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The Topic
Education refers to the organization and performance of the public schools and public support institutions established for teaching children from pre-K-12th.
The Context
NYC's public education system is the nation's largest. Over a million pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade students attend its 1,100-plus schools. The head of the school system is the chancellor, who is appointed by the mayor. The chancellor is advised by the Panel for Educational Policy on which sit five parents appointed by the borough presidents and seven mayoral appointees. Under a newly reorganized Department of Education (which has replaced the long-time Board of Education), the city's elementary, middle and high schools are administered by 10 regions headed by regional superintendents. (The organization of the system is described in a Department of Education guide for parents.) There is extraordinary variety across the system: schools of every size and stripe, and at every echelon from first-rate to failing. Less than half of each high school class graduates in four years--and, even with extra time, only 70 percent of NYC kids can count on a diploma.

Education Reports:

Polluted School Sites
A legal loophole allows the city to open schools in leased buildings that could pose hazards to children, according to a report released yesterday by Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum. The report, "The High Cost of Leasing Schools," focuses on existing buildings leased by the School Construction Authority. Some of these are on former industrial sites, but under existing law, the authority does not have to get an environmental review of these properties. To remedy the situation, the report calls for closing what it terms "the leasing loophole in the Public Authorities Law."

Schools Slacking on Physical Education
A report by Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum found 3 percent of third graders had gym class every day, despite a state mandate. State law requires students in kindergarten through third grade participate in gym class daily, and fourth through sixth graders participate three times a week. The survey questioned 100 random elementary schools and 50 randomly selected middle schools throughout the five boroughs. The report urges the Department of Education to meet state requirements and provide athletic extracurricular activities.

Class Size and Contract for Excellence
Despite receiving $152.7 million in new state funds meant to lower class sizes, the New York City Department of Education has failed to implement a comprehensive class size reduction plan to meet state goals and has allowed class sizes to rise at a third of the city schools receiving the funds, according to a report by the United Federation of Teachers.

Parent Coordinators Hard to Find
Five years after the position was created, a survey by Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum found that the Department of Education’s parent coordinators are more difficult to reach now than ever before. The report, which surveyed 100 parent coordinators, found that three-quarters of parent coordinators did not return phone calls, and 71 percent of messages left for coordinators were not returned. Gotbaum has recommended enforcing after school hours for coordinators and ensuring coordinators return phone calls.

Enough Schools for All the New Homes?
There has not been enough school construction to match the apartment construction in Manhattan, according to a new report by Borough President Scott Stringer's office. Enough new homes have been approved since 2000 across the four neighborhoods at highest risk of overcrowding to add 2,300 new students, but only 143 new classroom seats were created, the report said. It also showed that Manhattan's elementary and middle schools are already 3,900 students over capacity.

Capital Costs Up in Education
A comparison of the Department of Education's five-year capital plan from when it was originally approved in 2004 to now shows spending has increased by $227.2 million, totaling $13.4 billion, according to a new report by the Independent Budget Office. The report also found that projects are taking longer than expected and increased costs can be attributed to overall increases in the cost of construction. The department still plans on adding an additional 65,700 new school seats.

Pushed Out of School
The organization Advocates for Children surveyed 145 students who were kicked out of New York City Schools. They found that the majority of students were told to leave school for reasons that are not legally justified, more than a third never met with a high school guidance counselor, and almost half did not know they had a legal right to remain in school until age 21. One hundred and twenty-six of the 145 students surveyed said they want to continue their education and go to college.

Surveying Parents
A majority of parents selected reducing class size as the one thing the city could do that would best improve the schools, according to a survey released by the advocacy group Class Size Matters. The report provides results from a telephone poll of a random sample of about 600 and responses from more than 1,000 other parents who voluntarily filled out the survey on-line. The report found differences of opinion between those who responded and the Bloomberg administration on a number of issues, including mayoral control and use of standardized tests.

