The March 9th Edition of City & State Magazine

SPOTLIGHT: EDUCATION

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

@CIT YANDSTATENY

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

CONTENTS March 9, 2015

Michael Gareth Johnson Executive Editor

10......

CITY

24.......

Tackling lax policing of housing discrimination

Blueprint in place, de Blasio builds a homeless policy

By Sarina Trangle

By Jarrett Murphy

12......

STATE

16.......

BUFFALO

Dueling education rallies…Cuomo’s Q&A…Marcos Crespo leads the Bronx Dems…and a solar power push

The aspirations of District Attorney Frank Sedita III

By Geoff Kelly

18.......

WORK IN PROGRESS

26.......

40......

By Jon Lentz

SPOTLIGHT: EDUCATION

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

cit yandstateny.com

@CIT YANDSTATENY

Cover: Illustration

by Guilliame Federighi

PERSPECTIVES

Michael Benjamin on DiNapoli’s bid to clean up Albany…Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi on homelessness

THE PROPERTY TAX GAP

New York City’s inconsistent, indecipherable and intractable property tax code

SPOTLIGHT: EDUCATION

Striking a balance on standardized tests… locked out of school policy meetings… tallying suspensions at city charter schools…evaluating teacher evaluations…

Q&As with John Flanagan, Cathy Nolan, Merryl Tisch and Dorita Gibson

42.......

BACK & FORTH

A Q&A with ex-WNBA star Lisa Leslie

3

city & state — March 9, 2015

ROB BENNETT / OFFICE OF THE MAYOR

Y

ou have heard it many times before. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio swept into office with a progressive City Council and a clear populist message that resonated—the city needs to combat income inequality. The concept takes many forms, from providing more affordable housing to creating higher paying jobs and even to goals like the fair distribution of green space.

One area where economic inequality is clear and often harms the poor is in the city’s property tax code.

And that is why we wanted to explain this complicated system and give readers a sense of why changing it is just hard—even if there is political will to do it.

Our goal was not to embarrass specific lawmakers who are not paying what some would characterize as their “fair share,” but instead to highlight the property tax code’s flaws through examples that would grab readers’ attention. And, as the reporting by our Senior Correspondent Jon Lentz shows, you really can’t blame individual officials because there is little that any of them can do unilaterally to fix the system.

Real reform will take a collective effort by city and state lawmakers from both sides of the aisle. History shows that one can hardly get a post office renamed, let along tackle a complex restructuring of the tax code that will likely increase costs for thousands of homeowners, without constituents holding it against the elected officials responsible.

In our city section, Staff Reporter Sarina Trangle looks at another area where the City Council is trying to address income inequality—the limited policing of housing discrimination against low-income residents.

It shocked me that the city only has eight people who actually run tests to see if landlords are discriminating against potential tenants who rely on vouchers or Section 8 assistance. The story sheds light on an issue that is not getting a lot of attention.

We also put the spotlight on education policy— always a contentious topic in the state and the city.

But the stakes are higher this year, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo has staked a large part of his legacy on reforming the system and de Blasio needs the state to renew mayoral control of the city schools so he can continue to change the policies laid out by his predecessor. Education impacts us all, and looming policy changes could alter the future of schools for years to come—so it’s a good time to start paying attention to what’s happening at the Capitol and at City Hall.

Letters to the

Editor down his nose at other New Yorkers.

In describing immigrants as “tiny” and “wrinkled,” he perpetuates nasty stereotypes and reinforces a certain specific image of what an immigrant looks like, when in reality, an immigrant could look like anyone. His attempt to sideline immigrants with his callous and classist remarks will not be tolerated and should have never been published in City & State. The only thing that’s “tiny and wrinkled” is a copy of Barron’s column—crumpled up and left behind in the wastebasket.

February 23, 2015

61 Broadway, Suite 2825 New York, NY 10006 Editorial (646) 517-2472 General (646) 517-2740 Advertising (212) 894-5422 advertising@cityandstateny.com CITY AND STATE, LLC Chairman Steve Farbman President/CEO Tom Allon tallon@cityandstateny.com

PUBLISHING CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

CS_02232015_cover_2.indd 1

@CIT YANDSTATENY

2/20/15 4:16 PM

In the Feb. 23 magazine, City & State columnist Seth Barron weighed in on New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s State of the City address.

4

Seth Barron should be ashamed of himself. In his rant about Mark-Viverito’s State of the City speech, he maligns her for celebrating her Puerto Rican heritage and describes a speech website featuring pictures of her with “tiny, wrinkled immigrants.” This language is offensive to Latino and immigrant New Yorkers.

Instead of belittling Latino elected officials and communities, perhaps Mr. Barron should spend more time focusing on the fact that our city finally has a City Council speaker who is actively engaging Latino and immigrant New Yorkers who have been ignored for far too long and taking a clear stand on the issues that matter most to New Yorkers, as she did in her speech. In her one year as the speaker, the Council and the mayor have taken tremendous strides alongside our community, including major policy victories such as universal pre-kindergarten, municipal identification cards for all New Yorkers and the ending of the city’s dangerous collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

city & state — March 9, 2015

—Javier H. Valdés, co-executive director, Make the Road New York Seth Barron chose to tokenize, stereotype and belittle immigrants by describing them as “tiny” and “wrinkled.” His remark smacks of casual racism and has no place in a publication about New York City and State government.

In his article, he describes how Mark-Viverito is pictured on a website, posing with “ironworker hardhats, police white shirts and tiny, wrinkled immigrants.” From his ivory tower, Barron looks

—Assemblyman Francisco Moya Barron responds: Mr. Valdes and Mr. Moya both pretend to miss the point of my article and hope to distract our readers by playing the most tattered card in their thin deck. By accusing me of racism for benignly describing a propaganda picture that Mark-Viverito displayed in her “speech website,” the gentlemen try to divert attention from the fact that the Speaker’s “State of the City” address was a politicized farce and a waste of taxpayer money.

Valdes’ phrase “speech website” should raise eyebrows. Why does a speech need a website? Can you think of any other “speech websites” besides the one that Mark-Viverito built in order to glorify herself? The Speaker’s so-called “State of the City” speech was an empty ceremony and probably a legal misuse of public funds, especially whatever was spent to build the feckless “speech website.”

Regarding her heritage, it was Mark-Viverito who put the Puerto Rican flag in front of the flags of New York City and State. I pointed out that this breach of protocol was consistent with her stated dedication to Puerto Rican independence and her seven-year abstention from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, prior to her run for Speaker. My article says nothing else about her heritage.

The responses of Moya and Valdes do not address any of the concerns I raised in my piece regarding the Speaker’s political use of a public event. Why do an elected official and the head of a group that receives millions of dollars in city funds each pick the same two words to fuss over, if they aren’t serving as a pair of attack dogs for Mark-Viverito? In fact, their willingness to serve as extensions of the Council press office only makes my point stronger: the trappings and power of Mark-Viverito’s office are once again being used for her personal aggrandizement.

To have your letter to the editor considered for publication, leave a comment at www.cityandstateny.com, tweet us @CityAndStateNY, email editor@cityandstateny.com or write to 61 Broadway, Suite 2825, New York, NY 10006.

Letters may be edited for clarity or length.

Publisher Andrew A. Holt aholt@cityandstateny.com Vice President of Advertising Jim Katocin jkatocin@cityandstateny.com Events Director Jasmin Freeman jfreeman@cityandstateny.com Business Development Scott Augustine saugustine@cityandstateny.com Director of Marketing Samantha Diliberti sdiliberti@cityandstateny.com Office Administrator Jeff Stein jstein@cityandstateny.com Distribution Czar Dylan Forsberg

EDITORIAL Executive Editor Michael Johnson mjohnson@cityandstateny.com Senior Correspondent Jon Lentz jlentz@cityandstateny.com Web Editor/Reporter Wilder Fleming wfleming@cityandstateny.com Albany Reporter Ashley Hupfl ahupfl@cityandstateny.com Staff Reporter Sarina Trangle strangle@cityandstateny.com Editor-at-Large Gerson Borrero gborrero@cityandstateny.com Columnists Alexis Grenell, Nicole Gelinas, Michael Benjamin, Seth Barron, Susan Arbetter

PRODUCTION Art Director Guillaume Federighi gfederighi@cityandstateny.com Graphic Designer Michelle Yang myang@cityandstateny.com Marketing Graphic Designer Charles Flores, cflores@cityandstateny.com Web Manager Lydia Eck, leck@cityandstateny.com Illustrator Danilo Agutoli City & State is published twice monthly. Copyright ©2015, City and State NY, LLC

cit yandstateny.com

NEW YORK CITY POWER 100 KICK-OFF NYU Kimmel Center, Feb. 17, 2015

Former state Sen. Terry Gipson

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

Michael Woloz (right)

6

Assemblyman Francisco Moya

ARMAN DZIDZOVIC

city & state — March 9, 2015

Public Advocate Letitia James

Lewis Sterler of Hunter International

Officials, staffers and lobbyists gathered for the unveiling of the New York City Power 100 list. cit yandstateny.com

ELECTED EDUCATORS B

oth the state Legislature and the New York City Council are home to a number of lawmakers who spent time sharpening young minds before shaping government policies. Here’s a quick list of some of the politicians who have left the classroom and traded in their lesson plans for legislation. (And be sure to check out our education spotlight starting on page 26.)

INEZ N O R R BA

cher n al, tea an, Brookly p i c n i r m P o w l ounci City C

MARK LEVINE Bilingual math and science teacher City Councilman, Bronx

8

BARBARA LIFTON

city & state — March 9, 2015

English teacher Assemblywoman, Ithaca area

MARK R E G Y TRE r teache lyn History cilman, Brook n u City Co

JIM TEDISC O

Specia l Assem education t eache blyma r n, Sarat oga Sp rings a rea

TOBY ANN STAVISKY Social studies teacher State Senator, Queens

cit yandstateny.com

CIT Y

STAFFING TO THE TEST

NEW YORK CITY LOOKS TO INCREASE TESTING FOR HOUSING DISCRIMINATION

By SARINA TRANGLE

I

n a city with a population of more than 8 million and a pricey and perpetually tight housing market, there are just eight people charged with sussing out systemic discrimination in the housing industry. Of these eight employees at the city Commission on Human Rights who are responsible for running tests to make sure landlords are not violating the city’s Human Rights law, six only test part-time.

Federal and state statutes bar landlords from discriminating against prospective tenants based on race, religion, disability, age or sexual orientation— but those laws don’t protect residents based on how they earn their income. Refusing to accept vouchers or subsidies from potential tenants or homeowners is prohibited under the city’s Human Rights Law, but not at the state or federal level. Other protected

10

classes unique to the city include citizenship status, lawful occupation and gender identity or expression.

City officials, worried that the minimal staff has resulted in inadequate enforcement, have started discussing how to fix the problem. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito vowed to ease housing and rent burdens during their respective State of the City addresses—the mayor by bolstering the affordable housing stock, and the speaker by providing legal assistance to poor residents on housing matters, as well as empowering the human rights commission and tasking it with spot testing for discrimination.

Advocates say that the efforts will only succeed if the commission has an effective testing program capable of taking on large management companies and realtors engaging in discrimination, which could

deter other potential offenders.

For example, at a March 3 City Council hearing, Legal Aid staff attorney Sebastian Riccardi questioned whether an initiative to transition families out of homeless shelters was being undercut by the lack of enforcement. “[The city] issued over 1,500 vouchers to help families find permanent housing, but only 400 of them have resulted in actual signed leases,” Riccardi said. “This is clearly an example of discrimination at work in the market.”

Other than individuals hiring attorneys or approaching the city commission, uncovering discrimination against those protected solely under the city law falls to the commission, as well as the state Attorney General’s office—which says it handles such complaints through its Civil Rights Bureau—

Patients should be allowed to acquire hearing aids from the physicians who know them and their medical history and needs best.

(Not just at big box stores who don’t know them)

SUPPORT A127

You’ll be supporting the hearing needs of every New Yorker.

CITY & STATE — March 9, 2015

Learn more at betterhearingNY.com

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

program and compile a report by June 2016 with statistics on its activity.

Carmelyn Malalis, who took over as the agency’s commissioner in February, said she was pleased that the Council viewed it as a priority. She said, however, she would like more time to review and improve the commission’s testing program—possibly by collaborating with the city’s corporation counsel or private organizations—before submitting statistics.

Malalis said the commission’s eight testers identify possible Human Rights Law violations in employment and housing. The testers were involved in all 125 cases that resulted in a commission-initiated complaint in 2014, which she said showed the “effectiveness of the testing program.”

“I am concerned that placing additional obligations on the commission with short timelines, such as those included in the proposed legislation, may actually be counterproductive to making the commission more effective,” Malalis said at the hearing.

Freiberg said the Fair Housing Justice Center would only be able to collaborate with the commission on testing if the city is funding it. Lander pointed to the speaker’s pledge to increase the commission’s funding as evidence there was political will to pass his bill and improve the agency. He also said legislators identified the commission as a priority in a policy survey administered last year.

Expectations are high for the de Blasio administration to act, given its emphasis on ending inequality in the city, said Nicole Salk, a senior staff attorney in South Brooklyn Legal Services’ workers rights and benefits unit.

“Folks voted de Blasio into office primarily around the issue of the tale of two cities,” Salk said. “If you can’t buy into a co-op in a neighborhood where you’re actually able to get some equity, it means that certain communities are not able to develop wealth.”

A New Resource Against Extreme Weather

CIT Y

and nonprofit and legal advocacy groups.

Federal and state agencies also investigate potential anti-discrimination violations and enforce rules, advocates say. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also distributes $325,000 annually to nonprofits, although the Fair Housing Justice Center is the only recipient in the city with a testing program, according to its executive director, Fred Freiberg. HUD officials said the department’s dollars may only be used to fight violations of federal law.

City Councilman Brad Lander has also taken notice, recently holding a hearing to discuss the matter.

Lander said Craigslist housing ads show many landlords are so unconcerned with penalties that they openly state that Section 8 vouchers are not accepted.

He said tenants with the subsidies are unlikely to seek such housing and then report to the commission, which illustrates the need to build up the testing program.

“If it’s our law, we should take it seriously and be serious about enforcing it,” Lander said. “We have the NYPD enforce our laws. We don’t say, ‘We just kind of rely on the neighborhood watch to get a grant to go enforce our law.’ ” Since 1991, the commission’s staff size has been reduced to 66, down from 241, according Legal Services NYC’s testimony before the Council. The agency’s budget shrunk 80 percent during that period, Mark-Viverito said. And a city comptroller audit suggests that its effectiveness has taken a hit, with the commission failing to address more than half of the 593 cases it received within a one-year period.

The speaker pledged to add $5 million to the commission’s budget, which she said would be enough to double number of attorneys and human rights specialists. Amid talk of reviving the commission, Lander introduced a bill that would require it to establish a housing discrimination testing

By Roger Whelan “Baby its cold outside” is a line that sums up our winter experience. It began with the Buffalo region buried under up to 7½ feet of snow in a single week in November.

Since the Superbowl on February 1st, it has barely stopped snowing in nearby Massachusetts. February was the snowiest month on record for Boston, which had 64.8 inches or 5’4” feet of snow, while in the last 21 years, it had 4 of its 5 snowiest winters.

Remote Wyoming, NY, already measures 166 inches, or 14 feet of snow, and East Aurora, NY, measures 13 feet. The average February temperature reading for Central Park was 23.9º F, marking it New York City’s fourth-coldest February since 1869, according to the National Weather Service.

These staggering statistics show that New York needs to expand its access to cleaner burning natural gas in order to address increased demand and price spikes that occur during the coldest parts of the winter. More and more New Yorkers have converted to natural gas for cooking, heating, electricity generation and businesses are consuming record amounts.

