Mayor Michael Bloomberg

While Mayor Mike Bloomberg is saying that he doesn’t want to layoff any city workers in order to get the city out of its economic funk, his office’s recent budget maneuvering has made layoffs all but certain.

Bloomberg had planned to layoff more than 20,000 workers earlier this year but the Obama stimulus package helped save those jobs. Not a year later, City Hall is moving back to original plan while New York City continues to see its unemployment rate grow. In Brooklyn, the unemployment rate is already a whole percent higher than the national ...continue reading]]>

Mayor Michael Bloomberg

While Mayor Mike Bloomberg is saying that he doesn’t want to layoff any city workers in order to get the city out of its economic funk, his office’s recent budget maneuvering has made layoffs all but certain.

Bloomberg had planned to layoff more than 20,000 workers earlier this year but the Obama stimulus package helped save those jobs. Not a year later, City Hall is moving back to original plan while New York City continues to see its unemployment rate grow. In Brooklyn, the unemployment rate is already a whole percent higher than the national rate.

According to the New York Times, the mayor’s plan is not to flat out layoff workers.

Mayor Bloomberg has announced that he wants to cut the city budget by $1.7 billion in the next two years. In the mayor’s budget, Bloomberg has added the cost of fringe benefits (Social Security, health insurance, etc.) to the cost of every employee’s budget.

This means that if an agency fires an employee, they will cut the cost of the fringe benefits as well. It may seem minor but they add up. An employee that had been making $40,000 per year could equal $50,000 in cuts if he’s fired.

The New York Times points out that if an agency has to cut $9.2 million, they would only have to cut $8 million in employee salaries and the other $1.2 million will be considered cut because the fringe benefits cost have been cut as well.

This move essentially pushes agencies to layoff workers while largely shielding the mayor from any blame even though it is a budget move that he himself made. A move that makes it easier for agencies to lay off employees to meet budget cuts over anything else.

NYC Chancellor Joel Klein

In the third year of the A-F grade system, the Education Department has handed down plenty of As but numerous C’s and D’s as well.

In total, 40 schools received better grades than they did last year but 67 schools received lower grades and six schools received an F. In total, 7% of New York City public schools received a D or an F.

While the grades are largely based on test scores, the Education Department claims to also use student progress, graduate rates, and overall performance. Since the grades were introduced in ...continue reading]]>

NYC Chancellor Joel Klein

In the third year of the A-F grade system, the Education Department has handed down plenty of As but numerous C’s and D’s as well.

In total, 40 schools received better grades than they did last year but 67 schools received lower grades and six schools received an F. In total, 7% of New York City public schools received a D or an F.

While the grades are largely based on test scores, the Education Department claims to also use student progress, graduate rates, and overall performance. Since the grades were introduced in 2007, the city has closed nearly thirty public schools, nine of which were high schools

The city will close down the bottom 5 percent of the school in order to get federal money that is promised by the No Child Left Behind Act.

While some schools improved, 67 of the city’s got worse. Of the schools that received A grades last year, 15 dropped to a B, 36 “B-schools” dropped to a C and 4 to a D, 11 of the “C-schools” dropped to a D. The school that received an F this year had gotten a B grade last year.

This downward progress calls into question the true nature of the No Child Left Behind Act and the Bloomberg education program. While public elementary and middle schools did well under the grading policy, 97% received an A, many critics argue that the system is broken.

Critics have argued that the grades for elementary and middle schools are superficially high because their grades are based on test scores which has led schools to “teach the test.” The result is poor high school performance because kids are not fully prepared.

Earlier this week we reported on a story of a study showing that 90% of CUNY students who graduated from public high schools cannot do a simple math problem.