The Attempted Defunding of Schools by Mayor Eric Adams
We reside in the one of the world's most popular and diverse metropolises in the world. With a strong and outspoken population of 8 million people and still growing, we have been dubbed the city that never sleeps, the home and education of many politicians that have influenced and still is influencing our country (for one infamous example, Donald J. Trump). And last year, during the election for the new NYC Mayor, the Democratic nominee was Eric Adams would be pitted against Republican nominee Curtis Silwa. Adams would win a massive victory, getting 67% of the vote while Silwa would get 27.8%.
However, with Eric Adams in power, he wanted to make NYC the city of his own imagination. One of these things he attempted to reform would be the NYC school system, in order to "fix" it into his own vision, he would look at the statistics of many schools, and what he saw were the declining school attendance rates. Disappointed at this, he would cut many schools' funding when schools needed it most, the fallout of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The NYC Legislation Council rapidly accepted this bill and passed it in a very short amount of time, publishing this bill soon after it was even presented. And just like that, schools were intended to lose over $200,000,000 to $400,000,000 in some sources. However, one crucial step that was heavily skipped, and that step was the process of allowing the bill to sit out in the public for a month to be viewed and reviewed by the people. And so, when people found out about this bill they were understandably upset and disappointed. Leading to multiple riots which would be put down by NY state Justice Lyle E. Frank, as he overturned the bill. However, the effects of the bill would already have engraved it's nasty invisible claws into NYC public schools as the schools attempted to fit their budgets to fit the new one made by this bill before it even went to effect.
One of the things we see in multiple different schools is the reinsurance of Green Milk cartons and the declining population of Chocolate Milk cartons for a short while in September. And now why is that? It certainly isn't for better nutrients as we would have seen green milk last year and yet we didn't. Well I theorize it's because Guida's (the milk company that the school buys milk from) Green Milk is 2 cents cheaper than Chocolate Milk per oz (Green milk is 7 cents per oz, while Chocolate milk is 9.3 cents per oz). Which overtime adds up if you're buying enough milk to supply at least half of the school with milk (and half is around 700ish students) for a week. The costs for this would be $1,425 for Green Milk (assuming that our cartons are 6 oz or half a pint) and $1,960 for Chocolate milk, and now imagine supplying the school for an entire month, or an entire school year. It's definitely going to rise by over $10,000 (and this is only for half of the school), and this is why the school is attempting to sneakily shrink the amount of chocolate milk there is. Now think about it. Milk is only a small portion of school life. Imagine all of the much more expensive and much more important things out there in the school that the school is attempting to cut costs, it just shows how much the school is stressing about the budget change
Interviewing kids from other schools
However, milk wouldn't be the strange occurrence the schools would be facing. And in this following segment, I'll be interviewing students from other schools to see what other weird things have happened in the school year so far. One of these students are from the Christa McAuliffe school, his name is Tahmid and I'll be referring to him as Representative 1, while the other representative (Representative 2) is Jessica from Seeall Academy. Meeting both of them in the NYC Dream program and saving their discords for an SEL project, I contacted both of them via discord.
Speaker: Sup, how's your day going?
Representative: Great
Speaker: So I am just gonna ask you a few questions about your school. One of the first questions I have to ask is, if you've been getting milk in school, is green milk slowly taking over the crates to which chocolate used to inhabit?
Representative: Oh yes we've been starting to get an infection of green milk taking over the chocolate milk… it's been a hard battle for the choccy milk fans as they continue to lose a tiny bit of ground to the green milk.
Speaker: Alright thank you for responding, still got a few more questions.
Representative: Send them to me.
Speaker: sup how you doing.
Representative 2: I'm good right now just doing (home)work.
Speaker: So I am just gonna ask you a few questions about your school. One of the first questions I have to ask is, if you've been getting milk in school, and is green milk slowly taking over the crates to which chocolate used to inhabit?
Representative 2: Milk in green cartons? Nope, chocolate milk is still there.
Speaker: So absolutely 0 green milk cartons?
Representative 2: Yes, there are no green milk cartons.
In this first portion of the interview with these two friends of mine, I asked them about the status of green milk and chocolate milk in their schools. In Tahmid's case, it seems to be that green milk is slowly overtaking chocolate milk. While in Jessica's school, nothing is changing from the previous school year.
Speaker: Is your school missing a ton of supplies? Stuff like tables and paper
Representative: Well to be honest, we aren't missing a lot of supplies. I think the pto (laying off teachers) has been using their money to fund supplies.
Speaker: Oh wow, but speaking of people getting laid off, have you seen a massive exodus in the population of teachers and how has that affected your school this year so far?
Representative: Well most of our teachers are still here, but some teachers left. And also some old teachers and considering leaving after this year
Speaker: Is it because of retirement or is it another factor?
Representative: well I am not sure to be honest, some teachers left, (because) they had babies and needed to take care of them. At least in the business and law academy. I am not sure about the other academies (though).
Speaker: Alright, now the next question is, does your school lack supplies? Stuff like tables, printer paper, etc.
Representative 2: No to be honest, teachers say we lack copy paper but, there's never been a situation where we don't have any
Speaker: oooh same here, teacher says cargo shipping issues
Representative 2: We always have paper in my classes so
In this second portion, I asked the two interviewees about supplies and such. For both Tahmid's and Jessica's case, they both seem to be in the same position Pershing is currently in, especially for Jessica as her school also lacks paper while for Tahmid he doesn't seem to have any issues. However, he theorizes they got the funding for the supplies via laying off teachers, but it's only what he's seen in his section of the school and not any others (as in Christa McAuliffe, the school is separated into different sectors for specific subjects, just like how some high schools are organized).