Preliminary Mayor's Management Report
An interim look at the performance of various city agencies was released yesterday in a report called the Preliminary Mayor's Management Report. Published annually, it takes a look at the city's performance in the first four months of the fiscal year and forecasts performance expectations. Much of the information can be broken down by individual agency, issue, or community. Some significant highlights were: Sewer back up complaints jumped by 23 percent; the average response time to heat complaints rose by 50 percent (although stays within the goal of seven hours); and major felony crimes in schools were nearly a third lower than the same quarter last year.

Females at Tech High Schools
Females are falling behind at the city's Career and Technical Education high schools, according to a new report from Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum. At 18 of the high schools, females comprised only 41 percent of the student population, and several schools favored male enrollment, according to the report. Schools that had greater female populations lacked advanced placement classes, including in math and science. Addressing these gender inequalities, Gotbaum said, is important now because the administration wants to expand the program.

Middle School Achievement
Despite the Bloomberg administration's focus on education, student performance in middle schools has shown modest improvement at best, and the gap between white students and black and Latino students remains wide, according to a report by the Coalition for Educational Justice. The report, "Our Children Can't Wait," finds only 30 percent of black and Latino eighth-graders meet state standards in reading and writing, compared to about 60 percent of white students. It also cites a gap in teacher quality between schools in high-poverty areas and other schools. The report includes a number of recommendations.

Testing Students
Many New York City public school students now take a standardized test every three to four weeks, according to an analysis by the office of Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum. Third graders, for example, are given approximately 12 city tests per year, only two of which are required by the state, according to Gotbaum. The rest, she said, are city tests designed to prepare the students for state exams.

Higher Education in New York
A report by the New York State Commission on Higher Education calls for increased funding and thousands more faculty members to boost the state's universities. The report, released yesterday in preliminary form from a commission with members appointed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer earlier this year, recommends hiring 2,000 more faculty members at the State University of New York and the City University of New York, including 250 eminent scholars over the next five years. The report also calls for the establishment of a $3 billion research fund and the creation of a low-cost student loan program. Upon release of the report, Spitzer said the following in a prepared statement: "I look forward to evaluating this report and taking the Commission's recommendations for how my administration can create policies and programs that will make New York's higher education system second to none into consideration."

Cutting Class Size
New York City needs some 2,522 additional classrooms to significantly reduce class size in the city’s lowest performing public schools, according to a report by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. Despite years of litigation and pressure on the Department of Education, the report, “A Seat of One’s Own,” finds that “thousands of our highest-needs students still go to school every day in overcrowded classrooms where teachers face the challenge of meeting the needs of our most vulnerable students under less than optimal conditions. “ To address this, the report recommends that the city use any available space in the targeted schools, share space between schools and develop a capital plan to address class size and so it can provide universal pre-kindergarten for four-year-olds.

City Schools Get Grades
More than 1,200 schools received letter grades from A through F yesterday in the city's first-ever report cards, which were released by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. The report shows of the 1,224 schools that were evaluated, 23 percent earned an A, 38 percent received a B, 25 percent earned a C, 8 percent received a D and 4 percent earned an F. Bloomberg said the 50 schools with failing grades could close. Queens had the highest percentage of A elementary and middle schools, while Manhattan had the highest percentage of A high schools. The grades were based on three factors: school environment, student performance and student progress. Student progress was given the most weight of the three. Schools that received a D or an F will be required to submit plans that detail improvement proposals.

Technical Education Not NYC Priority
New York City Comptroller William Thompson analyzed the city's Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs, finding that the CTE has not been a priority of the New York City Department of Education. During the 2004-05 school year, there were 6,288 students in city schools in State-approved CTE programs, and 103,499 students in not-yet approved programs.

Dual Enrollment Boosts College Prospects
Students who participate in dual enrollment – or those who take college courses for credit while still in high school – are nearly 10 percent more likely to pursue a bachelor’s degree, according to a new study by the Community College Research Center. The study, which examined New York City students enrolled in the City University of New York and students in Florida, revealed dual enrollment programs increase opportunities for low-income and minority students.Students who participated in the City University of New York dual enrollment program, who were most likely black or Asian, had grade point averages 20 percent higher than those that did not participate.

