school year.
“Students may still undergo state assessments in other subject areas (i.e., history, geography and writing skills), if and when the state requires it. No Child Left Behind, however, requires assessments only in the areas of reading/language arts, math and science.”
http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/accountability/ayp/testing-faq.html
So it looks like de Blasio pledged (to this individual voter) to stop NYC DOE schools from administering the 5th grade NYSED social studies exam. Jackpot!
Judging from his Web site, his class size platform is similarly modest. Although de Blasio has no class size reduction plan at the moment, he promises that he’ll come up with a plan if he’s elected. It would be a “targeted class size reduction plan for our early grades and in hard-to-teach grades, such as ninth grade, in struggling schools.” From that, I infer that de Blasio is more of a realist than he’s been credited, and believes that there isn’t enough money in the system to substantially reduce class sizes across the board, and that he’s not planning on finding that money through higher taxes or changing spending priorities.
Actually, if English and math are the only mandated tests: watch out: good-bye science, social studies or other foreign language. Other subjects should have standardized tests, otherwise good-bye to the other academic subjects.
Parents: contrast your child’s weekly schedule to your recollection of your own, years past. Thanks to high-stakes focus on English and math, everything else gets crowed out: the students just get token exposure to science and social studies, maybe 2 or 3 times per week, if they’re lucky. And foreign language or the arts? Forget about it.
And the mayor should be blamed for some of the obesity issue. All the extra periods of English and math mean that PE is often packed into one or two periods a week, sometimes I’ve heard that catch up games are done, with back to back PE.
We were always tested in reading and math, but the difference is they were not used in a punitive manner.
I want to vote De Blasio – but – I don’t want to split the vote on Quinn between De Blasio/Thompson and end up with Quinn as the winner.
That being said, everyone is predicting a run off and the question of the moment is whether it will be thompson or de blasio against Quinn.
Quinn would be an unmitigated disaster. Just so long as I get a chance to vote against whoever is in a run-off against her, I’ll be happy with that outcome – we just want it so that De Blasio and Thompson are splitting votes against each other prior to a run off and not handing Quinn enough that she walks away with the election.
Please, avoid Quin by going all-in for De Blasio. Far from weakening the union, you’ll strengthen the rank and file teachers in New York who want their voice in their their union, and you’ll get a better mayor.
I agree. I’m a public elementary school teacher, and although the UFT endorsed Bill Thompson – I think they picked the wrong Bill. I’ll be voting for the right one (and so will a lot of my colleagues!).
Thank You Diane. I am sure deBlasio is also proud to have your endorsement!! Quinn and Thompson are horrible choices. Quinn stated she had no problem with accepting a Students First contribution. Pretty much sums up her integrity.
Schoolgal: Can you please let me know why you feel Thompson is a horrible choice? I promise you I am not challenging you. I am just trying to be informed on the issues. Thanks!
Others have said it here already–it’s because Tisch is his campaign manager. This is the same woman who is forcing standardized testing down our throats. I cannot believe Thompson will be able to stand up against her agenda when her $$$$ (she is very wealthy) are behind his campaign. I did not trust the UFT endorsement either. Leave it to Randi to stand with Reformers.
Keep in mind that 4 years ago Randi did not support Thompson. Nor did she come out against Bloomberg’s illegal 3rd term or mayoral control.
And in his debate with Bloomberg 4 years ago, Thompson left out so much ammunition against his school policy–for instance he never brought up how his highly paid consultants were so horrible, children were left on street corners in freezing temps because they screwed up the new bus routes. Some of those buses would only take one sibling!!! There was so much more Thompson could have brought up and I wondered why he didn’t. Then I learned Bloomberg made a very large contribution to Thompson’s wife pet museum project. Sorry, but things aren’t adding up with him.
Just to reinforce the point that we must be wary of Thompson. As schoolgal says, NYS regents chancellor Merryl Tisch is his campaign manager.