Downstate New York’s growing demand is why Liberty Natural Gas has proposed the Port Ambrose Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project, located 26 miles off the south shore of Long Island. Port Ambrose would add new competitively priced supplies natural gas via ship to a submerged buoy system that connects to an existing underwater line that has been operational since the 1960s. This new gas source will help stabilize prices, which directly affects consumers by lowering costs for natural gas and electricity.

11

LNG importation is proven to be safe and efficient, as illustrated by the 44 year track record of the Everett Marine Terminal just outside of Boston, supplying 20 percent of New England’s natural gas need. Similarly, Port Ambrose would import lower priced supplies of natural gas from across the globe to add into the downstate market at the coldest periods of winter.

With the on-record support of hundreds of local businesses and organizations, the project will also create over 800 construction-related jobs, and over $90 million in local spending, while saving businesses and consumers an estimated $300 million annually. We believe the Port Ambrose project is a compelling and effective counter-punch to the sting of the Polar Vortex and spike of energy commodity prices on the region and a new and welcome addition to our depleted energy reserves.

Roger Whelan is Chief Executive Officer of Liberty Natural Gas, which is proposing the Port Ambrose LNG project. Liberty Natural Gas is a member of the New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance.

The New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance (New York AREA) is a diverse group of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders working together for clean, low-cost and reliable electricity solutions that foster prosperity and jobs for the Empire State.

New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito says the city’s Commission on Human Rights needs more resources.

cit yandstateny.com

WWW. A R E A - A L L I A N C E . O R G

city & state — March 9, 2015

NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL

SPECIAL SPONSORED SECTION

STATE

Albany may still be covered in snow and battling freezing-cold temperatures, but the action at the state Capitol is red hot as lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo continue to clash over ethics and education reform with the March 31 budget deadline approaching. Here is a sampling of some of the recent developments in Albany.

12

CHARTER SCHOOL ADVOCATES, TEACHERS UNIONS AGAIN FIGHT FOR ALBANY’S ATTENTION

By ASHLEY HUPFL

city & state — March 9, 2015

F

ollowing a successful rally last year, Families for Excellent Schools, a pro-charter school group, held another rally at the state Capitol that boasted an estimated 13,000 attendees and supporters.

Along with celebrity guest speakers and musical performances, state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, IDC Leader Jeff Klein, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul and other elected officials all came out to support school choice.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo himself did not attend this year’s rally, unlike his surprise appearance a year ago, but the big event stole the show from the New York State United Teachers.

NYSUT held a march on the Empire State Plaza and state Capitol earlier in the week to protest Cuomo’s plan to overhaul the teacher evaluation system and boost charter schools in the state. cit yandstateny.com

By Ashley Hupfl

MARCOS CRESPO ELECTED BRONX DEMOCRATIC CHAIR

By Michael Gareth Johnson and Gerson Borrero

New York Needs to Prioritize Energy Infrastructure

STATE

CUOMO ADDRESSES MORELAND AFTER BHARARA CLEARS THE WAY

By Denise Richardson New York City has ambitious goals for housing and infrastructure, yet falls short on funding these efforts. The initiative to build an estimated 200,000 housing units is going to mean an increased demand on already strained New York City infrastructure and services. This includes the thousands of miles of water, sewer, steam and gas systems which are at or beyond capacity, not to mention increased demands on the transportation network.

Over the past decade, neighborhoods such as Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Astoria and Long Island City, Queens, have experienced rapid development and surging population growth.

In fact, the MTA reported subway delays have jumped 113% due to overcrowding on the trains. With respect to the electric and gas systems, Con Edison and National Grid each have been working strenuously to reliably meet demand by investing in resiliency measures and implementing new technologies.

cit yandstateny.com

C

ontinuing his meteoric rise in Albany, Assemblyman Marcos Crespo was elected chairman of the Bronx County Democratic Committee. He replaces his Assembly colleague Carl Heastie, who stepped down from the position following his election as Assembly speaker.

“I look forward to building upon the progress made in recent years moving to bring more people to the Democratic Party, increasing voter turnout, supporting more outstanding candidates and working in a unified fashion to champion the issues important to the member and all of the residents of the Bronx,” Crespo said in a statement after the vote.

The leadership role brings with it a great deal of power and influence in both New York City and in the state. In recent history, the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn Democratic chairs have worked in tandem to elevate favored candidates for citywide elections and have used their clout in backroom negotiations to impact policy. While Heastie will still hold sway on the direction of the Bronx Democratic Party, several sources told City & State that Heastie was not involved in the selection of Crespo and that Puerto Rican-born assemblyman worked diligently and respectfully in securing support for his candidacy.

Crespo is also the chair of the Assembly Puerto Rican / Hispanic Task Force, which puts him in charge of setting the agenda and planning the SOMOS El Futuro conference in both Albany in the spring and in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the fall.

Holding the two roles in tandem immediately catapults Crespo, at only 34 years old, into the upper echelon of influential Latino lawmakers.

Serious statewide Democratic candidates will now covet his advice and support as a leading voice in the Hispanic community.

Projects from Coney Island in Brooklyn to LaGuardia Airport in Queens are in dire need of investments to ensure that the bridges, tunnels, transit lines and roadways are ready to accommodate one million more people by 2030. Our elected officials talk about the importance of infrastructure but do not take the steps to assure that adequate and dedicated revenue streams are available to fund either the critical need to maintain what we have or make the investments to expand and upgrade our systems.

New Yorkers should not be stranded with an inefficient infrastructure, nor asked to foot the tab for policies that will increase costs without appreciable benefits. We must address our natural gas pipeline limitations and preserve our existing electric power generation and distribution capabilities. If we do not do so, higher energy prices will continue to be the norm.

This poses a serious threat to New York’s business economy and affordability for all residents.

13

Last year’s polar vortex and the current arctic blast illustrate the need to expand access to natural gas as well as maintain access to in-state power sources. Like our transportation, water and wastewater systems, a reliable energy infrastructure is a critical ingredient to ensure that the affordable housing initiative also has affordable energy. This is true for harsh winter weather as well as the dog days of summer where millions of air conditioners hum through the hazy and humid nights in New York.

The bottom line is New York’s infrastructure challenges can only be met with appropriate funding mechanisms and prudent policy planning that will yield the investments while creating jobs and affordable residences.

Denise M. Richardson is the Executive Director of The General Contractors Association of New York, a trade association representing the New York City’s unionized heavy civil and public works infrastructure contractors.

SPECIAL SPONSORED SECTION

New York AREA’s membership includes some of the state’s most vital business, labor and community organizations including the New York State AFL-CIO, Business Council of New York State, Partnership for New York City, New York Building Congress, National Federation of Independent Business and many more.

WWW. A R E A - A L L I A N C E . O R G

city & state — March 9, 2015

W

hen Gov. Andrew Cuomo shuttered his short-lived Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption last spring, he quickly came under the scrutiny of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of Manhattan, who has kept a sharp eye on public corruption.

Since then, the governor has been quick to tell reporters he cannot comment on ongoing investigations—but in early February, Bharara asserted in a live television interview that Cuomo is free to answer any questions about the ethics commission.

“I don’t think I, or anyone else, has ever said that any particular person shouldn’t be talking about how he or she made decisions publicly,” Bharara said during the interview. “People are able to exercise their public role in the way that they see fit.”

Unsurprisingly, the Albany press corps was eager for their next chance to ask Cuomo about the probe. The next opportunity came just a few weeks later, at governor’s first cabinet meeting of 2015 in the state Capitol.

Responding to questions from the press corps, Cuomo said he personally had not been contacted by federal investigators, but hedged and would not say definitively if a member of his staff had been.

His administration later said no one on his staff had been contacted.

“Not myself, you’d have to ask the individual,” Cuomo said during the Feb. 25 meeting. “I don’t think there should be any concerns [about a federal probe involving the executive branch].”

While Cuomo has avoided legal trouble, he has worked closely with state officials wrapped up in various federal investigations. In January, thenAssembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was arrested a day after he sat on stage while Cuomo rolled out his 2015 State of the State/budget address.

Cuomo then arranged a press conference to announce a five-point ethics plan to “clean up Albany.” Cuomo also refused to sign any budget without the full ethics plan.

“Scandals in government is nothing new,” Cuomo told reporters. “The question is, keep refining the system so that you do everything you can to prevent it and if it happens, to find it and then punish it. And that’s the point with the ethics disclosure.”

STATE

RETIRING WORKERS, ACCELERATING CHALLENGES: IT’S TIME TO TACKLE TALENT

By Johnny Cavaliero, Managing Director, Accenture

In the 20th century, public employment had a clear design: Workers signed on for a lifetime career. They traded lower pay for better benefits (especially retirement), and they enjoyed protection from politics. In the 21st century, highly educated Millennials are seeking a lifetime of careers, not a lifetime career. Meanwhile, turbulent political and economic conditions and increasingly competitive private-sector pay are further challenging the traditional design. And while workers in other sectors may be delaying retirement, the pension safety net supports on-time retirement for the government workforce.

As the traditional employment design transforms and longtime employees exit, how can New York government prepare? The answers may lie in talent management, the formal process of guiding and overseeing an individual’s career lifecycle within the organization—from recruiting to onboarding and placement, training and career support and retirement.

New York government agencies need to analyze each of those steps and then adapt practices based on changing workforce conditions and demands. Start with a focus on these key areas:

14

1. Balance retirement, succession planning and recruitment initiatives.

Diversify the candidate pool in two ways—expanding outreach to Millennials and re-engaging with experienced workers. To reach Millennials, align hiring with university recruiting schedules while also pursuing alternative training programs for producing technology and other talent government needs. For example, New York City’s collaboration with the Coro program—which helps train civic leaders—has shown how third parties can fuel talent development. At the same time, take another look at experienced workers, who may offer valuable skills and knowledge.

STATE PUSHES FOR ENERGY RESPONSIBILITY AT HOME

By ASHLEY HUPFL

W

hile the Cuomo administration pursues sweeping changes to prod the state’s energy system toward improved sustainability, the initiative is heavily reliant on fundamental changes in efficiency at the smallest levels—primarily with homeowners.

A key part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “Reforming the Energy Vision” initiative is shifting focus from the state’s outdated grid, which relies solely on large, centralized power plants, to a decentralized system emphasizing local power generation and diverse energy sources. Cuomo

2. Conduct strategic hiring with targeted benefits packages. Hiring fills a position; strategic hiring requires government to assess talent vulnerabilities, outline required skillsets and capabilities and address unique human capital needs. Also important is identifying a competitive, strategic benefits package—ideally with a flexible model and value proposition that can be tailored to meet employees’ values and preferences.

city & state — March 9, 2015

3. Streamline job classification for onboarding and placement. When written with jargon, acronyms and too much reliance on job titles, job descriptions can be hard to decipher at best. At worst, they can cause government to miss out on potentially qualified candidates who aren’t motivated by the description or can’t determine if their skills are a match. Collectively employing more than 625,000 non-education employees , New York governments have an opportunity to more clearly communicate required skills and competencies—increasing the likelihood of attracting the right talent while setting an example for private industry.

4. Train all employees to remain competitive. All employees need up-to-date training to stay market relevant and to keep government involved in new technologies. Training can be effective in a number of forms: computer-based training and simulations, job aids and stepby-step process guides, formal and informal knowledge transfers, and team competition/gamification techniques.

Shaping the New York government workforce for the 21st century requires fresh thinking and talent management strategies to improve performance at every stage of the employment lifecycle.

cit yandstateny.com

insulation and appliances to become more energy efficient.

“Part of what you do is just replace— sometimes in the normal cycle, sometimes at an accelerated cycle— some of the appliances,” Cohen said. “The lighting fixtures and the windows, things like that, and there’s been a lot of emphasis on that in New York.”

Solar panels have also given

homeowners the opportunity to save and produce energy on an individual level that was not possible for many households before. Solar panels have been growing in popularity, and in December Long Island hit a milestone with its 10,000th installation.

A Cuomo administration official said demand for solar power has grown to the point where the state may no longer have to offer tax incentives for

homeowners to buy them.

“We like to think it’s that they’re helping the environment and fighting the impact against climate change, but I think ultimately it’s the energy savings that they’re going to get,” Bambrick said. “I think this is something that the state and groups like ours have been trying to get at for a long time in various ways through energy efficiency programs.”

STATE

has supported the use of microgrids and a variety of power sources—such as wind and solar—to achieve his goal.

As part of the plan, customers will be rewarded for reducing their energy usage.

“The goal of the REV is to engage households in a way they haven’t been engaged before in terms of energy efficiency,” said Conor Bambrick, air and energy director for Environmental Advocates of New York. “The theory behind that is, that if there’s price [incentives] and also the technology that would enable them to have more control, that we’ll start to see households become more active and pursuing activities that would help lower energy usage.”

Steven Cohen, executive director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, applauded the REV initiative. He noted that about a third of the energy transmitted from power sources is wasted at the individual household and building level, not even including the loss during transmission.

To combat this, Cohen said, households should upgrade their

I love making my patients happy.

They’re always telling me I’m their favorite nurse.

I do my job the very best way I possibly can do it, to let them know that I care about them. My residents are very grateful and they make me feel that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.

15

Meet Elizabeth

On the line every day.

People working together to make a better New York for all.

LOCAL 1000 AFSCME, AFL-CIO DA N N Y D O N O H U E , P R E S I D E N T

cit yandstateny.com

9130_Liz 7.458x10 Clr_CS.indd 1

SMART | DYNAMIC | CARING | DEDICATED 3/3/15 11:29 AM

city & state — March 9, 2015

I feel good at the end of the day because I brought sunshine into somebody’s life.

BUFFALO

LET’S BE FRANK A

city & state — March 9, 2015

16

s noted in a recent article in The Buffalo News, the indictment of Assemblyman Sheldon Silver tracks some of his allegedly ill-gotten fortune to two locally managed firms: JoRon Management LLC and Counsel Financial Services. The former is run

by Ronald M. Schreiber and Jordan Levy, the Buffalo-based tech investor who worked in the Assembly as a young man and, in recent years, is often to be found wherever state money flows to Western New York’s private sector.

The latter provides loans at usurious rates to lawyers and law firms who work on a contingency basis. It’s like a payday loan for attorneys: Counsel Financial advances money to a strapped firm on the assumption that a case will pay off down the road. Counsel Financial will also advance a firm’s fees on a settled case if the firm can’t wait for payment to come through. The loans are a bad deal for a firm, just as payday loans are bad deal for anyone, but a firm must keep its doors open if it’s going to reap the rewards of a settlement later.

Counsel Financial’s board chairman and vice chairman are the name partners in the Manhattan law firm Weitz & Luxenberg, where Silver worked until January and to which Silver allegedly drove business, using his influence as Assembly speaker.

The Williamsville company’s executive team is largely made up of Western New York locals with deep political connections. One of these was the late Judge Frank A. Sedita, Jr., who worked for Counsel Financial after retiring from the bench in 2010 until his death in 2013. The company donated $3,500 to the campaigns of Judge Sedita’s son, Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III. Distract Attorney Sedita, of course, has said again and again that his office is not interested in pursuing election law violations or public corruption investigations, yet sat on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s now defunct

Erie County District Attorney Frank Sedita III spoke at a 2013 meeting with Gov. Andrew Cuomo on public corruption.

Moreland Commission, whose findings contributed to Silver’s indictment— and whose findings also seem to be dogging a close political ally of the Sedita family, Democratic apparatchik Steve Pigeon. Small world.

Counsel Financial’s website includes a page of testimonials from client firms across the country. Almost all of these firms have an interests in asbestos litigation. This is hardly surprising: A lot of money continues to be made there.