School Funds Distribution
The city has begun a new needs-based distribution system for schools. But provisions limiting how much funding a school can lose or gain has meant that the city is spending more to keep schools at their previous level than they have spent on raising it at under-funded schools. While under-funded schools received $110 million more under the new system than the would have under the old one, it cost the city $237 million to prevent other schools from losing funds.

Preparing Special Education Students
The New York City school system does not do enough to help special education students prepare for their transition to life after high school, according to a new report by Advocates for Children. The report, Transition to Nowhere, says about 13,000 students with disabilities leave the New York City schools every year, and the department is required to help prepare them independent living, further education and career opportunities. Despite that, many students receive no preparation and in other cases, students were not involved in developing their transition plans.

Report Critical Of Military Recruitment in City's Schools
The Department of Education has inadequately managed military recruitment activities in the city's schools and has failed to ensure students privacy from those recruiters, says a new report by the New York Civil Liberties Union and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. The report finds that recruiters have used class time and that many students do not know of anyone in their school who could inform them of the risks of military enrollment.

Dangerous Schools
The New York State Department of Education has issued a list of 27 schools considered dangerous under the No Child Left Behind Act. All but two of the schools are in New York City. Seventeen of the schools are new to the list. The total number of schools on the list increased by 11 this year, a rise the department attributed to stricter accounting and aggressive reporting.

Student Test Scores Not Improved by Housing Vouchers
A federal lottery system that provides vouchers for families to move out of low income neighborhoods provides no educational benefits for the children in the those families, a new report says. The study, published in Education Next, a journal of the Hoover Institution, showed that students' test scores did not improve as a result of the move, nor did their attitude and behavior towards school. Test scores actually declined in New York, it said. But one of the researchers stressed that this is not a reason to abandon the voucher system. He cited decreases in obesity and depression as positive gains from the moves.

Fewer Adults Attend College
While an increasing number of recent high school graduates in New York State attend college, the number of adults aged 25 to 49 going to college has dropped sharply in the last 10 years, according to a report by the Center for an Urban Future and the Schuyler Center. Less than 4 percent of the state’s adults with high school diplomas go to college, one of the lowest rates in the country. The report, Working to Learn, Learning to Work, blames the low college enrollment on high tuition at public colleges in New York and a lack of financial aid for adult students.

Making the Grade at Middle Schools
The City Council appointed Middle School Task Force released a report yesterday detailing recommendations to combat low academic achievement in the city’s middle schools. The council, Bloomberg administration and the Department of Education have agreed to the following recommendations within the report: identify at least 50 middle schools to receive a total of $5 million to implement the task force’s recommendations, expand Regents level courses citywide and establish on ongoing discussion on reform, among other improvements. Some of the other recommendations within the report include training for middle school principals, a mandate for smaller class size and incorporating rigorous coursework. The department and the City Council intend on working together to identify the city’s middle schools in need of improvement.

Budget Watchdog Flunks City's Vocational Schools
Students attending the city's vocational high schools are being shortchanged, according to a report issued by the Independent Budget Office at the request of Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum. The report found the schools spend less per student than general public high schools; none of the schools have state approval for all their programs; and less than half meet federal No Child Left Behind standards.

Faulty Reporting in the Department of Education
According to an audit released last week by city Comptroller William Thompson, the Department of Education is not accurately keeping records for the special education services it provides. According to the audit, the department has no formal policy for monitoring these services, which can result in inaccuracies, such as records that showed services were given to students on days schools were actually closed. “The Department of Education’s special education system is in a state of dysfunction,” Thompson said in a prepared statement in regards to the audit. “The department has provided woefully inadequate oversight of its delivery of service to the point that it’s often unclear whether special education students are getting the services they need.” Out of nine recommendations, the Department of Education agreed with six, according to the comptroller's office, but it also "strongly objected" to the audit's methodology.

