By Jennifer Freeman

A recent Daily News editorial dismissed the need for more open discussion of city schools’ capital needs. The editorial blast was aimed at a recent report, A Better Capital Plan (full disclosure: I am a contributing author). The report documented that more school seats were built during the last six years of the Giuliani administration than during Mayor Bloomberg’s entire tenure to date.

The report's signal offense was to recommend that the DOE honestly and accurately identify in its soon-to-be-released capital plan how much money would be needed to provide small classes for all public school students in New York, rather than minimizing new school construction needs.

The Daily News editorial writers claimed that the report’s authors were out of touch with reality, that they must live in a fairyland the News derisively called “Gliffenglob.” But mentioning a need is not the same as claiming that unlimited money exists to address it. Maybe the editorial writers are in their own fairyland, where the atmosphere's thick with murky and massaged numbers, and breathing pure reality would be fatal.

Schoolchildren of the city would be better served if the DOE openly identifies true new school construction needs, even if the costs of those projects is large. The fact of a troubled economy offers no shelter; they did not face the size of the need even in economic boom times, when impact fees paid by the developers of new residential buildings might have helped. In the more honest and transparent--more accountable--system advocated by the Better Capital Plan report, at least the public would know what we are up against.