But it’s curious in light of the central role that asbestos cases plays in the indictment of Silver, who is accused of

steering state money to a mesothelioma treatment center in exchange for the center referring mesothelioma cases to Weitz & Luxenberg.

Speaking of the district attorney, Sedita is holding a campaign fundraiser on March 10, according to sources in his office. (The express purpose is to “honor” the D.A., but attendees must pay for that privilege.) Sedita was re-elected in 2013 with no opposition, yet immediately after being sworn in for a second term he held a fundraiser, causing many of his employees to groan: Why must they pay tribute to a

guy who has plenty of campaign money and who will not face another election for four years?

The worst-kept secret in Western New York is that Sedita would like a judgeship, and that’s why he continues to raise money: He needs cash with which to buy and keep that place on the bench, wherever it might be.

Currently, he has employees who must give in order to “honor” him for providing them jobs; once he’s a judge, fundraising will not be quite so easy.

And speaking of campaign finance, there are some interesting expenditures

by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, who, like Sedita, has no election on his horizon: Last September and October, Brown spent about $62,000 with Dunton Consulting, a political consulting firm based in Brown’s hometown of Queens in New York City.

(Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes spent about $47,000 with Dunton Consulting in exactly the same time period.)

Dunton’s principal is Rasheida Smith, a former aide and campaign manager for Rep. Charles Rangel.

Rangel will not seek reelection this year; ethics complaints have piled up in recent years. (Smith herself was at the center of a scandal last year, when it was revealed that she created a shady, state-funded nonprofit called New York 4 Life, which New York City Councilman Ruben Wills used like an ATM.) Candidates are lining up to succeed Rangel. Brown has certainly examined a congressional race in Western New York, but the prospects here are grim.

Perhaps he’s looking for a change of venue.

This commentary was originally published by The Public (www. dailypublic.com), a weekly Western New York news publication and web site.

cit yandstateny.com

DARREN MCGEE / OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

By GEOFF KELLY from THE PUBLIC

CITY & STATE — March 9,, 2015

18

T

his year, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tax bill on his $1.41 million Park Slope townhome will total nearly $2,900.

A few miles away in Borough Park, the owner of a home similarly valued at $1.42 million will have to pay more than $15,000—over five times as much as the mayor.

In Manhattan, Borough President Gale Brewer will be taxed $16,261 on her $4.82 million Upper West Side brownstone, for an effective property tax rate of 0.34 percent—a bit higher than the 0.21 percent rate enjoyed by the mayor, but still a bargain. In other residential neighborhoods like Kingsbridge and Spuyten Duyvil in the Bronx or Jackson Heights in Queens, the rate is nearly three times as high.

And in rapidly growing North Williamsburg, owners of one-, twoand three-family homes enjoy some of the lowest tax rates in the city.

Meanwhile, in the further reaches of Brooklyn, the city takes a much bigger share from homeowners.

“I’m paying high taxes now, and I’m not happy about it,” complained Jaime Archeta, a longtime homeowner in Canarsie. Archeta’s home, which he has owned for two decades, is currently worth $462,000, according to the city.

His tax bill this year? Almost the same

as the mayor’s—$2,951.52, compared to $2,894.43 for de Blasio—even though Archeta’s property is one third the value.

“Some people like me, we’re not complaining because we don’t really know where to complain in the first place,” Archeta said. “Somebody has to correct this issue. Somebody has to move and do something to put equality in every section in Brooklyn.”

I

f the figures seem confusing, it’s because they are. New York City is notorious for its outdated, inconsistent and mind-numbingly complex method of assessing property taxes, which some experts say could very well be the worst such system in the country.

To begin with, there have long been questions about how accurately properties are valued, although the city’s performance has improved on that front. By statute, different types of properties—commercial versus residential, homes versus cooperatives and condominiums—are assessed very differently, and some bear a much larger burden than others. Even within a single property class—in this case, residential properties with one to three units—the tax bill can

vary wildly from one neighborhood to the next. Yet at the same time, state law mandates that property taxes be equitable across the city.

“There’s an overall objective of equity, but the law also has all these particular requirements about how you do it, and some of those produce inequity,” said George Sweeting, the deputy director of the New York City Independent Budget Office. “It’s a conflict in the law.”

Behind the discrepancies in residential property tax rates is a decades-old tax cap that protects homeowners against rapidly escalating bills. While well-intentioned, the cap on property assessments has created others problems. In neighborhoods with surging property values, the assessments have not kept pace. The tax bill continues to rise for homeowners in such areas, but it makes up a smaller and smaller share of a home’s market value, leading to stark disparities from one part of the city to the next.

“They chose to offer that protection in a way that makes it difficult for the city to actually adjust taxes fast enough to keep up with the growth in market values,” Sweeting said. “You wind up with neighborhoods in which there’s been appreciation over the years and they’ve got a tax burden—not the

actual tax, but tax as a percentage of the market value—that is a quarter or a third of what it is in neighborhoods where there isn’t much change.”

The trend is most striking in up-and-coming parts of the city, notably in Brooklyn, where property values have been skyrocketing with annual growth well into the double digits. At times, the city as a whole has experienced remarkable property value growth. Between 1998 and 2008, for example, the average annual market value increase for Class 1 properties—those with one to three residential units—was a robust 12.5 percent, according to the IBO. Yet assessments can’t go up more than 6 percent a year for these properties in Class 1, and the growth is further limited at 20 percent over a five-year period. Any increase in value above those levels is essentially ignored, costing the city billions of dollars in foregone revenue. In gentrifying areas like Williamsburg or Fort Greene in Brooklyn, the lag is more extreme, resulting in tax rates there that are a fraction of what they are elsewhere in the city. Just by owning a residential property in Park Slope, the mayor and his neighbors have been paying far less than their fair share.

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

TAXATION WITHOUT EQUALIZATION New York City doesn’t make it easy to calculate—let alone understand—the annual tax on a home. So here’s a quick rundown of how it’s done for Class 1 properties, or residences with one to three units.

1. Estimate a property’s market value based on recent sales of comparable buildings.

2. Use the assessment ratio to determine the assessed value, which is a standard 6 percent of the market value.

3. Factor in the assessment cap, which limits assessment increases to 6 percent a year or 20 percent over five years. When applicable, this reduces the 6 percent assessment ratio.

4. Subtract the exempt value, or any amount that is not taxable, from the assessed value to get the taxable value.

5. Multiply the taxable value by the tax rate, which is 19.157 percent this year, to determine the annual property tax.

6. Subtract any abatements, credits or refunds.

7. To determine the effective tax rate, divide the market value by the property tax.

Got that? Let’s take a closer look at two properties with similar market values but very different tax bills.

BILL DE BLASIO

NAME WITHHELD

11th Street

57th Street

Park Slope, Brooklyn

Borough Park, Brooklyn

Market Value:

Market Value:

$1,407,000

$1,421,000

Assessment ratio:

Assessment ratio:

1.1883%

5.6323%

Assessed value:

Assessed value:

$1,407,000 x 0.011883 = $16,719

$1,421,000 x 0.056323

Exempt value:

= $80,035

$1,610

Exempt value:

Taxable value:

$1,610

$16,719 - $1,610 = $15,109

Taxable value:

Tax:

$80,035 - $1,610 = $78,425

$15,109 x 0.19157 = $2,894.43

Tax:

Effective tax rate:

$78,425 x 0.19157 = $15,023.88

$2,894.43 / $1,407,000

Effective tax rate:

= 0.0021 or 0.21%

$15,023.88 / $1,421,000 =

19

0.0106 or 1.06%

The key factor behind the inconsistent tax bills is the rate at which a property value goes up. For rapidly appreciating properties such as the mayor’s, the assessment cap means that the tax can’t keep up with the market value.

MARKET VALUES

Bill de Blasio

Name Withheld

$1,600,000

As a result, the effective tax rate of 0.21 percent for the mayor’s Park Slope property is well below the borough-wide average of 0.66 percent, while the 1.06 percent rate for the Borough Park residence is far higher. How do they compare to the rest of the city?

$1,200,000 $1,000,000 $800,000 $600,000 $400,000 $200,000 $0 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

2012

2013

2014 2015

Average effective tax rates: Manhattan

0.55%

Brooklyn

0.66%

Queens

0.87%

Bronx

0.92%

Staten Island

0.96%

New York City

0.79%

CITY & STATE — March 9,, 2015

$1,400,000

CLASS DIVISIONS

W

hen New York City’s property tax code was overhauled back in 1981, the city and the state set up a system of four property classes.

The new system was intended to make tax levels consistent within each class. However, as a 2013 analysis from the Citizens Budget Commission showed, homeowners pay much lower property taxes.

CLASS 1 One-, two- and three-family homes MARKET VALUE (FISCAL YEAR 2014): $396.855 BILLION SHARE OF MARKET VALUE: 46.25% TAX LEVY: $3.212 BILLION SHARE OF TAX LEVY: 15.28% EFFECTIVE TAX RATE: 0.81%

CLASS 2 Cooperatives, condominiums and larger rental buildings

20

MARKET VALUE: $202.479 BILLION SHARE OF MARKET VALUE: 23.60% TAX LEVY: $7.679 BILLION SHARE OF TAX LEVY: 36.53% EFFECTIVE TAX RATE: 3.79%

CLASS 3 Utilities MARKET VALUE: $28.193 BILLION SHARE OF MARKET VALUE: 3.29% TAX LEVY: $1.289 BILLION SHARE OF TAX LEVY: 6.13% EFFECTIVE TAX RATE: 4.57%

CITY & STATE — March 9,, 2015

CLASS 4 Commercial buildings MARKET VALUE: $230.576 BILLION SHARE OF MARKET VALUE: 26.87% TAX LEVY: $8.840 BILLION SHARE OF TAX LEVY: 42.06% EFFECTIVE TAX RATE: 3.83%

B

ill de Blasio swept into City Hall on a platform of addressing inequality, repeatedly invoking “a tale of two cities” divided between the haves and have-nots. Exemplifying his commitment to leveling the playing field was a pledge to raise taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents to fund an expansion of pre-kindergarten.

Numerous other administration policies fit neatly within that broader vision.

At first glance, then, property taxes would be a natural target for the mayor. The status quo benefits wealthier homeowners while hurting renters, who pay disproportionately more in taxes even though they typically have lower incomes. The neighborhoods where the cap saves homeowners the most money, at least in absolute dollars, are those with the highest incomes. Wealthy Manhattan has the lowest effective tax rate of any of the five boroughs.

But despite the well-documented inequities in the way New York City collects property taxes, which make up the single largest and most stable portion of the city’s revenue stream, the issue seems to have failed to gain traction under the city leadership that took over last year.

To be fair, de Blasio has acknowledged the flaws. The mayor’s concerns were echoed by Finance Commissioner Jacques Jiha, who committed to conducting a review of the system when he was appointed last year, and the matter has been discussed internally at City Hall since the mayor took office in 2014.

Yet there is no evidence that the administration is taking any concrete steps to overhaul the system, and the mayor now appears to be steering clear of the issue, at least publicly.

Wiley Norvell, a de Blasio spokesman, declined to comment for this story, saying in an email only that the questions posed by City & State had been answered by the city’s Finance Department—even though a Finance Department spokeswoman had declined to comment.

The New York City Council also made a short-lived promise to tackle the issue. In April of last year, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito called for a commission to look into the property tax system and propose reforms. The commission, she said, would “study the issue and bring people to the table and really take a look at whatever criticism, analysis and concerns that are being expressed

publicly” and try to “figure out if there are ways” to improve or overhaul it. A spokesman said the commission would be established in the “near future.”

A few months later in late June, the Council allocated $424,000 for the commission, specifying that it would start work in the fall of 2014 and release a final report within 18 months.

Nearly a year after announcing plans for a commission, its prospects have dimmed. Last month, MarkViverito said that the Council had not set up the commission and that it now is “not looking to convene it in the near future.” “At the moment we put together a commission to look at tax subsidies and economic subsidies on behalf of the city,” she said. “We have continued to have conversations on the property tax commission.” A spokesman for Mark-Viverito declined to offer further comment.

New York City Councilman Mark Weprin told City & State that he still hopes the city will convene the commission or otherwise take a comprehensive look at property taxes, but that he had not heard of any concrete plans.

“It’s the third rail of policy sometimes because there’s a lot of controversy and the money has to be made up often somewhere else and no one wants to see their taxes raised,” said Weprin, who wants to cap taxes for co-operatives and condominiums at the same level as single-family homes.

“There’s a lot of other stuff going on and this is not an easy task. This is not something people get in a room and figure out in an hour. We need to get people to focus on this because people have been punting on this for far too long.”

T

he story behind the city’s property tax structure starts several decades ago with a man named Jerome Hellerstein. A law professor and attorney, Hellerstein filed an unusual lawsuit in the 1970s disputing an assessment on his family’s Fire Island bungalow. The property had been assessed at a fraction of its actual market value, and Hellerstein challenged the assessment on the grounds that it violated a centuriesold state law. Although a legal victory would mean paying higher taxes, he battled all the way to the state Court of Appeals, which ruled in the family’s favor in 1975. The broader implication was that municipalities all across the state had to assess properties at full market value.

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

VARIABLE RATES

J

ust like other homeowners in New York City, elected officials who own residential property pay a wide range of tax rates. As a baseline, the average effective property tax rate for Class 1 properties—residential units with one to three units—is 0.79 percent in the city.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO Park Slope, Brooklyn

MANHATTAN BOROUGH PRESIDENT GALE BREWER

NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL SPEAKER MELISSA MARK-VIVERITO

Upper West Side, Manhattan

East Harlem, Manhattan

21

$1,407,000

Market value

$4,816,000

Market value

$997,000

Property tax: $2,894.43

Property tax: $16,260.65

Property tax: $6,362.61

Effective tax rate: 0.21 percent

Effective tax rate: 0.34 percent

Effective tax rate: 0.64 percent

FORMER MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG

STATE SEN. MARTIN GOLDEN

ASSEMBLY SPEAKER CARL HEASTIE

Upper East Side, Manhattan

Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

Edenwald, Bronx

Market value

$17,025,000

Market value

$1,550,000

Market value

$333,000

Property tax: $117,900.61

Property tax: $11,935.00

Property tax: $3,519.14

Effective tax rate: 0.69 percent

Effective tax rate: 0.77 percent

Effective tax rate: 1.06 percent

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

CITY & STATE — March 9,, 2015

Market value

22

CITY & STATE — March 9,, 2015

N

ew York City’s property tax system itself is so opaque and complex that it would take substantial time, resources and political will to change it. The inconsistencies within Class 1 are only the tip of the iceberg—lawmakers have also taken aim at how co-op and condo owners are treated, and industry lobbyists gripe about the huge burden borne by power plants, factories, shopping malls and other commercial properties. Each part of the system is so intertwined and interdependent with the others that altering the rules for one property class impacts all the other classes, making it virtually impossible to resort to minor tweaks.

Despite a poor track record of reform, there is no shortage of proposals for how to fix the system.

One unlikely scenario would be to impose a single tax rate across all classes, essentially doing away with the distinctions between commercial, utility and residential properties of any kind. An upside to the proposal would be a far more transparent and understandable system, as well as one that is fundamentally fair. The change would also be attractive to the business community, lowering their rates considerably and making New York more competitive with its neighbors.

The downside is that homeowners would eventually see steep increases, a dicey proposition for elected officials.

Some proposals call for other re-groupings, such as classifying all residential properties together in one group and commercial properties in another. One variation would categorize properties either for personal use or investment. Another idea is to simply eliminate the various caps and phase-ins, replacing them with a “circuit-breaker” that reduces tax payments based on the ability to pay. Any significant reform would be all but certain to raise the rates for homeowners, so new safeguards would likely be built into any major overhaul.