Library Funding: Subsidies Rebound, Disparities Remain
Over the last seven years, the inflation-adjusted value of the city’s subsidy to the three public library systems — Brooklyn, New York, and Queens — fell by 8.4 percent. The subsidy has now been restored to the 2000 level, but this report from the Independent Budget Office finds that there are disparities in the allocation of the subsidy among the three library systems.

City Fails to Inform Parents of Opportunities for Children with Disabilities
The Department of Education fails to provide parents of children with disabilities information on special education services or respond to their concerns about their children’s transportation, according to a new survey of parents with children in District 75 by Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and the Citywide Council on Special Education. The report, based on the responses of 2,026 parents of students with moderate to severe disabilities.

Marketplace of Ideas
The Drum Major Institute for Public Policy's Marketplace of Ideas brings policymakers from around the country to New York City to speak about their policy success, its impact, and their on-the-ground experience getting the policy enacted. They engage with an expert panel of New Yorkers, including city and state legislators, advocates, business representatives, religious leaders, and academics, to further discuss the policy and its implications for New York City and State.

What Students Think
New York City teenagers see room for improvement in the city’s high schools according to Youth Weigh In: The Educational Priorities of New York City High School Students, a report by the Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York. Among the concerns cited by students are violence and weapons at school, cramped and dilapidated facilities, little personal attention in classrooms, and not being consulted on how to improve schools.

Helping Children with Special Needs
In this report, the Center for an Urban Future examines support services for children with developmental and emotional disabilities, and what the child welfare system must do to address their needs.

A Thousand Cuts: Workforce Development Funding
A report by the Center for an Urban Future tracks the decline in funding for workforce development, programs designed to help students, jobseekers and workers gain new credentials and skills. The study follows cuts in 28 active funding streams, administered by 11 different agencies within state or federal government. The report (in pdf format) concludes that "New Yorkers do not derive as much value as we could from these investments" because of a lack of attention and coordination of efforts.

Wasteful Spending in Pre-K Program
The city's universal pre-kingergarten program wasted $785,000 in overpayments, inappropriate payments, and questionable activities, according to this audit by the city comptroller's office. Funds given to non-public schools for pre-k services were spent on karate uniforms, an air conditioner, and private sanitation services.

Room for More High School Students
A discrepancy exists between the Department of Education’s promises to increase the high school graduation rate and its plans for new and enlarged schools, according to a report by the office of Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum. The report, “Planning for Failure,” says that the department’s capital program calls for adding 26,000 new seats in city public high schools. This plan, according to the report, is based on projections that less than half of city public-school ninth graders will reach 12th grade. If the department meets its goal of boosting the four-year graduation rate to 70 percent, it will need almost twice as many places in high schools as it now has planned, the report concludes.

Mixed Emotions on City Public Schools
The Community Service Society of New York’s (CSS) annual survey of low-income New Yorkers, The Unheard Third, reveals New Yorkers support efforts to reduce the dropout rate in public education and expand access to schools for early childhood education. The CSS survey found that New Yorkers top priority for elected officials is improving public education; with most believing that overall, city schools have shown little improvement over the last five years. There is optimism among poor parents, who give the schools their children attend improved marks since Mayor Bloomberg took control over public education. Though parents of older students, age 13 to 18, are still dissatisfied with the quality of education their children receive.

Delivering City Services
The administration has released its 2007 preliminary Mayor’s Management Report, which provides statistics on the delivery of city services during the first four months of the fiscal year. According to the mayor, the figures “demonstrate that we are continuing to build on five years of successful policies and are moving the city in the right direction." Among the findings: homicides decreased slightly; streets are cleaner than ever; calls to the city’s 311 hot lines for non-emergencies increased by 7 percent; and the number of families entering the homeless shelter system rose. Most press accounts, however, focused on the 21 percent increase in major felonies in public schools. Much of that rise was in thefts of valuable items, such as laptop computers.

