The Department of Education will be holding public hearings in every school district on this year's round of funding from Contracts for Excellence (C4E), the state legislation passed in 2007 to distribute the settlement proceeds from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit.

Contracts for Excellence funds target students with the greatest needs: English Language Learners, students in poverty, students with disabilities and those with low academic achievement. Funding is supposed to be spent in six specific program areas: class size reduction, time on task, teacher and principal quality initiatives, school restructuring, full day pre-K and ELL programs.

Parent leaders, education advocates and the United Federation of Teachers have chargedthat the city has not used C4E funding to reduce class sizes througout the city. <!--more-->In January 2010 , the United Federation of Teachers, NAACP, the Hispanic Federation and Class Size Matters joined with parent leaders in a lawsuit against Chancellor Joel I. Klein and the DOE for violating state law by not applying C4E funds to reduce class sizes.

The hearings come at an opportune time for parents, many of whom are first learning the extent to which classes, programs, and services have been slashed at their children's schools as a result of the latest round of budget cuts. With news that Race to the Topfunds will not be spentto offset budget cuts, C4E funds will likely prove critical to many schools as they work to bolster student achievement -- a daunting task given the 2010 state test results released in late July and the raising of passing standards by the state.

You can read the DOE's proposed plan for the disbursal of C4E funds here. Over the next few weeks, each of the city’s 32 Community Education Councils will hold hearings for the public to offer their views on how C4E funds should be spent for the 2010-11 school year.

No time to attend a meeting? Send your input to ContractsForExcellence@schools.nyc.gov.

Planning to go attend a C4E hearing? Please let us know how it turned out by commenting below.