If New York City officials do one day arrive at an agreement to revamp the system, other challenges would arise. Adjustments would have to be phased in, over multiple years, to avoid sharp increases. The city’s elected officials would have to persuade lawmakers in Albany to pass legislation to enact the changes. The mayor, like his predecessors, has experienced the difficulty of getting the governor and state Legislature to support his policies.

And for de Blasio, other initiatives like universal prekindergarten, affordable housing and rent regulations have been higher priorities, and will continue to take much of his time, attention and political clout.

Gale Brewer, the Manhattan borough president, said that despite the obstacles, it is critical that the city and the state take action to address the inequality in the system—even though it would likely mean higher property tax bills for herself.

“It would be a huge effort,” Brewer said, “but it has to be done.”

This story was reported in partnership with PIX11’s Marvin Scott, who aired a version of it in late February. Reporting was also contributed by City & State’s Sarina Trangle.

PAY WHAT YOU CAN

NEW YORK HALL OF GOVERNORS

The state Legislature, worried about making politically unpopular changes that could raise taxes for constituents, delayed taking legislative action to comply with the ruling. “The truth is today there is no plan for guaranteeing equity that is not going to cost somebody,” said then-Lt. Gov. Mario Cuomo in 1981. “Since nobody is sure whom a solution will hurt, everybody believes it’s going to cost them.”

Later that year, however, lawmakers forced through a compromise measure, overriding a veto from Gov. Hugh Carey. The bill, known as S7000A, created New York City’s property classification system, which provided a basis for what had previously been illegal discrepancies between different kinds of properties. The law also imposed the residential property assessment caps, which ultimately gave rise to greater inconsistency over the years.

In the end, however, state lawmakers actually did relatively little, taking pains to minimize changes in how the property tax burden is divided up. That meant that owners of commercial properties and apartment buildings in New York City continued to pay a larger share—an unequal distribution that continues to this day.

Over the years intermittent endeavors at reform have come and gone. The last serious effort came in 1993, when Mayor David Dinkins set up the Real Property Tax Reform Commission. Dinkins then lost his reelection bid to Rudy Giuliani, who went on to sign a 1997 measure providing an abatement for apartment owners. Otherwise, Giuliani largely ignored the commission’s work.

Gov. Hugh Carey

N

ew York City’s cap on residential property assessments has helped to protect many homeowners from unaffordable tax hikes—but over time the safeguard has created inconsistencies from one neighborhood to the next.

So if, in the name of fairness, the city were to drop the cap, would thousands of city residents suddenly be hit with huge property tax bills—or even forced from their homes?

Not necessarily, experts say.

One alternative would be to enact a property tax “circuit breaker,” which would instead limit annual tax increases based on a homeowner’s ability to pay.

Such a measure would still protect low-income residents while at the same time increasing revenue from their neighbors who are able to afford the higher payments.

The idea is not new. Decades ago, Gov. Hugh Carey’s proposed property tax overhaul included a circuit breaker linking taxes to income in New York City. Carey would have limited property taxes to no more than 4 percent of income for a household earning less than $12,000 a year, according to the New York City Independent Budget Office. However, state lawmakers eventually moved forward with their own plans that included a cap instead.

More recently, Gov. Andrew

Cuomo has proposed a property tax circuit breaker for households with incomes below $250,000 and taxes that exceed 6 percent of income.

Although the governor’s first-term property tax initiatives targeted upstate New York, this one would cover the five boroughs as well as the rest of the state.

George Sweeting, the deputy director at the city’s Independent Budget Office, said that the governor’s proposal would allow the state to target certain income groups and offer broad relief, but that it wouldn’t do much to address growing costs for local governments, which rely heavily on property taxes.

Still, a circuit breaker that is more targeted than the governor’s would be a good idea in New York City, Sweeting added, at least as an alternative to the existing assessment caps.

“Using the assessment cap is pretty inefficient,” Sweeting said. “You wind up giving benefits to people whose incomes might very well be keeping up with their appreciation. Using a circuit breaker that’s really structured towards the goal of linking the benefit to ability to pay is a more efficient way of providing that protection for homeowners whose income is not going up as fast as their assessments.”

—Jon Lentz

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

HOUSING

WORK IN PROGRESS

BLUEPRINT NOW IN PLACE, DE BLASIO BUILDS A HOMELESS POLICY

By JARRETT MURPHY from CITY LIMITS

O

city & state — March 9, 2015

24

n the frigid day he took the oath of office outside City Hall, Bill de Blasio sat just a few seats from Dasani Coates, the girl whose saga narrated The New York Times’ devastating expose of homelessness in the waning days of Michael Bloomberg’s era. Her presence hinted at the high stakes, both human and political, that homelessness presented to the new mayor.

It seems strange then that de Blasio has so far escaped any heavy criticism over the rising number of families entering the shelter system on his watch. Month after month last year, the tally rose—by 132 in February, 206 in May, more than 300 over the summer and 800 or so in the fall— so that by the end of his first year in office, the mayor had presided over a 14 percent increase in the shelter census of families with children.

But in January, the family homeless number dropped by 1.18 percent. On one hand, that was barely a budge of the needle. On the other, it was the largest month-to-month decrease in nearly four years.

More important than the slight ebb was the likely reason for it: that new programs created by the de Blasio administration were finally gaining traction at moving people out of shelter and into housing. So far, it seems homelessness policy advocates have given the mayor room to accomplish the enormous task of reversing the failed policies bequeathed to him by his predecessor in City Hall and complicated by his old friend in the governor’s mansion.

of reducing the homeless population by two thirds in five years. With that goal in mind the city boosted programs to prevent homelessness and to help people stay out of shelter when they leave. At the same time, transfixed by the idea that people were entering the shelter system in order to get near the head of the line for housing benefits, the Bloomberg team ended the link between shelters and public housing apartments or Section 8 vouchers.

To replace those benefits, they created a new program called Homeless Stability Plus, which offered a timelimited rental subsidy to a narrow set of families leaving shelters. Assailed by advocates as unworkable, HSP was soon withdrawn by the Bloomberg administration and replaced with the Advantage program, which offered two years of rental assistance to working families living in shelters.

Advantage wasn’t beloved either— DHS and the homeless advocacy community argued over whether it was making any permanent dent in the population of families falling into the shelter system. In 2011 Gov. Andrew Cuomo moved to cut state funding for it. Some advocates cheered the governor on, hoping it would force the city to come up with a better policy; others worried that the mayor would call the governor’s bluff. The latter bet was the right one: The Bloomberg team pulled city funding out of Advantage, too.

With the exit door nailed shut, the shelter population swelled, leaping by a quarter by the end of Bloomberg’s third term.

THE TRULY DIS-ADVANTAGED

HITTING THE LINCS

Mayor Bloomberg set a goal in 2004

It was clear from the outset that de Blasio would have to come up

with a new rental subsidy program to replace Advantage. The mayor did make other early homeless policy moves—like removing families from two notoriously grim shelters depicted in The Times’ Dasani series and increasing funding for homelessness prevention. But the flagship program was the new rental subsidy, which the administration began talking about publicly in February.

Resistance from the Cuomo administration was swift. First, the governor suggested that the mayor’s proposals had come too late in the budget cycle to make the state’s 20142015 spending plan. The governor ultimately blinked, but there was more discord when his administration began negotiating with the city over the shape of the program. The state insisted that its rent levels be set lower than for Section 8, as they had been for the Advantage program.

Those lower rent levels nearly sank the new effort—dubbed Living In Communities, or LINC—at the pier.

Six weeks into the LINC program, uptake by landlords was so slow that the de Blasio administration exercised its authority to raise the rent levels.

The maximum rent for a two-bedroom jumped from $1,200 to $1,515 a month.

After the rates were raised on Nov. 7, enrollment by landlords increased. By the time Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Gilbert Taylor and his Human Resources Administration counterpart Steven Banks testified at the City Council on Jan. 21, some 328 families encompassing 1,072 people had moved out of shelters under one of the LINC programs. Another 1,600 families have been certified for the program but hadn’t found apartments yet.

LINC now has five variants. LINC 1 is for families with at least one

member working 35 hours a week and employed for the past 90 days.

Households in LINC 1—which aims to serve 1,101 families—pay 30 percent of their income toward rent. The state has committed $40 million to LINC 1 over four years and the city is supposed to at least match that. As of Jan. 21, 132 families had moved out of shelter under LINC 1.

LINC 2 is for families who have had recurring shelter stays—at least two stays of a month or more, one of them in the last five years. These 950 families must have some work income and be receiving public assistance, and will pay 30 percent of their income toward rent. The $15 million a year for LINC 2 comes from federal, state and city funds that DHS saves by not having families in shelters. There were 56 “move outs” under LINC 2 by mid-January.

LINC 3 is for 1,900 families who have experienced domestic violence.

Their rent will be calculated based on their public-assistance benefits. The city is paying for LINC 3—under which 140 families had moved out by mid-January—itself.

The city is also funding on its own LINC 4 and LINC 5, which were developed after the other three programs were already rolling out.

LINC 4 is for 1,100 medically frail or elderly single adults or adult families in the shelter system and LINC 5 is for working singles and adult families and will serve 1,000 people or families.

For both programs, rent is set at 30 percent of income. Some 77 people have moved out of shelter under LINC 4 and LINC 5.

The late introduction of the programs for single adults and adult families might be reflected in the shelter statistics for both groups: While the number of families with cit yandstateny.com

PRAISE FROM THE CRITICS

housing set-aside “a fraction of what is needed,” and others have noted that NYCHA is the only housing resource that is entirely under the city’s control.

Asked about the NYCHA numbers, City Hall says it is trying to be fair in divvying up public housing resources sought by the homeless but also by veterans and others. For its part, NYCHA says it placed 865 homeless families in public housing and another 291 in Section 8 units in 2014.

“With the current waiting list of more than 250,000 people, NYCHA strives to give all New Yorkers in need fair access to housing. NYCHA’s new leadership is committed to expand housing opportunities for all New Yorkers in need, and support the city’s efforts to move families out of shelter and into permanent housing,” the authority said in a statement.

EYES ON ALBANY Homeless policy is not just about the programs in place to prevent people from needing shelter, or to help them get out of it once they’re there. There are also the shelters themselves. And one key change from 2013 to now is that “New York City is not wrongfully denying homeless families access to shelter the way the

ROB BENNETT / OFFICE OF THE MAYOR

Homeless policy advocates, some of whom made no secret of their disdain for the Bloomberg-era DHS (which was reciprocated), have largely cheered the de Blasio administration’s efforts. “We want to commend them for creating at least a path now for people out of shelter for the some 60,000 folks that are in shelter,” Christy Parque from Homeless Services United told the Council in January.

The scope and structure of the programs do spur some worries.

It’s unclear whether the programs have enough funding to absorb rent increases for existing participants in future years, let alone to expand to serve more of the shelter population.

The complexities of program design mean that some people in the shelter system—like, say, families who’ve experienced domestic violence but aren’t on public assistance—might have trouble finding a LINC for them. And advocates worry about requirements like the 35 hours a week

that defines a “working family.” Jeff Foreman, policy director at Care for the Homeless, told the Council that a person lining up for LINC is “almost always going to be a very low-income, low-wage worker. And they have very little control over their hours.”

For Lucinda Lewis, an advocate with Picture the Homeless who describes herself as chronically homeless, the concern is that the temporary nature of the LINC programs will simply delay families’ return to shelter. Other than LINC 4—the one for the elderly and frail—LINC benefits are limited to five years. “To me, this won’t be a concrete, long-term program,” Lewis said. “Due to the similarities between LINC, HSP and Advantage, we will see the same rate of recidivism as we saw when those two programs ended.

I am living testimony.”

A broader area of contention is the de Blasio administration’s decision to set aside for the homeless only 750 of the 5,500 or so apartments that become available every year within the New York City Housing Authority. Advocates, who for years had protested Bloomberg’s move to cut the link between homeless shelters and NYCHA, had been pushing for at least twice that. Councilman Steven Levin, chair of the General Welfare Committee, called the public

A Times story on Dasani Coates, above with Public Advocate Letitia James, highlighted homelessness in the city.

cit yandstateny.com

Bloomberg administration did,” as one advocate puts it. That widened path to shelter might be one reason why the homeless figures jumped in de Blasio’s first year.

January’s slight decrease in families with children living in the shelters could be an aberration or the subtle start of a promising trend. State funding will be a factor in deciding which way it goes. In his recent visit to Albany, de Blasio said he wanted from the state “$32 million in funding this year, and more in future years, for rental assistance to prevent and alleviate homelessness” by preventing evictions and supporting LINC 3 and LINC 4.

De Blasio also described as “ill-considered” a proposal to cut $22.5 million in emergency assistance funds to the city. “That money would provide shelter for 500 families for a year,” he said.

Cuomo’s budget does propose a rebate to the city of $55 million that Albany would normally charge for juvenile detention placements, with the savings meant for homelessness programs. But advocates contend that doesn’t represent real, new money.

Meanwhile, de Blasio and advocates all deride Cuomo’s commitment to supportive housing. Supporters want the state to follow the 9,000-unit NY/ NYIII supportive housing initiative, which is winding down, with a 30,000unit NY/NY IV, but the governor’s budget falls short. Cuomo’s proposed program, de Blasio testified, “provides less than half the number of units to New York City that NY/NY III did, even though the homeless population is now twice as large” and tries to stick the city with coming up with money to cover the services provided at supportive housing facilities.

After a one-on-one meeting with the governor, de Blasio was asked by reporters whether the two had discussed the proposed cut to city homeless funding.

“Well, again, without getting into detail, we talked about some of the areas where the city has concerns, and there’s going to be an ongoing dialogue about that,” the mayor said, “and, you know, I’m hopeful that will lead to some improvements.”

This story was published by City Limits, which City & State is partnering with to cover crucial housing policy stories in 2015.

25

city & state — March 9, 2015

kids decreased in January, the city posted new highs for the number of adult families and single adults in the system.

EDUCATION

SPOTLIGHT: EDUCATION

L

city & state — March 9, 2015

26

ike the changing of the seasons, the schools budget battle comes up in Albany every March. This year the funding fight has been complicated by sweeping reform proposals from Gov. Andrew Cuomo that could have a significant impact on the future of New York City’s schools—particularly on the future of mayoral control of the city’s schools, which is up for renewal in Albany this year.

In his joint State of the State and budget address in January, Cuomo proposed aggressive changes to the teacher evaluation system and teacher tenure while pushing for more charter schools. The move has prompted the state’s teachers union and many education groups to rally against him. Cuomo doubled down on tying teacher evaluations to Common Core-aligned standardized tests—a hotly debated issue—and upped the ante on his proposals by tying a $1.1 billion increase in school aid to the reforms. If state legislators do not pass the measures, there will only be a $377 million increase in state funding.

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio is watching Albany closely while also taking steps to overhaul of the policies of his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg. De Blasio has given Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña the difficult task of shifting course from the statistics-driven policymaking that defined the Bloomberg era. But the transition can be slow: in one case, the city Board of Education faces a Bloomberg-era lawsuit from parents and education advocates suing for more access to School Leadership Team meetings.

City & State delves into these issues and more in this special section on education.

28...

30...

32...

34...

36...

STRIKING A BALANCE ON STANDARDIZED TESTS

By Ashley Hupfl

LOCKED OUT OF SCHOOL POLICY MEETINGS

By Sarina Trangle

TALLYING CHARTER SCHOOL SUSPENSIONS

By Geoff Decker, Stephanie Snyder and Sarah Darville

EVALUATING TEACHER EVALUATIONS

By Susan Arbetter

Q&AS WITH JOHN FLANAGAN, CATHY NOLAN, MERRYL TISCH AND DORITA GIBSON

cit yandstateny.com

EDUCATION

STRIKING A BALANCE

INTERESTS FIGHT OVER WHAT LEVEL OF STANDARDIZED TESTING IS NECESSARY

BY ASHLEY HUPFL

A 28

What shoul d New York do with standa rdized testi ng?

