The school budget is more than a financial prospectus; it is a reflection of educational philosophy and a measure of how much we really care about children. Looked at in this way, Chancellor Scribner's proposed budget leaves much to be desired.
Where Dr. Scribner does make budget requests, they are grossly inadequate. As I pointed out in a previous column, a mere $5 million for teacher training would mean that many teachers would never be reached in the program. In another vital area, drug addiction and traffic, the budget asks for 256 counselors and coordinators to right the problem in 900 schools - hardly a way to fight an epidemic.
The budget's largest single request -- $43 million for free breakfasts -- would be an improper use of school funds. Dr. Scribner is right in saying that hungry children cannot learn. It is also true that children need clothing to attend school and that good housing plays an important part in school achievement. But the public school should not be required to spend its dollars to meet such needs. These worthwhile programs should be paid for by the city Council Against Poverty.
The $43 million should be used to employ an additional 9,000 paraprofessionals in our elementary and junior high schools. The budget calls for adding only a few hundred. The employment of paraprofessionals serves many purposes: Teachers and students get valuable help in the classroom; the school and community are brought closer together through the services of neighborhood parents in the schools; and decent jobs are provided for many who are now unemployed. In both the long and the short run, an expansion of this program, which offers meaningful employment with dignity (together with the opportunity for advancement through further education), can make a major contribution toward solving our educational problems.
The budget has failed to make any requests in a number of major areas. On the elementary level, there is nearly universal agreement that child care and pre-school education, far from being frills, are vital necessities. Recent research shows that major strides in human intellectual development are made between the ages of 2 and 6, and that the inability of schools to succeed with some students may be due to the fact that these students are reached too late. Yet child care and pre-school education are ignored in the budget.
Similarly, there is nothing in the proposed budget for our crumbling junior high schools. We have now had over a half century of experience with this category of school, enough to demonstrate conclusively that the vast majority of students who enter junior high school with serious deficiencies in reading, writing and arithmetic will leave junior high school with the same disabilities. We must not continue doing for yet another year what we know will not work.
For Order in the High Schools and Orderly Decentralization
Disorder in our high schools is making news almost daily. The amount requested by our Chancellor -- $1 1⁄2 million -- for security in these schools is inadequate. To add irony to this inadequacy, no funds are sought for the essential job of providing a more meaningful education program. Moneys must be found for many more high schools like John Dewey High School, where both students and teachers are benefiting from two crucial innovations missing in most schools: choice andjlexibility. Funds should also have been requested for an expansion of the Skill Center now operating in Westinghouse High School, in which the reading and math difficulties of hundreds of students are individually diagnosed and remedied. Also worthy of immediate expansion is the kind of program being developed for August Martin High School, where a job-related course, in cooperation with various airlines and with Kennedy Airport, will be instituted.
The budget fails to provide for orderly decentralization. Under the decentralization law, the Board of Education must allocate funds to the community districts on a formula basis. No matter what formula is arrived at, some districts will be entitled to more money than they now have, and others less. Bitterness and conflict will inevitably arise, as "have" districts lose money, services, programs and personnel to "have not" districts. If we are to have decentralization free of such conflict, no district should lose services. Instead of robbing Peter to pay Paul, we must supply new moneys to the "have not" districts.
It is not too late to make amends. Dr. Scribner is now re-thinking his proposals. As a new Chancellor, who has mustered much public support, he will never be in a better position than now to ask for what the schools need. All of us are aware of the current fiscal crisis, but neither the city, state nor federal government has any obligation to provide funds if they are not requested. Dr. Scribner should drastically revise his budget and, for the first time in our school history, make proposals based on the needs of children rather than those of budget-makers.