Hosted by The Center for
Education Reform
Hosted by The Center for
Education Reform
Congressional Testimony of
Edward T. Koch
Member, New York City Council
Senate Subcommittee On Oversight Of
Government Management, Restructuring, And The District Of Columbia
April 17, 1997
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to appear before the committee this morning. Having served in public office as Member of the New York City Council, Member of Congress and Mayor of New York City for a total of 23 years, I have been very involved with the education of New York City's 1,075,605 public school children and 265,074 non-public school children: 118,682 private and 146,392 parochial. No one disputes that our country will succeed or fail based on the education of our children.
Of course, Mr. Chairman, before any academic initiative is proposed, there must be a physically safe environment. In 1966, when I was a member of the City Council, the late teacher and union leader Al Shanker told me that of the one million students in our public schools, 5 percent who were violent or otherwise disruptive had to be removed from regular classrooms for others to learn. Shanker was a visionary. Now, about 30 years later, New York's current School Chancellor Rudy Crew is taking stronger measures than his predecessors to permanently remove violent students who use weapons from our schools. More of the disruptive students have been and are being placed in alternative schools. I'm told it is very difficult to remove special ed students who are violent, disruptive or who bring a weapon to school.
As Mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989, I proposed and implemented a number of new educational initiatives which had some degree of success. Some might have relevance to the D.C. public school system. Congress should see experimenting with the D.C. schools as an opportunity not just for Washington and its children, but for the entire nation's children. Now to my suggestions:
The most important proposal, in my judgment, is providing school vouchers. In 1966, when I ran for the New York City Council, I supported what were then referred to as tuition tax credits. I concluded at the time that helping poor and moderate- income parents send their children to parochial and private schools was in the best interest of those children and of the country. Many wealthy parents were then--and are today--opposed to the concept of school vouchers as a violation of the doctrine of separation of church and state. While I believe in the separation of church and state, I do not think the principle is breached if vouchers are given to parents to make the choice for their children. Those of us who support vouchers believe they will create competition among schools, causing public schools to improve the product they deliver. Currently, the Feds pay for Headstart students at religious schools. The wall of separation between church and state has not crumbled because of that. And, of course, the WWII GI Bill allowed entry to religious colleges and universities. In my judgment, there is no constitutional bar to providing vouchers for students attending parochial schools.
A second proposal is charter schools. In such schools, education experts are permitted to manage new public schools with public funds, or existing public schools that opt out. They report to a separate public agency, usually at the state level. Those schools are, to a large degree, independent of the existing board of education and its regulations. The schools are required to meet certain state standards and if they do not, they are closed. But they are given a large degree of freedom in the selection of curriculum and teachers. Charter schools select their populations and many concentrate on accepting students who have not done well in the regular public school, have been disruptive there or are drop-outs. Charter schools provide choice, competition and accountability.
A third proposal came about when I was Mayor and visited the Board of Education headquarters and spoke with the Chancellor's top 25 administrators. After being advised that the students' "reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic," as we used to say, weren't so terrific, I made a suggestion to the Chancellor which became known as the Adopt-A-Class program. I suggested that professionals teach a public school class twice a month. While many of the Board of Education staff objected to the proposal, they had no choice but to go along since I told them I would teach a class even if no one else joined me. It was decided that we would teach seventh grade classes, serve as role models for the children, and provide them with new experiences. I suggested to others who volunteered that one of those two classes per month be devoted to taking the children on field trips to various places around the city -- the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and for me, Gracie Mansion and City Hall. Each of these unique teachers would bring a class to their place of work on at least one occasion. The Adopt-A-Class program would be an opportunity to introduce children to a larger world. I ultimately brought close to 400 professionals to the Adopt-A- Class program. They were lawyers, doctors, accountants and commissioners who I enlisted in the program.
I taught a public school class twice a month for two semesters. My first class was in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a black community in Brooklyn, and the second was a class of Hispanic youngsters in the South Bronx. One of the successes I am most proud of is that upon ascertaining on the first day of school that every child in both classes had difficulty properly saying the word "ask"-- pronouncing it instead as "ax"--I concentrated on teaching them to pronounce the word properly. By the end of the semester, every child in both classes said the word "ask" properly and was proud of it. A small victory, but an important one.