Add more t ests Have fewer Drop all tes

tests

city & state — March 9, 2015

ts

nyone who has gone through the U.S. education system in the past 50 years is likely familiar with answering a test question by filling in a multiple choice bubble. Over time, the importance of those standardized tests for schools, teachers and students has steadily grown. Now, for the first time, that trend may be subsiding.

Educators and advocates have called into question the volume of testing, and in New York that fight heated up after new Common Core tests resulted in plummeting state test scores. The number of students who passed the math and English Language Arts tests fell about 30 percent in 2013 from 2012. State officials said that the drop was expected and simply reflected higher standards, but parents and teachers worried about the effect of the failure rate on students.

The stakes were raised this year when Gov. Andrew Cuomo doubled down on his efforts to reform the public education system with a vow to tie the teacher evaluation system to state tests. If his measure passes the state Legislature, 50 percent of teacher’s evaluations would be tied to students’ performance on the state tests. But with parents and teachers pushing back on that plan, the backlash has made New York a test model for a larger conversation on standardized testing—and there may not be one correct answer.

Standardized testing has been around for decades, starting largely with the implementation of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act in the 1960s. The measure was a response to a growing awareness of inequality and civil rights and its goal was to measure the progress of all

students—students of color, disabled students, English Language Learners, rich kids and poor kids—and hold schools accountable for that progress.

The re-authorization of the ESEA in 2002, commonly known as No Child Left Behind, increased schools’ reliance on standardized testing and required states to give a test in math and English in grades three through eight as well as the Regents exams in high school.

“It became a much more testoriented system at that point,” Dan Kinley, director of policy and program development at NYSUT, said. “But it didn’t get to the point where it’s at today until they became more important in that they were no longer about simply looking to see how schools were doing, but it started to be about how are our students doing, and now in the last two years, how are our teachers doing. And that’s when it sort of shifted.”

Advocates for standardized testing argue that it is a necessary part of life and a skill that children need to develop. Officials at the state Department of Education say that “standardized” simply means students are demonstrating the knowledge and skills under standard circumstances so those results can be compared—a necessary part of evaluating success, but not the only component. This feeling is similar at the New York City Department of Education.

“Testing is part of life. We’ve all taken a test. We’ve all been a part of that,” said Dorita Gibson, the New York City Department of Education deputy chancellor. “Our goal is to make sure that the students are prepared, that the education that’s taking place in the schools, that the rigor is high, cit yandstateny.com

so that when it comes time to take the test, they’re not worried or stressed out.

“It’s just one day,” Gibson added.

“It shouldn’t take over everything that’s happening in the school.”

Still, a growing movement is worried the high-stakes nature of the new state tests have caused teachers to “teach to the test.” That, in turn, has led many parents to have their kids opt out of taking the exam, which has skewed results. Last year, about 49,000 students in New York did not take the ELA test and about 67,000 students did not take the math test, according to the state Department of Education. In total, 1.1 million did take the state tests.

“I’m certainly sure parents are disappointed in the level, amount and time of testing and most of all, it is ensuring teachers aren’t spending their time teaching or spending their time preparing to teach,” Assemblyman Jim Tedisco said. “They’re spending their time preparing to teach to a test and I guess the governor evaluates a good teacher on how well they teach a test and answer questions on it and he evaluates students on how well

they answer questions on standardized tests.”

The current state tests, Kinley argued, have little value to teachers because they do not receive all the results, and the data they do get are not public until the following September.

“The state test is, again, this sort of photograph in time that comes back to the teachers the following school year.

I’m not sure what that tells us,” Kinley said. “And then, you don’t get the information about what the questions were because they only release half of them. So the value of the state exam to teachers has dropped significantly from the days when you used to get all of the information.”

Tedisco, a former special education teacher, has introduced the Common Core Refusal Act, which would inform parents they can opt their children out of the state tests and ensure students and schools face no penalties for opting out.

“What we’re trying to do is starve the beast with these refusals so we can go back to the drawing board, do this in an efficient way,” he said. “Have parents, teachers and administrators input in this, have hearings across the

state … and come up with a plan that really enhances education. [Cuomo] is a bully and the only way to deal with a bully is to stand up to him.”

But supporters of Common Core standards argue that opting out can ultimately hurt students and teachers.

By opting out, a student who is slipping behind may not be identified and get help. If too many students in a class opt out, a bad teacher may go unidentified, subjecting hundreds of future students to a year of substandard education.

Several states have opted out of Common Core. However, many New York officials continue to back the standards, making a repeal unlikely in the state. In addition, the state received $413.5 million in federal funds to implement Common Core and will receive another $283.1 million if it continues to roll out the standards.

With standardized testing here to stay, the fight is now over the quality of the tests and how frequently students take them.

Tedisco said standardized testing has a role in the education system, if done right. NYSUT is adamantly opposed to the high-stakes nature of the state tests, but also believes standardized

testing is necessary.

“We think that the role of standardized tests should be about diagnostics—you know, to figure out what students need, to help teachers understand what changes they might need to make in their program in order to improve student learning in the future,” Kinley said. “I think that if you think back to when this originally started, you didn’t have all that controversy, and now that they’re high stakes you do. You can draw at least some conclusions from the fact that they became high stakes.”

Both critics and advocates of the state tests believe the goal should be a balance of testing and other measures to evaluate performance of both students and teachers. “[Parents have to] know that it’s not going to be like the sole decision that makes the decision about the next steps for the children,” said Gibson, the New York City education official.

“It’s a balanced approach. There are lots of challenges in life, and this is just one of them. We’re trying to take off a lot of the stress that’s involved with the children, that it’s just another day, and that they’re prepared.”

29

Hundreds of New York public school teachers have invited you to come into their classrooms to see for yourself what all kids need.

They want you to understand the impact of over-testing, crowded classes, lack of supplies and too few supports for teachers and struggling students.

They want you to see for yourself, rather than listening to your millionaire contributors who keep telling you that teachers are to blame for everything that’s wrong in our schools.

We know that the teachers did not support your re-election bid. But as The New York Times recently wrote: It is time “to move beyond peripheral concerns and political score-settling” to confront “the inequality in school funding that prevents many poor districts from lifting their children up to state standards.”

You talk a lot about teachers. Why not talk to teachers?

Come to one of our classrooms:

Karen E. Magee, President Andrew Pallotta, Executive Vice President Catalina R. Fortino, Vice President Paul Pecorale, Vice President Martin Messner, Secretary-Treasurer

www.nysut.org

cit yandstateny.com

#InviteCuomo

#AllKidsNeed

city & state — March 9, 2015

The door is always open.

EDUCATION

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT ADVOCATES DEMAND PUBLIC ACCESS AT SCHOOL MEETINGS

BY SARINA TRANGLE

A

CITY & STATE — March 9, 2015

30

prominent Manhattan education leader was held up for nearly an hour by school officials before gaining entrance to a School Leadership Team (SLT) meeting where co-location plans were unveiled.

A Brooklyn teacher said parents returned from a city Department of Education (DOE) engagement workshop interested in attending such meetings, but one who showed up was turned away.

And a Staten Island teacher’s quest to get school budget questions answered at SLT meetings launched two lawsuits.

The three are among a group of educators and activists who said they were optimistic when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio assumed office because he had pledged to usher in a more collaborative era at the DOE. But his administration has not altered a policy they say is inconsistently enforced and sometimes bars the community from attending SLT meetings, where individual schools map out goals, plans and budgets.

In January, New York City Public Advocate Letitia James and the education advocacy group Class Size Matters joined a lawsuit that predates de Blasio’s election, but seeks to force his administration to formally recognize SLT meetings as open, public gatherings. James said she wrote to the city schools chancellor asking her to reconsider the policy, and was surprised when the administration would not budge.

“I thought they would be committed to transparency,” James said. “I think it’s integral to improving our public school system.”

Under the chancellor’s regulations, every school must convene an SLT comprised of the principal, parent association president, United Federation of Teachers chapter leader and at least seven others. The group is required to meet at least once a month during the school year—after giving

notice in a form consistent with the Open Meetings Law—and develop a comprehensive education plan that contains goals and an action plan meant to inform the school’s budget.

But the city has taken the position that SLTs don’t need to comply with the Open Meetings Law because they operate solely in an advisory capacity, according to city Law Department spokesman Nick Paolucci. It is a point that has been fought over in court in recent years.

Plaintiffs also argue that civic meetings on public school property, such as SLT gatherings, must be open to the public under another state law. Investigators found this protocol was not followed when de Blasio met privately with union members in a Canarsie school in July.

Above all, advocates say public admission makes sense.

Lisa Donlan, president of one of more than 30 Community Education Councils overseen by the DOE to provide input on education policy, noted that she and a journalist had to argue their way into a September 2013 SLT meeting.

“As I expected, the Office of Portfolio Planning’s co-location proposal was not welcomed by the University Neighborhood High School community,” she said in an affidavit.

“The press coverage of this SLT meeting and the ensuing debate is a perfect example of why open meetings are critical to democratic school governance.”

Brooklyn teacher Michelle Baptiste said several parents attended a DOE workshop in spring 2014 and returned with the expectation of attending SLT meetings. But a mother who showed up was turned away for not informing them that she planned to attend.

She found herself in the parent’s position when her colleagues at PS 92 voted her onto the SLT in June 2014.

She planned to take a sabbatical, but kept engaged and attended SLT meetings.

However, Baptiste said the principal

believed her time off barred her from attending or holding her seat. Baptiste said she filed three grievances with the UFT and testified about the issue in front of the Panel for Educational Policy before being permitted to keep her position on the SLT. “You absolutely have to have a say, particularly in this time, where teachers are being judged by test scores,” Baptiste said. “We’re the ones who spend the most time in the building with the children. We can say, ‘This is working or this is not working.’ ” And Staten Island teacher Francesco Portelos said SLT meetings should be public to help ensure school budgets are above the board.

Portelos said he was elected UFT chapter leader of IS 49 in 2012 shortly after he raised questions about the school budget and was removed from the classroom and investigated for misconduct.

School officials prevented him from attending SLT meetings at IS 49 and at PS 13, where his child is zoned to attend school, Portelos said.

In 2013 he challenged the matter in court, and a state judge dismissed it, agreeing with the DOE’s assessment that SLTs are advisory and noting that the department allowed substitutes

Role of Observers

Back

Back

when SLT members were under investigation and barred from campus.

An independent arbitrator ruled Portelos could return to the classroom in spring 2014. The arbitrator required him to pay a $10,000 fine as discipline for disclosing confidential DOE information online, altering the school website to redirect visitors to his personal blog, recording a video in IS 49 without permission and causing negative publicity and notoriety to the school, among other charges, the DOE said.

Portelos’ experience inspired a retired colleague, Michael Thomas, to attempt to attend IS 49 SLT meeting.

When he was rejected, he filed a second case, which James and Class Size Matters then signed onto.

“Dennis Walcott put out a PowerPoint saying SLT meetings are open and you may want to come,” Class Size Matters Executive Director Leonie Haimson said of the prior administration’s school chancellor.

“It’s very sad that this [de Blasio] administration that claims to care about parent collaboration … and claims they want to be more transparent and allow more community involvement would do something that actually contradicts the prior administration.”

SLT mee+ngs are open to the public. Teams may find that observers from within the school community or beyond wish to a?end SLT Role of Observers mee+ngs.

SLT mee+ngs are open to the public. Teams may find that observers It is important for the SLT bylaws to clearly indicate the role of observers from within the school community or beyond wish to a?end SLT during mee+ngs. mee+ngs.

It is important for the SLT bylaws to clearly indicate the role of observers For example: during mee+ngs.

• Observers may par+cipate upon recogni+on by the Chair.

• Observers must submit their requests to par+cipate in advance of the For example: mee+ng.

• Observers may par+cipate upon recogni+on by the Chair.

• Observers will be permi?ed to par+cipate during the last 15 minutes of • each Observers must mee+ng. submit their requests to par+cipate in advance of the mee+ng.

• Observers will be permi?ed to par+cipate during the last 15 minutes of each mee+ng.

17

17 A PowerPoint presentation created under former city Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott ’s tenure states that School Leadership Team meetings are open to the public.

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

EDUCATION

SENT HOME

SUSPENSIONS AT CITY CHARTER SCHOOLS FAR OUTPACE DISTRICT SCHOOLS

BY GEOFF DECKER, STEPHANIE SNYDER AND SARAH DARVILLE from CHALKBEAT NEW YORK

N

city & state — March 9, 2015

TOP 15 CHARTER SCHOOL SUSPENSION RATES, 2011-12 Broome Street Academy (9-12) Excellence Boys (uncommon, K-8)

60%

Invictus Preparatory (5-8) Opportunity (6-12)

45%

New Visions Charter H.S. for Adv. Math and Science (9-12) Ocean Hill collegiate (Uncommon 5-8)

30%

Brownsville Ascend Elementary (K-5) Bushwick Ascend (K-5) Renaissance Charter H.S. for Innovation (9-12) Democracy Prep Harlem (5-8) 23%

27%

27%

28%

31%

32%

32%

33%

36%

36%

37%

38%

39%

15% 40%

Percent of students suspended

Bed-Stuy Collegiate (Uncommon, 5-8)

51%

32

ew York City charter schools suspended students at almost three times the rate of traditional public schools during the 2011-12 school year, according to a Chalkbeat analysis of the most recent data available, though some charter schools have since begun to reduce the use of suspensions for minor infractions.

Overall, charter schools suspended at least 11 percent of their students that year, while district schools suspended 4.2 percent of their students. The charter school suspension rate is likely an underestimate because charter schools don’t have to report suspensions that students serve in school.

Not all schools had high suspension rates. One third of charter schools reported suspending fewer than 5 percent of their students, and many schools said they did not give out any out-of-school suspensions. But 11 charter schools suspended more than 30 percent of their students—a figure likely to draw added scrutiny amid a nationwide push to reduce suspensions and a debate over allowing more charter schools to open statewide.

Chalkbeat’s analysis is based on data that charter schools report to the state Education Department and the more detailed reports of suspensions in district schools. It includes data from 130 city charter schools open in 2011-12.

The analysis offers a clearer picture of how out-of-school suspensions are used to deal with misbehavior in the city’s growing charter school sector, which now serves more than 83,000 students, most of whom are black or Hispanic.

Meanwhile, some of the city’s charter school networks that have long championed “sweat-the-small-stuff” discipline practices say they have been moved to change their policies.

“When you make the numbers visible, when you hold up a mirror,

0%

Fahari Academy (5-8) Achievement First Crown Heights (K-8) Success Academy Harlem 1 (K-4)

Charter school (grades served)

you’re able to see your actions,” said Ron Chaluisan, who oversees the charter schools run by the New Visions for Public Schools network.

“When you’re able to see your actions, you’re able to change your behaviors.”

AN ONGOING DEBATE Unlike traditional district schools, charter schools are free to craft their own discipline policies, and some have used that autonomy to establish strict behavior codes. Escalating consequences for misdeeds like chewing gum, tardiness, talking out of turn and dress-code violations are standard, and students who break rules repeatedly can find themselves suspended quickly.

Schools say suspensions maintain order, keep children safe and allow teachers to focus on instruction by removing the most distracting students. Strict discipline has long been a cornerstone of the charter school movement, and supporters argue that those policies have led to better academic outcomes for a

majority of their students.