Health-Care Careers
Between now and 2012, New York City will have about 7,600 job vacancies a year for health-care jobs that do not require a four-year college degree. But according to a report by the Office of the Public Advocate, the city Department of Education is not doing enough to prepare students for these careers. During the 2004-05 school year, only 1,254 students were enrolled in state-approved technical education for jobs in health care. Further, the report says, many of the courses that do exist do not address the real needs of the health-care industry.

School Funding Court Ruling
The ruling by the Court of Appeals, New York State’s highest court, in the thirteen-year litigation known as the Campaign For Fiscal Equity v. The State of New York. Writing for the majority, Judge Eugene Pigott Jr. sums up: “In this third appeal by plaintiffs Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. et al, we address the cost of providing children in New York City’s public schools with a sound basic education. The State estimated this cost to include a minimum of $1.93 billion, in 2004 dollars, in additional annual operating funds. We conclude that this estimate was a reasonable one and that the courts should defer to this estimate, appropriately updated.” Included is the dissent by Chief Judge Judith Kaye, who concludes “our trust was misplaced” in state officials “who still have failed to fund the New York City public schools adequately” and their failure is precisely the reason why deference is not owed to them. “For more than 200 years…it has been the province and duty of the judicial branch to enforce compliance with constitutional norms, including (when necessary) as against the other branches of government. Defendants’ continued failure to cure the violation properly obligated the courts to determine the extent of noncompliance and to direct a remedy.”

High Schools' Annual Report
The Citywide Council on High Schools’ Annual Report recognizes the efforts of the New York City Department of Education in focusing on student achievement, accountability, and additional facilities but, in a detailed analysis of the education department's graduation and class size data, finds “a cloud of legitimacy over these numbers.” In the case of the department's graduation rate methodologies, the report concludes that they “differ from other reputable methods and... result in the most favorable statistic possible.”

English Class Shortage
The number of English as a second language classes provided by New York State’s English for Speakers of Other Languages program has not kept up with the increasing demand for the courses, according to a new study by the Center for an Urban Future and the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy. In 2005, there were more than 1.6 million adults in the state with limited English skills, but just 86,433 seats in state-run English programs, the study, “Lost in Translation,” says. And in New York City, the program had only 41,585 places for the 1,230,866 adults with limited English skills.

Barriers to Teaching
Bureaucracy prevents teachers from being as effective as they might otherwise be, according to a recent report based on the experiences of eight New York City public school teachers. The report by the advocacy group Common Good, “All in a Day’s Work: What’s Standing in the Way of Teacher Effectiveness?” is not representative of all teachers but sought to provide insights and spur further study. In particular, the teachers reported being hampered by the need to discipline students, standardized tests, required teaching procedures, and by various bureaucratic distractions.

The Poverty Report
This report by the Mayor’s Commission for Economic Opportunity, officially entitled "Increasing Opportunity and Reducing Poverty In New York City," includes a “snapshot” of poverty in the city – over 1.5 million New Yorkers (“almost three times the entire population of Boston”) live below the poverty line; many of the poor are children; many poor adults are employed, etc. – and a set of recommendations focused on three groups: young adults 16 to 24, children under six, and the working poor.

Gender Inequality In High School Sports
New York City public high school girls have fewer opportunities to play sports than boys, says this report from the Office of Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum. Though slightly more than half of the students enrolled at 185 high schools were girls, girls teams accounted for only 44 percent of all Public School Athletic League sports. The report points out that girls fencing, soccer, golf, and swimming were scheduled in the “off-season,” when fewer college recruiters are evaluating talent, while boys teams competing in the same sports played during the regular season.

Tuition At CUNY
City University of New York has become increasingly reliant on tuition over the past 17 years, as state and city aid has fallen, according to this report by the Independent Budget Office. Measured in current dollars, revenue from tuition has increased more than 90 percent, while state aid decreased by 35 percent and city aid by 24 percent. Even though both the cost of tuition and the number of students enrolled has increased, overall revenue has decreased.

The Department of Education Fails to Regulate its Job Order Contract
The Department of Education (DOE) has failed to regulate and monitor its job order contracts (JOC) program, leaving it susceptible to fraud and abuse, according to an audit released today by Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. The audit also found many examples of incomplete and poor repairs performed by JOCs.

