Public Employee Press

Montgomery-Costa hits mayor on school support services

Veronica Montgomery-Costa, president of DC 37 and NYC Board of Education Employees Local 372, charged Feb. 6 that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg “has stolen vital school support services from our children.” Her comments on the mayor and his education policies was delivered at a hearing on governance of the city’s public school system held by the state Assembly Standing Committee on Education.

Montgomery-Costa, who represents 26,000 school employees, recommended that the Legislature allow the law that gives the mayor sole control of school governance in the city to expire on June 30.

“We entrusted the mayor with sole proprietorship of the education of our city’s 1.1 million school children, yet to date he has failed to demonstrate that our children are his first priority,” the local president told the committee. “Instead, he has stolen vital school support services from our children, calling the unconscionable practice a gap-closing initiative.”

She accused Bloomberg of making the school system an agency based on a for-profit business model instead of an agency whose primary goal is to educate children, and said the chancellor should be an accomplished educator instead of a business person from the private sector. “Our students should not feel like anonymous figures in a bottom line,” she said.

In addition, Montgomery-Costa called for more well-trained teachers, administrators and school support service workers who live in the school community. She also cited the waste in contracting out. “The latest is a $55 million contract with $23 million in related expenses to a Virginia company to track special education data,” she said. “The history of this company with the DOE is tarnished and the effectiveness of their software is unproven.”

She sharply criticized DOE’s lack of transparency and accountability, which she said “results from the absence of a central school board and the elimination of community school boards, which served to enlighten and empower parents. Major budget and staffing decisions are made without any informed input from school administrators, staff, parents and community.”