“Many families are flocking to charter schools, and one reason is that they believe in stricter discipline,” said Eva Moskowitz, founder and CEO of Success Academy, whose nine schools in 2011-12 suspended 17 percent of their students at least once. “Having some kids miss a day of instruction here and there for a suspension is far outweighed by the benefits of learning in an orderly environment all of the other days, as our academic results prove.”

Nationwide, charter and district schools are moving in a different direction. Los Angeles and San Francisco have barred suspensions of some or all students for nonviolent offenses, spurred by the findings of researchers like Robert Balfanz of the Johns Hopkins University School of Education linking middle-school suspensions to high school dropout rates.

“The theory is, [suspensions] are the equivalent of an adolescent time-out period and perhaps a means to teach the lesson that good behavior is expected in schools,” Balfanz said.

Achievement First East New York (K-8)

But far too often, he said, students interpret suspension as being shunned and “get the message that they are not wanted in school.”

“Overreliance on suspension is an issue that needs to be addressed for all public schools, including charter schools,” said Paulina Davis, a staff attorney at Advocates for Children who represents charter school students in disciplinary cases.

New York City’s 1,650 district schools also offer a range of suspension rates. About 40 percent gave few or no suspensions, while nearly 200 others doled out more than 100 suspensions in the 2011-12 school year, according to city data.

City officials have heeded the call for reducing suspensions in recent years, and the de Blasio administration has proposed further discipline code changes toward that end. The changes will not affect charter schools.

A PARENT’S EXPERIENCE At Excellence Boys Charter School, part of the Uncommon Schools cit yandstateny.com

cit yandstateny.com

Some charter schools that had the highest suspension rates three years ago say they’ve since made changes.

The Achievement First and Ascend Learning networks have seen significant drops in their suspension rates in the last three years, according to data provided by the networks.

Democracy Prep saw a more modest decrease, while New Vision’s suspensions had actually increased.

Uncommon declined to provide updated data.

“We recognized that the suspension numbers at some of our schools were simply too high, and we’ve worked hard to reduce them,” said Amanda Pinto, a spokeswoman for Achievement First, who said the network’s suspension rate dropped from 22 percent in 2011-12 to 13.9 percent last year. The decrease followed changes to their suspension policies and a closer tracking of suspension statistics, she said.

And despite Moskowitz’s public defense of suspensions, Success Academy’s suspension rates have fallen from 17 percent to 11 percent last year, according to spokeswoman Ann Powell.

But at the two charter high schools opened by New Visions in 2011, the problem got worse before getting better. Suspension rates peaked last year at 43 percent at New Visions Charter High School for Advanced Math and Science and at 21 percent at New Visions High School for the Humanities.

“Pretty much everyone on my team was a bit taken aback” when they saw

33

Chalkbeat New York is a nonprofit news organization covering educational change efforts in the communities where improvement matters most. Its mission is to inform the decisions and actions that lead to better outcomes for children and families by providing deep, local coverage of education policy and practice. Visit ny.chalkbeat.org.

CHARTER-SCHOOL NETWORK SUSPENSION RATES, 2011-12 30%

New Visions (2) Ascend (3) Uncommon (11)

23%

Achievement First (5) Democray Prep (3) Explore (3) Harlem Village (2) KIPP (4) Public Prep (2)

0% Network (number of schools operating in 2011-12)

1%

3% 4%

10%

14%

16%

17%

21%

22%

8%

Harlem Children’s Zone (2) Icahn (4)

city & state — March 9, 2015

Success (9)

15%

22%

The “zero-tolerance” approach to discipline that is linked to high suspension rates has its roots not in charter schools, but in the 1994 Gun Free Schools Act, which mandated harsh punishments for students who brought firearms or drugs to schools across the country. Suspensions increased nationally and continued to climb in New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg. A school safety plan established under Bloomberg expedited the removal of students who got in trouble repeatedly.

In the later years of Bloomberg’s tenure, the city’s strategies changed.

The City Council passed a transparency bill that regularly publicizes school suspensions and arrests. The discipline code underwent rounds of changes meant to restrict suspensions, and suspensions and arrests began trending downward.

Charter schools have largely been left out of public debates about discipline, in part because of their autonomy and also because the state doesn’t release charter school suspension statistics until they are nearly three years out of date.

But as Gov. Andrew Cuomo looks to increase the state’s charter school cap by 200 schools, the numbers are coming under more scrutiny. A report released by Advocates for Children recently found that a large portion of the city’s charter schools had discipline policies that violated state and federal laws, prompting calls for more thorough reporting of discipline data.

“To deal with the sky-high suspension rates that characterize too many charters, the schools should be required to follow the same suspension laws, regulations and reporting requirements as district schools,” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew, whose

A WORK IN PROGRESS

24%

THE RISE OF SUSPENSIONS

how high their suspension rates were, said Chaluisan, the New Visions vice president. This year, both schools’ rates were on pace to drop, he said.

Chaluisan attributed the high rates to the fact that the school is still new and said he had hired someone with experience in restorative justice who is working with guidance counselors to come up with alternative consequences for misbehavior. Providing monthly updates to each schools’ board has also put more attention on the issue, he said.

Ascend has also decreased its suspension rates. In 2011-12, it had the highest suspension rate of any network, suspending 26 percent of its students.

CEO Steven Wilson hired a new dean, Janna Genzlinger, now a managing director at one of the schools, who has rolled out a new discipline model that emphasizes “logical consequences” to fit a student’s crime. If a child draws on a desk, she has to stay after school to clean it, for example.

Suspension rates at Ascend’s elementary schools halfway through this school year range from 2 percent to 6 percent, an Ascend spokeswoman said.

“This is kind of the next generation innovation in charter schooling,” Wilson said. With the old policies, “There was real progress. But it came at the cost of not serving a large number of students.”

union has lost ground to charter schools over the last decade, told state lawmakers this year.

25%

number of students who are homeless or in foster care.

Broome Street had a rocky first year, according to an early evaluation, but seems to have turned a corner under a new principal, Barbara McKeon, who came on in 2013.

After a visit to the school in March, Chancellor Carmen Fariña praised its school culture and selected it to help other schools improve their own. A spokeswoman for the school said 20 percent of students were suspended in 2013-14.

Percent of students suspended

network, students’ small sins add up.

(Full disclosure: The reporter of this article is married to an employee at another Uncommon school.)

In 2011-12, the all-boys elementary and middle school suspended 40 percent of its students, the secondhighest rate among the city’s charter schools. For some students, missing school for a suspension can become routine.

Shirley Paulino said her son’s experience at the Bedford-Stuyvesant school changed when he entered the fifth grade. There were more teachers, larger classes and a new rigid discipline policy called the “Scoreboard System.”

Under the system, students are docked a certain number of points if they break one of the school’s many rules: two points for chewing gum, five points for lateness, and 10 points for disrespecting an adult or classmate.

Paulino’s son often ended the week with a 50-point deficit—and an automatic out-of-school suspension.

All told, Paulino said her son missed 23 days due to suspensions last year.

“There was never a fight, he was never a danger,” said Paulino, who said her son, now in a district middle school, was diagnosed with ADHD earlier this year. “He just doesn’t know when to be quiet.”

Chalkbeat’s analysis of out-ofschool suspension numbers found that Uncommon Schools’ network-wide suspension rate in 2011-12 was 22 percent, making it one of five charter networks that suspended more than 20 percent of their students that year. The others were New Visions (25 percent), Ascend Learning (24 percent), Achievement First (22 percent) and Democracy Prep (21 percent).

Uncommon Schools is reviewing its discipline policies, a spokesman said. “We believe that we are making steps in the right direction towards a reduction in suspensions,” said the spokesman, Jon Reinish.

One well-known network, Icahn Charter Schools, did not report suspending a single student in any of its three schools open that year. Two other small networks, Public Prep and Harlem Children’s Zone, had suspension rates in the low single digits. (Charter schools do not have to report their in-school suspension numbers, though district schools do.

Charter schools also aren’t required to report expulsions.)

The highest single charter-school suspension rate, 51 percent, belonged to Broome Street Academy, which opened in 2011 and serves a large

EDUCATION

SUSAN ARBETTER

EVALUATING THE EVALUATIONS

“Who are we kidding, my friends? The problem is clear and the solution is clear.

We need real, accurate, fair teacher evaluations.”

- Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Jan. 21, 2015

city & state — March 9, 2015

34

W

ho likes the current teacher evaluation system in New York?

Not the governor, who called it “baloney” in his State of the State speech.

Not Tim Kremer of the New York State School Boards Association, who called it “overly complex, bureaucratic and too easily manipulated.”

Not Derrell Bradford of the pro-charter group NYCAN, who wrote, “The current framework is being deliberately broken at the local level.”

Not lawmakers, many of whom lauded the evaluations just a few years ago when they were implemented.

While almost everyone agrees the system is broken, fixing it is muddied by different views of what ails it.

One of Cuomo’s answers is to double down on testing.

“Thirty-eight percent of high schools students are college ready—38 percent,” Cuomo emphasized during his State of the State address. “Ninetyeight-point-seven percent of high school teachers are rated effective.

How can that be? How can 38 percent of the students be ready, but 98 percent of the teachers effective?”

While the numbers make for a powerful sound bite, the math isn’t sound.

According to the American Statistical Association, the relationship between student test scores and teacher effectiveness is not causative— meaning a bad grade isn’t necessarily

caused by a bad teacher.

In a statement released last April, the ASA explained that the “value-added method” (VAM) of evaluating teachers are “generally based on standardized test scores and do not directly measure potential teacher contributions toward other student outcomes.” The statement went on to say, “Effects—positive or negative—attributed to a teacher may actually be caused by other factors that are not captured in the model.”

And possibly most damning: “Ranking teachers by their VAM scores can have unintended consequences that reduce quality.”

At least one member of the Board of Regents understands that this kind of testing has its limitations.

On The Capitol Pressroom radio show on Dec. 19, Regent Jim Tallon was asked if there is a direct connection between the number of kids who fail and the number of teachers who fail.

He responded, “You’re asking would science make that correlation? I would say the science does not make that correlation.”

Regardless of its lack of value, Cuomo wants to double down on the testing portion of the rubric, demanding that New York’s Annual Professional Performance Review, or APPR, be revised so that 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation is linked to the state tests.

Sean Corcoran, an associate professor of educational economics at New York University who studies teacher quality and effectiveness,

is concerned about this kind of simplification.

“I think there is a somewhat naïve view that we can look toward test outcomes to find who those good teachers are,” Corcoran said. “(It) reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how valid these measures are of a teacher’s influence on student outcomes.”

Is it possible to create a value-added model that accurately measures teacher effectiveness?

“I think the short answer is no,” responded Corcoran. “We’re pretty limited … in how we can account for differences across classrooms and student ability as well as outside influences on student achievement, including family background and community resources.”

But some evaluations are better than others. The key, says Corcoran, is “not to place too much of an emphasis on any one measure.”

When asked for examples of evaluation systems he considers to be among the best, Corcoran pointed to school districts in Washington, D.C. and Cincinnati.

“Both of those systems reflect a balance between different measures, although Washington, D.C. has put a pretty heavy weight on student outcomes,” Corcoran said. “Both … weigh multiple measures, and aim to provide constructive feedback to teachers.”

It should be noted that the Washington, D.C. teacher evaluations system, called IMPACT, recently changed its rubric.

Prior to the 2014-15 school year, the District of Columbia Public Schools assessment for general education teachers was based on four components, two of which included data from student test scores: • 35 percent from “Individual ValueAdded Student Achievement Data” (IVA), based on student test scores on

standardized assessments • 15 percent from “TeacherAssessment Student Achievement Data” (TAS)—a measure of students’ learning over the course of a year by assessments other than standardized tests But, according to the DCPS 2014-15 handbook, “due to the transition from the DC CAS (District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System) to the PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) test, IVA will not be included as a component in final IMPACT scores for the 2014-2015 school year.”

In other words, the D.C. schools are accommodating teachers and students by delaying the impact of high-stakes evaluations until after a transition period from old to new assessments.

This isn’t unusual. Nationally, Tennessee reduced the weight of test scores and may again. New Jersey dropped the weight of its tests to 10 percent and may drop it again to zero.

This stands in stark contrast to Cuomo’s decision not delay the impact of high-stakes evaluations on teachers, as well as to increase rather than decrease the weight that student test scores have on those evaluations.

Still, the District of Columbia’s evaluation system has plenty of critics.

While a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the district “shed many of its lowest performing teachers, kept its superstars and improved the quality of classroom instruction,” according to Politico, critics argue that student test scores didn’t budge. There were also allegations of widespread cheating.

In Cincinnati, the district’s Teacher Evaluation System (TES) is based on the Danielson method, a framework that divides teacher skills and responsibilities into four domains: planning and preparing for student learning; creating an environment for student learning; teaching for student cit yandstateny.com

test scores. Also, these concerns are limited to things like costs and control, not the underlying methodology.

For example, Michael Borges of the New York State Association of School Business Officials says the costs might be prohibitive. “We are concerned with the governor’s proposal for outside evaluators and who will pick up the cost of these evaluations, and whether this would be another unfunded mandate,” he said.

Another complaint, voiced by Rick Longhurst of the New York State Parent Teachers Association, is that using outside observers is “demeaning to principals and a threat to local control.”

But NYCAN’s Derrell Bradford is a proponent of the governor’s updated evaluation system.

“No evaluation system is perfect,” he wrote in an email. “The question is, is it better? I think people supporting the governor’s teacher evaluation reforms believe in the transformative power of teachers and great teaching deeply. We think great teaching beats poverty. And you have to measure things that are important to you and to society.”

But what disturbs many educators is the sense that they are being set up to fail.

Recently, Cuomo’s State Operations Director Jim Malatras sent a letter to the Board of Regents urging it to investigate teacher evaluations on Long Island.

At least one lawmaker wasn’t amused. “Everything that was ultimately advanced was approved by the State Education Department,” said state Sen. John Flanagan, the chair of the Senate Education Committee.

Karen Magee, president of New York State United Teachers, was more direct: “It is insane to once again scapegoat teachers for a process that the state controlled, reviewed and directed.”

Going back further, after the Common Core standards were rolled out, Dr. John King, then serving as the state education commissioner, publically noted that more failures should be expected.

In August 2013, the Daily News reported that King “warned principals that the results (of the new tests) could be disastrous, and suggested they use the scores ‘judiciously’ when making firing decisions.”

“So to use the intentionality of the policy—that we are expecting more kids to fail—and then to turn around and say, ‘Obviously the teachers are

CSA looks forward to another productive session, working with our elected officials in Albany to improve schools.

CSA is dedicated to ensuring every student receives an excellent public school education. On two key educational issues, CSA weighs in: 1. Education Investment Tax Credit: As part of a consortium of labor unions, CSA strongly opposes this bill. Creating a tax credit for those who make donations to parochial and private schools would cost the state millions of dollars. We can’t afford to give away money when we still fail to adequately fund our public schools.

2. NYC Mayoral Control of Schools: CSA supports continued mayoral control of the NYC school system but encourages changing the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) to better balance the representation and to include more parental and community involvement.

Great Schools Begin With Great Leaders! cit yandstateny.com

failing because the system performed as predicted,’ shows a dramatic misunderstanding of the education system,” Schenectady City Schools Superintendent Larry Spring said on the Capitol Pressroom.

Dr. Rick Timbs, executive director of the Statewide School Finance Consortium, recalled that it took decades to get the Regents tests “even close to reliable and valid,” and questioned the administration’s decision to shift to a more simplistic rubric—half of which has been deemed unreliable.

“Things that are innately complicated are innately complicated,” he said. “Teaching and learning are highly complicated.”

Summing up the thoughts of many observers, Timbs concluded that the teacher evaluation system “is not ready for primetime.”