Police In School
Putting police officers in violence-prone schools may cut crime, but it also increases tensions, turns harmless disputes into criminal matters and is perceived by many students as racially biased, according to a recent report by graduate students at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

Low Graduation Rates, High Taxes
New York State government’s inadequate funding of education is a major cause both of low graduation rates and high property taxes, according to “New York State’s Dual Crises: Low Graduation Rates And Rising School Taxes,” a report by the Public Policy and Education Fund. New York City has a far lower graduation rate than the average for the state, but also lower property taxes than the state average, since the city imposes a personal income tax and has other sources of local revenue.

Immigrant Students: Is There a "Nativity Gap"?
This report written by two professors from New York University compares how well immigrant students in the New York City public schools perform on reading and math tests in comparison to their native born counterparts.

Tax Exemptions Hurt Public Schools
A report by City Project, “Fatal Subtraction: How State-Mandated Property Tax Exemptions Subsidize New York City Private Education at the Expense of Public Schools and CUNY,” details New York City’s annual loss of at least $7.3 billion in revenue from all property tax exemptions, including educational ones.

High School Admissions
The Department of Education deserves a passing grade for its administration of the high schools selection process, according to an audit by City Comptroller William Thompson. In New York City public schools, most eighth graders are not automatically assigned to a school but must apply to schools of their choosing. Although the comptroller’s report, which covers the 2004-2005 school year, found minor flaws in the system, Thompson said that the education department “has been mostly on track in implementing this new process to ensure that students get the attention and service they deserve.”

Teen Smoking
Only about one in 10 New York City high school students now smoke cigarettes, according to a survey by the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Department of Education. This represents a 36 percent drop since 2001 and a 52 percent decline since 1997. The report attributes the drop to a sharp increase in cigarette taxes and to educational programs.

Spending On Education Since Mayoral Control
When the mayor took control of the city's public schools in September, 2003, he promised that more money in the education budget would be made available for instruction. This shift has not yet happened in any significant way, according to an analysis of the budget by the Educational Priorities Panel, a NYC education advocacy group, "Adding Up The Numbers: The Education Budget Under Mayoral Control."

City Education Spending
Although some experts predicted the city would spend more on education if the mayor got control of the school system, that seems to not be the case. In the first of a series of reports on mayoral control and education spending, the Educational Priorities Panel found that, if only the school system’s operating budget is considered, education spending dropped from 2002 to 2004. If pensions and debt service are included, school spending as a share of overall city spending has increased.

Reengineering Educational Reform
In the second of three reports by the City Council in response to the court decision in the Campaign For Fiscal Equity case, "Reengineering Reform: Adopting A New Approach To An Old Problem" attempts to answer "a deceptively simple question: How can we best assure that reforms translate into improved educational practice in the city's classrooms?" Among its recommendations: creating lab schools and a "lab district" within the school system to research what will work.

School Construction Spending
The New York City Department of Education spent more on building new schools and expanding schools between 2000 and 2004 than it had originally anticipated and less than it had planned on modernizing existing schools, according to an analysis of the school system’s capital spending. In reviewing $6.9 billion in spending on school construction, expansion and renovation, the Independent Budget Office found that the costs of building new schools cost 22 percent to 38 percent more than the Department of Education anticipated.

Chancellor's Regulations for Parents
This report by the City Council's Education Committee gives parents a guide to the thousand or so pages of the schools chancellor's regulations. It also gives some history, explains why the regulations exist, and assesses whether they are useful.

Candidates on Education
The non-profit organization Class Size Matters asked candidates for mayor, public advocate, and Manhattan borough president 25 questions about schools, education funding, and classroom policies. Candidates outlined how they plan to get money from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit, if they would use buildings on Governors Island for schools, and if they support expanding the number of charter schools in the city.

