Proposed Teacher Layoffs Rile Bed Stuy Parents

Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented a $65.6 billion preliminary budget for next fiscal year last Thursday that would dismiss more than 4,500 New York City public school teachers after this school year ends.

The proposed budget is for the fiscal year that starts in July, and already, it is drawing criticism from parents in Bed-Stuy.

“As a PTA President for a middle school where we don't have a full-time guidance counselor, we cannot sustain any more cuts,” said Khem Irby, a Bed-Stuy parent with five children in NYC public schools. 

“But the direct attack of the education dollars by a mayor who doesn't care about traditional public school should be expected. Mayor Bloomberg would rather place his concern in an area in which he himself is not qualified to govern and continue to disrespect the parents of NYC by hiring puppets and appointing waivered chancellors to carry out his bidding.”

The job cuts are needed even though an improving economy and record tourism will help pour about $2 billion of unanticipated revenue into city coffers through June 30, 2012, Bloomberg said. About 4,666 teachers would be fired under the mayor’s plan, with the rest removed through attrition.

However, the mayor refuses to be the fall guy on a move that will have a devastating impact on the city’s schoolchildren, a total of about 46,800 in Bed-Stuy alone. Instead, Bloomberg, who is trying not to resort to raising taxes, has pointed his fingers at Albany and Washington.

“The mayor has pumped more than $2 billion dollars of city money into education this year,” said Bloomberg spokesman Mark LaVorgna. “That is to compensate in large part for a billion dollar cut from the state and the loss of more than $800 million dollars in federal stimulus money that was used for education.”

Indeed, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s budget proposal, revealed earlier this month, calls for a $1.5 billion reduction in education funding as part of an effort to close the state’s $10 billion deficit. Last week schools chancellor Cathie Black testified before lawmakers in Albany appealing for relief from Cuomo’s budget cuts.

The layoff threat comes just after Bloomberg recently called on state lawmakers to change a seniority rule and allow him to fire teachers based upon performance rather than through a last-in, first-out basis.

City officials estimate that every teacher hired during the past five years would be let go if the state moves forward with cuts in aid to city schools.

“The city’s commitment to education is clear, but due to those reduced funding levels, we will not be able to maintain the size of the teaching force as it is right now,” said LaVorgna.

That’s little consolation to parents in Bed-Stuy worried about their kid’s education being shortchanged if the proposed teacher layoffs go forth.

“You just can’t do something like that,” said Doreen Dillon, a nanny and Bed-Stuy parent of high school students. “Laying off all those teachers is unfair to my children and every other school kid trying to get an education around here.”