My fourth proposal to the Chancellor was providing uniforms to the students in some schools. My thought was that uniforms could give public schools a cache, school spirit and sense of identification among the students similar to that of private and parochial schools and eliminate competitiveness in dressing and muggings of children for their jewelry, jackets and expensive running shoes.
When I mentioned the proposal there were cat calls in the press. It was not easy to secure the uniforms for these children. The two schools that were selected were in poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods. When I asked some prominent clothing designers, whose names I will not mention here but did in my book, they declined, saying that they had exhausted their charitable funds. So I turned to Moe Ginsburg, a well-known New York City discount clothier. He and a friend willingly provided the uniforms, and a national shoe chain provided the shoes. Their cost was about $25,000.
A fifth initiative I created was a summer school program for public school students in which they attended the best private boarding schools in the region for seven weeks with their tuition, room and board paid for by the city. Several hundred students, most below grade average, were chosen to participate. The follow-up reports indicated that those students' subsequent grades improved and their drop-out rates decreased.
A sixth initiative I attempted was instituting a program of teachers' merit bonuses for one year. The idea was to measure the reading and math scores of a class at the beginning of the semester and again at the end. Where the class's scores improved during the course of the semester--the ultimate success being to bring them to grade level--I proposed that the teacher be awarded a cash bonus of up to $10,000. The amount of the bonus would depend on the percentage of students that reached grade reading level during the semester. My proposal was rejected by the Union of Federated Teachers whose president advised me that the UFT would be happy to support a bonus for teachers, but it could not depend on the teacher's success in bringing class performance to grade level. The union wanted every teacher in the system to receive the same bonus and have it be a permanent part of their salary. I replied, "That's not a bonus, it's a salary increase." We could not come to terms, so the teacher bonus program was not implemented. I believe that teachers would love to compete for a one-time bonus predicated on achieving the desired goal within the semester. Those successes and bonuses could be re-earned each year for those willing to achieve new goals.
A seventh proposal is providing rewards to the students for the attainment of certain goals. The rewards that I have in mind for reaching goals are bikes, sporting equipment, skates and skis.
An eighth initiative is forging ties between major corporations and our schools. The corporations would become involved in planning a school's curriculum, providing services and equipment, and would agree to give students jobs, both part- time and upon graduation from high school, provided the students maintain grades of "B" or better. I believe this concept was implemented to a limited degree. Companies, involvement should stress mentors for kids, summer jobs and financial management.
A ninth proposal is having private secondary schools and colleges adopt a local public school to establish ties between the two, giving them the opportunity to swap ideas and, perhaps even on occasion, teachers. This too had some implementation. These institutions should be encouraged to create charter schools.
After I left the mayoralty, I suggested another proposal resulting from my concern for special education in New York City. Many youngsters who end up in special education never leave it. The cost of special education is about $18,000 per child per year as opposed to $7,000 per child per year in a regular class. So several years ago I proposed that, except for those children who are profoundly disabled, mentally or physically, all special ed children be mainstreamed every two years. If a child failed on the first attempt at mainstreaming and was returned to special education, he or she would be given another opportunity for mainstreaming two years later. I believe that given the opportunity to sink or swim, many children would swim. The proposal was endorsed by then Chancellor Cortines and a commission of educators to whom he assigned the proposal for evaluation. It is my understanding that the Board of Education and the current chancellor intend to implement the program.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I believe that bilingual programs tend to become institutionalized not so much for learning but rather for cultural and ethnic pride reasons. Instead, I urge expanding and ultimately the substituting of English immersion classes for bilingual classes. Often bilingual programs are supported simply as jobs programs and not because of their benefit to children. Many children get trapped in them for years and their education suffers.
Mr. Chairman, I have given you some ideas for improving the delivery of education to our children in the public school system. Some of them are well-known, have been implemented in various school systems, and are working. Some are new and untried. I urge you to consider them. Finally, I urge your consideration of another proposal: creating a national academy that starts at high school and continues through university level. Those selected through testing would attend tuition-free with room and board included. Many of these best and brightest would ultimately enter public service. Surely the nation could use them.