NYC Council’s gripes on school cuts come with an extra heaping of audacity

Metropolis Council leaders blasted $215 million in decreased faculty funding.
AP

It’s common that Metropolis Councilmembers are griping over some modest spending cuts for faculties; as pawns of the academics union, they’re at all times going to demand extra money for faculties. But their complaints this 12 months include an additional dose of audacity.

For one factor, the councilmembers themselves accredited this 12 months’s $101 billion metropolis finances, which features a modest $215 million in cuts for the town’s Division of Schooling. Now they’re turning round and blaming DOE mismanagement.

But the cuts signify a mere 0.7% of the company’s $31 billion finances, actually according to falling enrollments. And don’t neglect: Among the faculties’ finances final 12 months got here from DC by way of COVID-relief funds, to pay for additional pandemic-related prices. The pandemic’s over, so a barely smaller finances is to be anticipated.

Get this, too: The mayor’s workplace says per-pupil spending will truly rise to $31,434, up from pre-pandemic figures — the very best of any huge metropolis within the nation. (And the DOE has one other $4.3 billion in unspent federal COVID stimulus cash to spend by 2025.)

Final 12 months’s finances included further COVID-19 funding.

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Then there’s Colleges Chancellor David Banks’ level: DOE “has a $31 billion annual finances … and but we now have 65% of Black and brown youngsters who by no means obtain proficiency.” He calls that “outrageous” — a “betrayal.”

Council members who actually care about youngsters must be railing, like Banks, not about cuts however in regards to the poor high quality of schooling faculties present regardless of all these billions.