by Jennifer Freeman

Can you call an activity “planning” if it consists of playing catch-up with old problems (years of chronic underfunding of school construction) while ignoring new ones (massive residential high-rise construction)? The inspiring crowd of parents and elected officials who rallied on the steps of City Hall last Friday to call for “A Better Capital Plan” thought not. Students from P.S. 3 held up signs with messages such as “We are not packing peanuts!”

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer presided over the rally. Elected officials stood up one after anotherto recognize that the Department of Education urgently needs to improve the way it makes capital plans.Stringer has issued two reportsshowing that school seats in Manhattan have not kept pace with residential building in the city: In District 3 alone, over 7,000 apartments have been built since 2003, or are currently under construction. Many are multi-bedroom apartments clearly aimed at families with children. Yet not one city dollar has been allocated to the district for new schools.

Last June at a CEC meeting, DOE officials told District 3 parents that there was no population boom: kids in new high rises would fill the void from a loss of population in older buildings. Overall, we were told, the district had shrunk by over 700 children since 2001. But it turns out that figure referred to the number of District 3 children now attending charter schools. Even though these are public schools located in District 3 that use space in District 3 public school buildings, they are not technically considered "in the district."

In September 2008, the DOE put out figures saying that enrollment in Upper West Side schools (below 110th Street) had risen by 84 children from 2005-06--although enrollment increases posted on schools' DOE websites added to 166. DOE also used outdated “historical” class size to count potentially free seats if DOE changed enrollment rules, instead of using the smaller “target” class size numbers, as mandated by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) lawsuit.

In recent weeks, the DOE acknowledged that District 3 schools might not be able to absorb all the kids expected once those thousands of new apartments are occupied. But they switched rationales in order to keep arguing against any construction in the new 5-year plan. The new story:

  • Other districts are in even worse shape.

  • In these tumultuous economic times, the future is even murkier than usual, so it would be imprudent to commit new funds.

In its new 5-year capital plan, due out this November, the DOE should practice planning ahead, not just cleaning up old messes. Planning means making predictions of the near future and acting on them.

The DOE has often said “you can only improve what you can measure.” DOE should measure the need for new school seats without massaging the numbers. A clearer, more accurate picture of school needs would be the first step towards solving the problems of District 3, and other crowded districts as well.