Here are some nuggets of her: “The reason to test to the Common Core is because the Common Core is being rolled out.” -watch the video for yourself at Video: Tisch on Common Core and Thompson for Mayor
Tisch lays the fault for kids’ test stress and adults, presumably, parents and teachers: “If adults are going to pass their stress along to students, I would urge them not to.” Listen to the audio or read the transcript, and go to the WS Journal story for more references to her line of thought on this. Tisch Blames Adults for Kids’ Test Stress – Some Common Core Test Double-think, Meeting WNYC’s Lehrer, 8/15
If this is the sort of person that Thompson has heading his election campaign, we must be very wary of what kind of plans he has for the school system.
Schoolgal referenced Quinn and Thompson beating up on deBlasio. Kind of makes you wonder again about Thompson.
TheNY Times ran an exposé on Thompson’s tenure as comptroller. Interesting read.
Link for the transcript of the 8/14 WNYC interview of Tisch blaming adults and singing the praises of the Common Core over and over: http://nyceye.blogspot.com/2013/08/transcript-of-tisch-interview-common.html
Thank you Diane,
I too am supporting DeBlasio. Many of my colleagues are also endorsing DeBlasio due to Thompson’s allegiance to Meryl Tisch. I wish the UFT had consulted with their members before they chose the wrong candidate…again.
I am thrilled that you are supporting Bill DeBlasio. I have been following him closely since 2004, and I truly believe he is the one candidate with the will, the fortitude, the wisdom, and the compassion to stand up against the powerful special interests who, with Bloomberg as their champion, have been trying to destroy the great public education tradition in New York City, and throughout the U.S.
I had been previously thinking that, if I was a New Yorker, DeBlasio would be my choice as well.
Rank and file teachers in NY really need to break free from a voiceless position in their union.
Organize, reach out, spread the word. Use social media, email, flyers, phone tag, etc. If teachers voted as a block, you could move from being the powerless class to the power class, like the billionaires and their flunkeys. (And, of course, we all know who really has class…) Chicago teachers are already planning this kind of thing for the next mayoral election, to unseat Rahm.
Another reason I support deBlasio….. Quinn is unapologetic in her support for charter schools.
Wednesday afternoon
This just in from Quinnipiac:
DeBlasio at 36%
Quinn at 21%
Thompson 20%
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/28/us-usa-politics-newyork-idUSBRE97R16A20130828
Quinn and Thompson are pulling out all the stops against deBlasio. Quinn has come out saying that deBlasio was for the illegal 3rd term before he was against it. At least he made the right decision in the end. The NYTimes is also running scared over a deBlasio win. They want someone who will continue the Bloomberg legacy. If he gets 40% of the vote, there won’t be a runoff.
I don’t think more of the same-old same-old from the Times is going to pull De Blasio down. People have already heard it, and have had quite enough, thank you.
Yesterday’s Times had a very good table laying out the candidates’ education positions. DeBlasio’s was clearly the best to me. There are other issues involved in the mayoral race, but on this one he seems the obvious choice.
During the time Thompson was BOE president, state commission found $2 billion dollars in cost overruns partially resulting from the board’s poor capital improvement plans and complete lack of oversight. One board member even expressed her qualms over the ethics of a board which would make plans but never see them through. Thompson’s answer, the board only made plans, the money part was not his problem. As comptroller, he failed to stop the citytime scandal, and stood by as millions of tax dollars went to consulting firms like Mckinsey & Co that took city money with little in return. Thompson’s answer, a shrug of the shoulders with a “may be I could have done more” but his attitude once again was that the money part was not his problem. Now his platform contains multitude of unfunded projects. I guess the money part is still not his problem. NYC simply cannot afford a Thompson mayoralty where the money part will become all our problem.
Also Thompson appointed Harold Levy as chancellor when he was BOE president. Levy began the corporatization of education ball rolling. He even tried to get Edison to manage schools in Harlem. Thank heaven parent groups put a stop to that disaster.
Met De Blasio at a campaign stop and he promised he would audit the DEP and put the lid on some of these outrageous consultant fees.
PLEASE, EVERYONE WHO VALUES TEACHERS RIGHTS AND AN END TO THIS MADNESS, SIGN THIS PETITION BY ASSEMBLYMAN AL GRAF TO GOVENOR CUOMO TO REPEAL RTTT AND TEACHER EVALUATIONS (AND SPREAD THE WORD)!
Can anyone speak to the Mayor’s position on Common Core?????
I can’t. I don’t know.