Dear New Yorker,
Here at NYC Council we believe that education is the key to success and that every child deserves a great school.
That's why we've been fighting hard to ensure that the NYC Department of Education (DOE) keeps funding where it matters the most: in the classroom.
This year, we're thrilled that we successfully worked with the Bloomberg Administration to ensure that there is no loss of teachers in the Fiscal 2013 budget.
Reductions to funding for school budgets in the Mayor's Fiscal Year 2013 Preliminary Budget would have led to the loss of approximately 2,570 general education teachers across the City next school year. With less money to spend on their schools, principals would have found it difficult to support the same number of teachers as this year and replace classroom teachers, who will retire or resign after this school year. Fewer teachers would have led to larger class sizes.
Backed by advocates, the Council urged the DOE to keep school budgets whole and teachers in the classroom, and the Mayor's Executive Budget released this month does just that. The DOE expects that with stable school funding, principals will be able to maintain the number of general education teachers and, in fact, increase the number of special education teachers in classrooms citywide.
This victory will help us to continue working toward our goals of lowering class size, retaining great educators, and prioritizing classrooms over bureaucratic spending on central staff.
Thank you for your continuing support on this and other educational issues. Working together, we can help further improve our schools and ensure that our kids are receiving a top-notch education.
Sincerely,
Christine C. Quinn
Speaker
NYC Council
Robert Jackson
Chair, Education Committee
NYC Council