City Students Return to Reworked Schools
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Wearing new backpacks and eager smiles, the city’s 1.1 million schoolchildren returned this morning to a public school system flush with new funding.
The schools are getting an extra $1 billion this year from the city and the state following a years-long lawsuit alleging that the nation’s largest school system was underfunded.
The funds comes as schools will be held more accountable than ever for their progress on standardized tests and other measures – a condition emphasized today by several city leaders, including Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Spitzer, the head of the teachers’ union, Randi Weingarten, and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
“Accountability has to be part of this additional investment. Writing a check is easy,” Mr. Spitzer said at P.S. 53, the Basheer Quisim School in the Bronx. The hard part, he said, is ensuring more money translates into better schools.
Starting this year, all city schools will receive letter grades, “A” through “F,” based on a variety of measures, including student performance on state tests. Schools graded “D” or “F” will face consequences including closure and the firing of principals.
Just over half of schools will receive more funding this year; the rest, deemed sufficiently funded, got no extra money.
The principal at P.S. 53, Collin Wolfe, received an extra $44,000, Mayor Bloomberg said. Praising the city schools chancellor, Joel Klein, Mr. Wolfe said he is using the money to help hire three new employees: a data coach, a band teacher, and a teacher who will help gifted students enrich their education with extra lessons such as trips to the stock exchange and lessons in Shakespeare.
“I have bought in entirely to the chancellor’s belief in putting children first,” the principal said.
Six-year-old Kayla Newman – dressed in a crisply ironed dress and a new backpack with wheels – came to P.S. 53 after a 10-day stay at Disneyland. But her grandmother, Yasmin Rudder, said she was so excited for the first day of school that she rushed them out of the house early this morning.
“I had to leave half my tea in the microwave,” Ms. Rudder said.