Susan Arbetter (@sarbetter on Twitter) is the Emmy awardwinning news director for WCNY Syracuse PBS/NPR, and producer/ host of The Capitol Pressroom syndicated radio program.

35

Council of School Supervisors & Administrators LOCAL 1: AMERICAN FEDERATION OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS, AFL-CIO www.csa-nyc.org 40 RECTOR ST., 12TH FL., NEW YORK, NY 10006 TEL: 212 823 2020 | FAX: 212 962 6130 ERNEST A. LOGAN PRESIDENT MARK CANNIZZARO EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT RANDI HERMAN FIRST VICE PRESIDENT

city & state — March 9, 2015

learning; and professionalism. This system doesn’t use scores, but does include intense supervision.

Corcoran is quick to say that he wouldn’t hold up any single system as a model, but that Cincinnati has a more holistic and long-standing teacher evaluation system than others, with strong research behind it. “I like what I’ve seen there,” he said.

Cincinnati depends heavily on classroom observation, which Corcoran is a proponent of. Sometimes peers from different schools or master teachers do the observation in the system, which “seems to be working pretty well.”

Classroom observers pick up things that aren’t detected by test scores, explains Corcoran. “Also they are able to feedback the teachers immediately and give them advice on their practice,” he said, as opposed to test score-based measures that take a year to process.

“And then you’re getting a percentile score that doesn’t tell you much about classroom performance, so it’s too little, too late.”

Cuomo’s new evaluation plan also includes independent classroom observations. This portion of the rubric has a few critics, but it’s nowhere near as1relying cityas andcontroversial state.qxp_Layout 1/16/15 on 4:11student PM Page 1

EDUCATION

JOHN FLANAGAN Chair, New York State Senate Education Committee

Q: Heading into the final weeks of the budget negotiations, what education priorities will you push for the most?

JF: In a funding capacity, the Gap Elimination Adjustment remains our No. 1 priority without question, and in that context making sure we have equitable distribution of whatever we do across the state. In light of the governor’s 30-day amendments in which he took out the $377 million

that was going to be available for education, we would certainly want restoration of that. School districts should be getting their expense-based aid, and we’re going to have a lot of discussions about teaching. Also issues like libraries, which are so critical in so many ways, and I would love to be able to have discussions about 853 schools, Special Acts schools, special education services and programs for preschool children with handicapping conditions and schools for deaf, blind and severely disabled, because they are all critical to our education process. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of more policy issues, not only in the month of March but thereafter.

Q: Moving forward with the Common Core standards, what do you think is the best way to ensure New York students are college- and career-ready?

JF: In terms of college- and careerready, it’s very important to have quality people sitting at the table figuring things out, making sure that our educational professionals have all the tools they need—proper curriculum, that they get it at the right time, that they have a chance to properly prepare to then, in turn, teach our children. Looking to the

business community is important, too.

There are a lot of people who aren’t necessarily going to go to college and how we prepare them and provide the skills for the outside world. Listening to the manufacturing community, the business community and the chambers of commerce can also be very helpful. This is an area that the state Department of Education and the state Board of Regents deserve credit. They have listened very intensively to people in the field on alternative pathways to graduation and with a primary focus on career and technical education. I’m glad you mention that because there is a piece that would provide additional aid that will enhance all those opportunities. There hasn’t been a raise in that area in 22 years, so a lot of people, myself included, think it’s time to raise that cap, which will incentivize districts to send their children to these programs and give them the proper fit where it may work.

Q: Should there be any reform to the teacher evaluation system in New York? If so, what reform should there be? If not, why?

JF: I know very clearly that we’re going to have some extraordinarily intense discussions on this and I don’t think anyone should shy away from them.

The challenge we have now is how to filter through what the governor has proposed, because there is a lot of linkage between and amongst all of these proposals, regardless of whether or not it’s in the budget. In terms of teacher quality, we are in the process of debating all these issues or discussing all these issues in our conference and I’m sure we’ll come out with a unified position. But the laser-like focus is, how do we get the best teachers in front of the classroom? And a lot of that will be how do we properly prepare them as we move along?

Q: Is there anything else educationrelated on your agenda?

JF: I’m certainly disappointed that we don’t have school aid runs, because that allows for better and proper planning at the local level. If we properly fund education, that is the single most important starting point. If we have a great teacher in front of the classroom, everything else is secondary. Give me a great teacher as opposed to bricks and mortar and I think we’re in a good spot. And lastly, I believe we not only can but should pass the budget on time.

That’s the law, that’s our obligation and there’s no legitimate reason, in my opinion, why we can’t do that by April 1.

36

Leaders start here.

MBA: Media Management

GRADUATE INFO

MPA: Emergency and Disaster Management

Manhattan Campus, 431 Canal Street

MPA: Public Affairs and Administration

 Meet industry experts  Get advice on career trends  Learn how to get the credentials you need for a better career

Accelerated Graduate Degrees in 12-16 months: MBA: Financial Services MBA: General Management city & state — March 9, 2015

Ploy Suttisakorn, MBA, General Management ‘13

MSED: Dual Childhood (1-6)/Special Education

RSVP at mcny.edu/grad or call 888-414-4794 Operation Tuition Freedom

Thursday, March 19, 6pm-8pm

Manhattan: 431 Canal Street

cit yandstateny.com

CATHERINE NOLAN Chair, New York State Assembly Education Committee Q: As you enter the final weeks of negotiations over the state budget, what education priorities will you be pushing for the most?

CN: The New York State Assembly has always pushed for fair and equitable funding for all of our schools, especially our neediest schools. I believe that the best way to do that is by fully funding the foundation formula, starting with a $2.2 billion increase in funding this year, an amount in line with the state Board of Regents’ budget request.

Additionally, I am very supportive of two other Regents initiatives: an increase in English Language Learners funding and increase in and changes to funding for BOCES and Special Services Aid, which would help create and strengthen Career Technical Education programs across the state.

CS: As the state moves forward with the Common Core standards, what do you think is the best way to ensure New York students are college- and career-ready?

CN: Everyone agrees that high standards are important. The way we go about them is critical. New York’s approach so far has led to an overreliance on invalidated testing that has proven to be an unfair burden on New York State students and their families. No one thinks over-testing our students prepares them to be successful college students or members of the workforce. It is a problem that needs to be addressed by collaboration between local school districts, parents and the New York State Education Department if we really want to do right by our students. In last year’s budget, I supported and pushed for a way to help students by, for example, prohibiting certain state standardized tests from being the sole or primary method of determining student CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

Q: You have continuously pushed for more equitable funding of the state’s public school system and a $2.2 billion increase in funding. Given that, what are your thoughts on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s aggressive education reforms and his decision to tie them to school aid?

CN: The executive’s proposals would be best reviewed outside the context of the budget. Public hearings and a more transparent and objective review could allow us to come up with the best approaches for these issues.

In 2013, the budget tied increases in education funding for districts to an agreement between unions and districts on a teacher evaluation plan.

This proved an unworkable approach.

I think any proposals that jeopardize aid for our students should be considered with extreme caution. Any approach toward changes on Annual Professional Performance Review and a state takeover of struggling schools should place an emphasis on multiple measures, not just test scores, and locally led appropriate supervision by principals and parents is critically important.

Q: What steps should the state take to help close the funding gap between rich and poor school districts?

CN: The Foundation Aid formula is specifically designed to drive aid towards districts that need it the most.

Our committee plans to host Michael Rebell, the attorney who first brought the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit in 1993, to discuss new strategies for meeting the promise of CFE for a meaningful education for all students.

Q: Is there anything else educationrelated that is on your agenda this session?

CN: Every student in this state should receive adequate art, music and physical education. Last year, the Assembly majority supported and helped deliver a great investment into universal pre-kindergarten and afterschool programs in New York State. I am hopeful we can continue to make this same investment this year.

WHY TENURE MATTERS

Cynthia DiBartolo, CEO, Tigress Financial Partners

(March 9, 2015, New York, NY) In his 2015 State of the State address Governor Andrew Cuomo, speaking about the challenges facing New York’s public schools, attacked teacher tenure, claiming that it protects ineffective educators from being fired. To me this seemed like classic scapegoating, but to my surprise, many of my colleagues in the business community echoed similar views.

I believe many New Yorkers, especially those in the business sector, simply do not understand tenure, its real functions and value, and that their views are too often informed by myths that have been increasingly circulated by private sector ‘reform’ advocates and for-profit charter organizations.

A common misconception is that tenure guarantees teachers a job for life. This is simply untrue. Tenure ensures the right of a veteran teacher to a fair hearing in the event that charges are levied against them that could end their career, and protects them from being dismissed for unfair, political, or discriminatory reasons. Tenure has been revised in New York three times in recent years to ensure that due process hearings are expeditious and fair, and a majority of these cases are settled before a hearing is even required.

Some even claim that tenure is merely a tool used by unions to maintain and strengthen membership. In fact, unions do not negotiate tenure. Tenure was first enacted in New York in 1897 to protect teachers against unfair firing, 70 years before public sector unions gained the right to bargain.

Another misconception is that tenure serves no function other than to protect teachers from unfair dismissal. Tenure is also critical in ensuring teachers have the freedom to provide our children with a rounded, full education. Without tenure, teachers and classrooms can become hostage to political censorship or the prejudice of private interests and individuals.

Tenured teachers have earned the right to voice their opposition to (or simply their disagreement with) education boards or administrators over issues like ineffective teaching modules, overtesting, or lack of academic resources. Without tenure, teachers have no protection from being fired for speaking out on behalf of their curriculum, their peers, their students, or their school.

37

Tenure affords teachers the freedom to innovate and implement creative and relevant curricula, without fear of reprisal. This is critical for any quality educator, especially now, when teachers are increasingly threatened by blanket “reform” legislation and standardized test based evaluation systems that intimidate them, administrators, and principles, into moving education away from real learning toward the mere recitation of material needed to pass a test and earn an “effective” rating.

Cuomo seems to think that a standardized test based evaluation system can be used to identify and dispose of bad teachers. Just fill in the scores and supposedly you can get fair, objective, accurate results that can be used to make the tough decisions needed to reform our public schools. This is an incredible oversimplification that ignores (among other things) the circumstance and context of the school, the students, and the teachers in question. Any effective reform to our school system must acknowledge and respect these differences, not simply ignore them or try to cover them up.

We need high standards for both teachers and students, however, I find no reason to believe that eroding due process rights for our educators will help us address student achievement in New York. Business, labor, and government depend on quality education available to all in order for our economy and society at large to succeed. This is impossible if we do not provide our veteran teachers the protection they deserve and the opportunity to teach our children to the best of their ability.

Cynthia DiBartolo is the CEO of Tigress Financial Partners. Ms. DiBartolo is the Chairperson of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce and serves as an Executive Board Member of the Business and Labor Coalition of New York (BALCONY) BALCONY, the Business and Labor Coalition of New York, represents more than 1,000 New York businesses, labor unions, and trade associations. BALCONY seeks common ground in the public policy debate in New York to spur economic development through the adoption of business/union friendly, socially responsible common sense laws that maintain and improve the quality of life for working New Yorkers.

BALCONY is a 501(c)(4) non-profit.

Contributions are not tax deductible and BALCONY makes no political endorsements nor campaign contributions.

BALCONY | 4 West 43rd Street, Suite 405, New York, NY 10036 | 212-219-7777 www.balconynewyork.com

CITY & STATE — March 9, 2015

placement and promotion and limiting the time students spend on test and test preparation. The Assembly Education Committee intends to listen to parents and advocates like Principal Carol Burris, who is an excellent resource for those with concerns regarding Common Core.

Educate & Influence NY’s Public Officials with:

Special Issue: TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE

EDUCATION profession with certain expectations, let’s focus on the new teachers coming in, because we know that over the next decade thousands and thousands are going to be retiring. How can we create a circumstance in which we have a thoughtful conversation about how to modernize the issue of tenure for the new teachers coming in? And we should talk about granting tenure after five years for new teachers. Now they gain tenure after three.

Promote Your Organization’s Objectives, Benefits and Issues to NY’s Policymakers in this Strategic Political Ad Venue

THE SPECIAL ISSUE FEATURES:

TOP PROJECTS: An overview of some of the top transportation and infrastructure projects going on or in the works around New York State: • Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Airport Reinvention Competition & LGA Central Terminal • Syracuse segment of Interstate 81 redevelopment • NYS Thruway Authority Bridge Painting Program • Impact of recent Amtrak bill expanding N.E.C. service • MTA Capital Project -- 100MM LIRR Harold Interlock Tunnel Approaches WHAT NEW YORK SHOULD DO WITH THE BANK SETTLEMENT MONEY: How might Governor Cuomo might look to spend some of the over $5 Billion in bank settlements that has been captured by the State in the past couple years on transportation infrastructure. What specific projects have public figures and transportation experts have been pushing for as part of some of the bank settlement money?

38

THE MATH BEHIND DESIGN-BUILD: City & State’s Ashley Hupfl revisits the design-build legislation moving through the State legislature and what advocates and critics of the process are saying, specifically the bill in the State legislature.

BUFFALO BILL$: City & State editorial partner The Public looks at what major transportation projects are in talks in Western New York.

ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION: Nicole Gelinas’ op-ed looks at the idea and usefulness of expanding ferries and bus rapid transit as well as bicycles SPECIAL TRANSPORTATION BACK & FORTH: Jane Garvey, Head of the FAA from 2002-2006

THE PUBLIC OFFICIALS Q&A FEATURES:

JOAN MCDONALD Commissioner, NYS Dept. of Transportation

REP. JERRY NADLER House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure STATE SEN. JOSEPH ROBACH Chair, Senate Transportation Committee PATRICK FOYE Executive Director, Port Authority of NY and NJ

CITY & STATE — March 9, 2015

ANTHONY FOXX U.S. Secretary of Transportation COUNCILMEMBER YDANIS RODRIGUEZ Chair, City Council Transportation Committee REP. RICHARD HANNA House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (Public Officials pending confirmation)

AD DEADLINE: MARCH 19 - ISSUE DATE: MARCH 23 Please contact Andrew Holt for information regarding advertising in this special issue at AHolt@CityandStateNY.com or 212.894.5422.

MERRYL TISCH Chancellor, New York State Board of Regents Q: In December you replied to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s request for input on specific problems in the education system, and you urged him to look beyond those issues he raised.

MT: He just wanted to talk about failing schools and evaluations, but it’s such a broader picture. We obviously were appreciative of the questions, and we answered them. But we went beyond—we talked about extraordinary circumstances and receivership, about the importance of teacher evaluations, about professional development and other issues related to school finance. One of those issues for us is the equitable distribution of resources to school districts. There are school districts in New York State that spend $35,000 a kid. There are school districts that spend 16, 17, $18,000 a kid. I brought up the issue that in New York State we have probably the most segregated school system in the country. There are 700 school districts, and how we fund schools and how we build into existing formulas to help districts create patterns of change is a very important piece of it.

Q: What else did you bring up?

MT: I also brought up the receivership in Lawrence, Mass. The idea there was to look at what you might do in these complicated circumstances where students and parents have been held hostage to dysfunctional school boards, or entrenched problems that never get resolved—like in East Ramapo.

In extraordinary circumstances you absolutely need to consider extraordinary pathways. And the idea there was to look at cases where schools are perennial failures. I mentioned the fight over tenure as well. Many people are not seeing the forest for the trees: Instead of fighting about what to do with the teachers who are already in the pipeline, who came into this

Q: You also noted that the Board of Regents doesn’t have the power to enact a lot of these reforms.

MT: A lot of what we brought up requires legislative fixes. The evaluation system is law. And the percentages that are used on all the various segments of the evaluation system are part of the law. In order to go to the next generation of evaluation systems, you need to change the law. Issues of tenure are also in law. He asked us for an opinion. I gave my opinion. And in his State of the State he included much of what we put in the letter.

