Send a message about school overcrowding and the $5 billion cut from the school capital plan!
In the press of other news, like rampant budget cuts, school closings, rising class sizes, and harmful co-locations, we have failed to focus on one of the most important issues that will determine the quality of education in NYC schools for years to come: the five year capital plan.
On Wednesday, the Panel for Educational Policy will vote on this plan, which compared to DOE’s previous proposal issued in November, cuts the funding for new capacity over five years by almost $6 billion.
Spending is slashed for new seats from $8.8 billion to $2.9 billion, and the number of new seats is cut by 30,000, or 67% . At the same time the DOE wants to spend $1 billion on new technology, including $542 million next year alone – so that they can the spread of online learning to 300-400 schools over the next few years.
This an extraordinarily large amount to be spending in any one year, especially given the city’s (and the