Issues And Proposals For The Candidates
Three leading New York civic groups have issued a report on key policy issues that they believe York’s next mayor will face over the next four years. The report, “Framing the 2005 Mayoral Debate: Issues and Proposals for the Candidates,” by the Regional Plan Association, the Center for New York City Affairs at Milano Graduate School and the Center for an Urban Future, considers major problems in such areas as education, economic development, child welfare and homelessness and presents possible solutions. The groups say the report is intended to encourage substantive discussion of policy issues in this year's municipal campaigns.

The Cost Of Teachers Quitting
More than 13,000 public school teachers in New York State are expected to quit their jobs, and it will cost the state more than $200 million to replace them, according to a nationwide study by the Alliance for Excellent Education. Only Texas and California will spend more. “Nearly 3,500 certified teachers quit the city school system this year, a number that the United Federation of Teachers claims is the highest in recent memory,”according to the New York Post. “According to the union, the reasons most cited by departing teachers are salary, safety and class size.”

Teen Dating Violence
The Department of Education is not adequately addressing domestic violence faced by students, particularly teenage girls, according to a report released yesterday by the public advocate, Betsy Gotbaum. Although about 10 percent of victims of domestic violence treated in hospitals are under the age of 20, the report says, the school system has inadequate policies for tracking such violence nor coordinating a response. Among its recommendations are better teacher training, and the ability to transfer the batterer to another school.

Spending on Education
Even though the city has not gotten any money yet from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity suit on school funding, total spending for the city’s schools has risen dramatically in the past 15 years, according to a new report by the Independent Budget Office. From the 1989-1990 school year through the 2003-2004 school year, total school spending in the city, including money from the federal, state and city governments, increased by 43.4 percent. For a table detailing school spending, chart

School Spending
A commission appointed by City Council to consider how the city should spend any additional education money it receives from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit has recommended focusing on improving the quality of teaching by giving teachers raises, providing more rigorous assessments of teachers, improving professional development and weeding out bad staff.

Preliminary Mayor's Management Report for Fiscal Year 2005
The Preliminary Mayor's Management Report for Fiscal Year 2005, according to City Hall, "provides an early update of how the City is performing four months into the fiscal year," offering "performance highlights and statistics for agencies, as well as data on inquiries received by the 311 Citizen Service Center." Also, Search by agency

Out of School, Out of Work... Out of Luck? New York City's Disconnected Youth
A new report released by the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), a nonpartisan, not-for-profit, antipoverty organization, reveals that 16 percent of New York City's 16 through 24-year-olds are neither enrolled in school nor participating in the labor market.

Missing Classrooms
New York City created about 700 fewer new classrooms than it was supposed to between 1999 and 2002 despite more than $225 million in state aid, according to a audit by the state comptroller released this week. The audit was completed in 2003 but was reportedly released only after city education officials recently said that the state determined the money had been used properly -- a claim that State Comptroller Alan Hevesi said is "completely inaccurate."

Anti-Semitism At Columbia
An ad-hoc committee put together by Columbia University released a report responding to a student video charging that professors harassed Jewish students during debates over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The report said that there was no evidence of anti-Semitism, though it did document one instance in which a professor acted inappropriately. The report was critical, however, of the University's handling of student complaints.

Paying for NYC Schools
A report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy analyzes New York's tax system and its ability to raise the additional revenue required to adequately fund education. The report assesses the state's personal and corporate income taxes, property taxes, and sales and excise taxes, with an eye toward evaluating options for revenue-raising tax reform that may help lawmakers comply with the New York Court of Appeals' June 2003 decision requiring the state to raise additional revenues for education.

Low Graduation Rates
Only 12 percent of all public school students who received special education services graduated with regular high school diplomas in the past eight years, according to a new report by Advocates for Children. The advocacy group found that that rate lags far behind the gradation rates for special education students in the state and the country.

A Look at the Impact Schools
This Drum Major Institute report profiled the middle and high schools included in the Impact School program. It found that the schools, included for having high levels of crime and disorder, were more likely to be overcrowded and underfunded, and more likely to have overage students, and to serve a student body consisting of poor, black students compared to average high schools.

» Suggest an Education report or link.