Q: How do you feel about the proposal to lift the cap on the number of charter schools in New York City?

MT: As everyone knows, I have been very big fan of charter schools. That being said, we should only focus on quality seats. I voted against keeping failing charter schools open. I think that in New York City we have many charter schools that are simply not hitting the mark, and I do not think that we should be incubating and draining resources out of the regular system to foster these failing schools.

Q: A recent report from the governor found that more than 109,000 students in the state attend a failing public school. How should this be addressed?

MT: Each of those schools is in a different circumstance and this really needs to be looked at on a case-bycase basis. In extreme circumstances like in Buffalo, you have four or five schools that are in their 20th year of failure, and the receivership that we put into the letter really applied to these extreme examples of failure.

When we hired Hank Greenberg to do the report on East Ramapo, he talked about a monitor. Now that monitor needs to have total authority over the school system: instructional authority as well as fiscal authority. He or she needs to be able to veto bad practice.

That is what we had in mind with the receivership.

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

Strategic Media & Public Relations Grassroots Campaigns

Senior Deputy Chancellor, New York City Department of Education

Q: What are your major goals and initiatives in the 2015-2016 school year?

DG: One of the big initiatives we have this year is that we identified new superintendents to some of the districts, and we refer to them as the anchor, the go-to people in the district. So they’re in the process of being trained on how to manage the work around all the schools in that district and to supervise the principals in a collaborative type of a way. And the other piece of it that we’re really focusing on is parent engagement and professional development in schools, so we’re really asking the superintendents to spend a lot of time working with them. … We’re making sure that there is a transparency for parents within the school community. So they have someone to go to, and they know that their concerns will be met. And we’re going to expand our SAT programs across the city. There’s a lot of work with that, a lot of interest in that. It’s critical that our students really, truly graduate ready for college and have a true means for a career ahead of them.

Q: As Albany is considering renewing mayoral control and how that might look, what if any sorts of revisions to mayoral control would you like to see, and why?

DG: A lot of our initiatives would never have been able to come to fruition without mayoral control. I mean pre-k being one that happened this year. But the work that we’re doing in all of our schools, it helps to have the mayor’s understanding and the mayor’s support behind it. Even with the contracts that we have this year—extending of the workday. I think mayoral control is a very important piece. We support that work. High stakes testing is a part of that work and of how we work together. As written, mayoral control definitely strikes a healthy balance between clear accountability and community involvement.

And we’re very much involved with that as we are talking about building more community schools within the city…. We think it’s good. We think it’s working in the right direction. We’ll see.

Q: The chancellor had convened a committee to look at new criteria for admissions to specialized high schools. Where does that committee stand in terms of its work? What kinds of revisions it might be considering? Is the state cued in?

DG: We believe that our schools should reflect the diversity of our city. And we believe that our top tier schools need to continue to have a rigor and have the best students that we have across the city. And that CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

conversation continues. We are talking about that.

We’re really concerned about how we prepare our middle school students to take the exams. There is a test. But most important, we do want to build our program. There is a program that we have in New York City called DREAM, which is a program that identifies children who are from the lower socioeconomic parts of New York City, but they have an opportunity to get a lot of professional development, a lot of expertise around how you sit for a specialized high school test.

It’s a three-year program, where the students start in sixth grade. So by the time they take the test in eighth grade they’re really prepared for the kinds of answers to questions that they have on these particular tests like they’ll start algebra earlier on and they’ll have better knowledge on how to sit for a half a day exam, so to speak. But it really is preparing our students to take the test. But mostly, we believe that the schools, specialized high schools, should reflect the diversity of our city.

Q: At one point the committee was discussing expanding the criteria from the one test. Is that still what they are discussing?

DG: There is no one way. We know that the official ways of looking about this. There is a test right now on this. There’s one entryway to get in there. But there is no one solution to this question. It keeps coming up.

Possible changes are in the future. In the mean time, we know that we want to prepare our students to be the best that they can so they can go out and take the test. There’s a lot of work to be done. We’re working with all of our stakeholders in New York City and some of the alumni associations, and really talking about what is the best way to do this. There is no one solution here.

Q: With the new Renewal program for struggling schools, schools are slated to have needs assessments coming in this spring. Are those starting to come in yet? What types of needs seem to be really prevalent?

DG: They have their plans in place. They’re working.

We’re doing a needs assessment, as we talk, schools are doing this. There are 94 schools that are there. And they’re working very hard. Each school is different.

And each school has a different plan and different needs. We’re trying to take the schools from where they are and to move them in the right direction as we build around their teams and their schools to support the children the best we can. Some things will be universal, some will not. Some will be school-specific.

Top 5 Environmental & Public Affairs Firm in New York & Top 20 in the U.S. -2014 O'Dwyer's Top PR Firm Rankings

Top 10 Ranked Social Media, Non-Profit & Environmental Public Relations Agency -TopPRAgencies.com

We create effective news and messaging for our clients every day.

We are certain you’ve seen our clients in the news:

39

In 2014…

Our clients were featured in hundreds of New York and the nation's leading print, digital and broadcast media outlets, including many of the most prestigious editoral pages.

Learn more about what Butler Associates can do for you, contact us.

New York City Office 204 East 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010

Stamford, CT Office 263 Tresser Blvd, 9th Fl. Stamford, CT 06901

Contact: Tom Butler – (212) 685-4600 info@ButlerAssociates.com www.ButlerAssociates.com

CITY & STATE — March 9, 2015

DORITA GIBSON

PERSPEC TIVES

LOVE OF THE PUBLIC GOOD

MARCH 20TH • ALBANY HILTON, GRAND BALLROOM 40 Lodge Street • Albany, NY 12207 • 7:00pm – 11:00pm The Kickoff Cocktail Reception invites conference attendees to enjoy drinks, desserts, and offer leaders across industry sectors the opportunity to sit down with City & State TV to discuss issues important to the conference and Latino community.

40

Featured remarks from NYS Assembly Speaker, CARL HEASTIE

Featured remarks from NYS Assemblyman & Somos el Futuro Chair, MARCOS CRESPO

CITY & STATE — March 9, 2015

SPONSORED BY:

In Partnership with Bronx Borough President, Ruben Diaz, Jr. For more information on programming and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Jasmin Freeman at JFreeman@CityandStateNY.com

MICHAEL BENJAMIN

W

hile going through boxes of my old stuff, I found “John F. Kennedy: Words to Remember,” a compilation of quotes from the former president given to my brothers and me by our Aunt Terpe.

The pamphlet-sized book—one of my treasured boyhood possessions—was published in 1967 by Hallmark Cards.

At a young age, I was drawn to politics and public service, believing it had to be a noble endeavor if President Kennedy lost his life over it.

One of my favorite JFK remarks on government seems apt given the venal corruption that has gripped Albany: “It is when the politician loves neither the public good nor himself, or when his love for himself is limited and is satisfied by the trappings of office, that the public interest is badly served.”

No doubt Kennedy’s perspective was borne of his patrician upbringing and classical education. People seeking elected office almost always profess a love for the public good and a desire to serve the public interest. But a small number of public officials possess a warped sense of self that undermines their love of the public good.

So what can be done about these public servants?

Enter Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, who have formed the Joint Task Force on Integrity (JTFI) to pursue officials who neither love the public good nor themselves.

The task force is looking carefully at special districts and elected and appointed officials. Its investigations have led to more than 80 arrests.

In an October interview, DiNapoli warned that cutting corners will not serve state legislators, other government officials and public

employees. And he asserted that his former colleagues in the state Legislature have embraced his efforts.

In light of high-profile cases involving per diem and travel reimbursement abuse, DiNapoli also noted that the Assembly has changed its forms to require attestation and more specific reasons for being in Capitol. Although the issue applies to both the Senate and the Assembly, the Assembly seems to have more problems.

“Per diems are not meant to be income supplements,” DiNapoli said.

He believes the Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo should work out a pay raise.

DiNapoli appeared dismayed that the only deterrent for some lawmakers is seeing their colleagues arrested and prosecuted.

Acknowledging that the law gives the Legislature the prerogative to establish its own procedures, he told me that if asked, his office would help develop better procedures. Last month, the new Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie reportedly reached out to DiNapoli for assistance.

Based on our interview, DiNapoli will probably suggest more scrutiny of legislators’ per diem filings; more thorough training for lawmakers; and a clear standard for claiming per diem reimbursements. DiNapoli also said that his office would be happy to compile training materials.

In his work with the joint task force, DiNapoli hopes to send the message: “If you think you can get away with it, you better think twice.”

To that end, OSC has a state tip hotline.

Information comes into the hotline and via email. Often the tips come in from average citizens or state workers.

And that information is passed on to the OSC’s Investigations Unit.

Getting tips from concerned New Yorkers is “very much a part of what we do,” said DiNapoli. That remark harkens back to Kennedy’s belief that “every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, ‘holds office’; every one of us is in a position of responsibility.”

Over 50 years ago, Kennedy inspired a generation of Americans to public service. Today, his words retain the power to inspire. We must demand that politicians and public servants either truly love the public good—or find another line of work.

Michael Benjamin (@SquarePegDem) is a former state legislator from the Bronx.

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

H

ANDREW HEVESI

omelessness is on the rise.

We see it every day, on our streets and in the oftencontroversial effort to build more shelters in our neighborhoods.

The belief that homelessness is an inevitable part of city life and beyond our control is wrong. We just need to accept the scope of the problem and apply a more thoughtful response.

The reason it feels like homelessness is rampant in New York is because it is. There are currently just over 60,000 individuals—including over

25,000 children—in the New York City shelter system. Those numbers are the highest they have been since the Great Depression. Add to that a projected shelter census growth rate of approximately 20 percent per year and you have a pending disaster.

To address homelessness, New York City spends $1 billion for its Department of Homeless Services each year, with millions of additional taxpayer dollars spent by other city agencies, the state and the federal government. For families in the homeless shelter system, costs are far higher. Homelessness makes physical and mental health issues exponentially worse, increases family separation, child abuse and human trafficking, and stunts childhood development.

In short, we are spending a lot, but the problem is getting worse. It’s time to spend smarter and, when we do it right, it will cost less and give us better outcomes.

Our first step is to fix inadequate housing allowances for families and individuals at risk of homelessness.

Almost all of these subsidies— including those targeted for homeless veterans, domestic violence survivors, youth, people with disabilities— haven’t been adjusted in years, sometimes decades.

They are completely disconnected from the

Print. Mail. Win.

realities of the current housing market.

Smart public policy is to increase these subsidies so they add up to the fair market rent as calculated by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In 2013, HUD’s fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in New York City was $17,688. It cost $37,603 to shelter a homeless family that same year.

By increasing subsidies to reflect the current housing market we will significantly reduce the amount taxpayers are spending, facilitate families leaving shelters and prevent many from entering the system in the first place. Keeping families in their homes is not only morally right— it also turns out to be far more cost effective than allowing them to fall into homelessness.

However, increasing subsidies isn’t the whole solution. Current policies that guide our homeless prevention and recovery efforts have significant gaps.

Too often they stop people who clearly need assistance from getting it and leave the homeless trying to navigate a web of disconnected programs.

Right now, survivors of domestic violence, people living with HIV/ AIDS, and runaway and homeless youth all face perverse policies or impossible paradigms that deny them access to services. Successful

prevention requires that our programs are available to those who need assistance before they are in crisis and on the verge of homelessness.

Our homeless recovery efforts share a single overarching policy problem.

Many programs have been created without realistic consideration of what happens to the individuals and families once they leave that program. Often, a person will be forced out after an established timeframe without a place to go, perpetuating the revolving door of the shelter system. We must create streamlined and flexible pathways out of homelessness by adjusting our current programs to account for reasonable next steps.

The causes of homelessness are complex, but the solutions are achievable. Rather than giving up or falling back on failed policies that leave us treading water in a sea of lost hope and broken families, we must use the awareness and pressure from our rising rates of homelessness to create the momentum we need to finally craft long-term solutions.

PERSPEC TIVES

SOLVING THE HOMELESSNESS PROBLEM

Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi represents the 28th Assembly District in Queens and serves as chairman of the Oversight, Analysis and Investigation Committee.

# 1 S ’ K R O Y W NE rce for Union Sou . l i a M t c e r i D & t n i Pr

41

MAILERS • DOOR HANGERS • YARD SIGNS • LABELS • BUTTONS • LAPEL PINS

ALL PROUDLY UNION MADE FOR ALL INQUIRIES EMAIL: GSALZMAN@WPPRINTING.COM OR CALL: 718-370-8000 AND ASK FOR GREGG SALZMAN

www.WPPRINTING.com

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

CITY & STATE — March 9, 2015

Now Offering A Full Line Of Promotional Items:

NEW HEIGHTS C

city & state — March 9, 2015

42

harter school advocates

schools and you’re for charters schools and your governor is for charter schools—that’s a step in the right direction. We haven’t quite gotten that in every state, yet. So, in terms of the awareness, it’s already here and just the turnout at the rally today shows that people around here are listening and they know that they’re fed up and I think that’s great. But, obviously, look at the numbers and see how many kids are failing and the crisis that’s actually happening here, it saddens me. It saddens, hopefully, a lot of people that are being affected by it.

But, I do see change happening and I think at the end of the day that’s what it’s about. They’re ahead a lot of states that have yet to even fight for change.

in New York won a major victory this past fall when Gov. Andrew Cuomo was re-elected to another term and Republicans won an outright majority in the state Senate. So, when the pro-charter school group Families for Excellent Schools organized a rally in March, it seemed more like a victory party than a lobbying effort.

This month’s rally brought as many as 13,000 advocates to the state Capitol in Albany, including former professional women’s basketball player Lisa Leslie, singer and Grammy Award winner Ashanti, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, legislative leaders and state lawmakers.

After the rally, Leslie, a four-time Olympic gold medal winner and threetime WNBA MVP, sat down with City & State’s Ashley Hupfl to discuss school choice, women’s issues and Title IX. The following is an edited transcript.

City & State: You have teamed up in the past few years with a lot of former athletes and celebrities to fight for choice in education— between traditional public schools, charter schools and private schools.

Why is this issue so important to you?

Lisa Leslie: Like I said in the rally, just the fact that I realized I wasn’t necessarily getting the best education when I was in high school. Then it carried over to when it was time for my children to enter schools, just research and doing my due diligence of picking a school, I found that schools in my area are also underperforming. I just thought it odd that 25 years later we’re still having this conversation about schools and public schools. So for me, I just thought, “What can I do to help?”

We were able to afford to change areas and move to a better school district to get the best education for our kids, but what about the kids that couldn’t afford to do that? So, I thought, how can I help, what organizations can I

C&S: You were a pioneer for female athletes—for example, you were able to dunk the ball before most other women in the game. Do you feel that the country is moving in the right direction when it comes to providing opportunities for women?

LL: Well, I just spoke about that at Loyola Marymount University and Title IX and what Title IX has gotten us in general, through sports and the workforce. But it’s just amazing still that 42 years later we’re still talking about women’s rights, trying to find our place and get equal pay. So I think, yes, we’ve made some strides, but we’re not done. The fight is still important and it’s important, too, to educate the next generation about Title IX and standing up for women’s rights.

A Q&A WITH

LISA LESLIE help to maybe speak and use my voice to bring more awareness to this issue.

C&S: You have advocated for school choice in many different states.

How would you compare New York to these other states, or what have you seen in other states?

LL: Well, initially because you have vouchers and because you have charter

C&S: What would you like to see the government do to help fight for women’s rights?

LL: I would love to see equal pay, just in the workforce alone. Even if we got that, that would be an amazing start.

To read the full text of this interview, go to cityandstateny.com.

cit yandstateny.com