Speaker: Second last question I have to ask is, any other unusual occurrences in your school caused by the defunding of schools by Mayor Adams?
Representative: First, we had the school begging us for more funding. The field trip quality has kinda gone down as we have to go to more local places and less overnight trips. Also in our computer lab if a computer breaks, the city won't replace them. Their reason is that imacs aren't great for children which is stupid, but I think they don't wanna pay the money (for those imacs).
Speaker: alright thank you, also one last question, do you wish to remain anonymous?
Representative: No, also (will you) mention my school, please?
Speaker: Will do, thank you for doing this interview with me.
Speaker: Are there any unusual occurrences in your school caused by the defunding of schools by Mayor Adams? Stuff like a bunch of teachers disappearing after a single summer?
Representative 2: We only had like 3 teachers leave but 2 just got new jobs and 1 stopped working to take care of her newborn. So no, I wouldn't say.
Speaker: Alright thank you, last question, do you wish to remain anonymous?
Representative 2: Nope I'm good w(ith) my name being out.
Speaker: Thank you for doing this interview with me.
In the final part of this interview, I ask the representative about any other things going on in his school. Tahmid responds to me by talking about how the budget cuts have affected his sect at his school. As stated above, the representative talks about the declining quality of his school’s field trips. Instead of going to faraway places on overnight trips, his school has adapted its field trip funding to only fund local trips. Another issue the representative states above is how his school won’t pay to get new computers for his classes if one breaks for an honestly pathetic reason (i.e. not stating the actual reasons for why, instead letting their own students theorize on the reasons instead of being informed directly).
And the cherry on top of the cake would be that his school is asking for donations, whereas previously they didn’t. This is the situation that Mr. Adams caused by attempting to defund a school. A school shouldn’t be begging for funds. Instead, they should attempt to focus on the quality of their education without worrying about if they could do this or that based on the terms of funding and nothing else. This would be shown throughout this school; even in the newspaper elective, our teacher is questioning whether buying a simple template is going to fit into the school budget.
However, in Seeall, our representative Jessica states that her school has barely been affected by these funding cuts. In fact, nothing’s off from a normal school year at her school, and this would convince me that Mr. Adams is truly doing what he set out to do, defunding the schools which have a falling student population and transferring these funds to the schools which have a relatively stable student population (or even an increasing one). And now this is bad, because the schools that are losing the most students (in terms of attendance) are the schools that are hit the most by COVID. Defunding schools in general during this time is cruel to many schools that are still in recovery.
But this reminds me of something: this system, which Mr. Adams is trying to implement in NYC schools. From what I’ve heard of these radical changes to the school system, it reminds me of companies (schools) competing over consumers (students). From what I’ve heard, I believe that Mr. Adams is attempting to make the school system into a competitive environment where opposing schools fight for student enrollment to get as many funds as possible. Now, this might sound good on paper, as many schools could start working on their quality (attracting students to come to school), chasing the much-needed funds floating around the school system. Improving these competitive schools to the highest degrees possible while leaving behind all of the schools that didn’t try to become competitive.
For the last century, competition has changed humanity as a whole; it is how we progressed from muskets and horse carriages to planes and cars, and to where we are now, living in the most technological era in human history. And because of this competitiveness, we have reached our peak, where all life on earth revolves around our communities' simple will to keep certain species alive or not. Our simple will could demolish entire ecosystems – drain the oceans if we even wanted to.
However, these are schools we are talking about. Not competitive super companies fighting over consumers (students), but a place where kids could only worry about learning staff could feel secure in their jobs, not needing to worry about being laid off or their school being defunded to the ground. A place where kids are supposed to not worry about the funding of their schools, and yet here we are. With Mr. Adams attempted to turn schools into the already disastrous American healthcare systems.
Along with that, it is the place in which the children of the future will be taught and educated. No matter how messed up our current education system is, it shouldn’t be defunded at all. In fact, it should be funded even more. Instead of looking at the current situation and doing what’s best in theory right now, we should be looking at the future instead, as the previous generation won’t exist forever, and eventually, the newer generations will take over in a matter of a decade or two. So we should put money into schools to better educate this new generation of students in order to advance the human race as a whole.
But the last point I want to mention is, what is the entire goal of this? What was Mayor Adam's intentions for all of this? Whether schools actually got defunded before New York Justice Frank stuck down the bill, what was his goal? Well from what I've seen, it's definitely not for country-wide fame, as his political party, the Democrats, are very opposed to defunding important institutions besides the military and definitely would not have been proud of his actions. Especially Kamala Harris, our Co-President as according to one interview between her and the Daily Show with Trevor Noah,
“And this is where we have to speak the truth also, Trevor – we are a society that pretends to care about education. Well, guess what? Not so much the education of other people’s children. Let’s be honest about that. Because if we did care about that, we would not have allowed the public education system in America to deteriorate in the way it has. Because we are not paying teachers their value, we are not putting resources into our schools. I have met more teachers than I can tell you, who have to work two jobs, sometimes three, to put food on the table. And because also they’re coming out of their own pockets to buy school supplies for their students. We are a society that is not paying people the value of their labor and of their work. And these are the things which should be adjusted.”
-Kamala Harris, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
If it's not for political fame outside of NYC, what is the goal? There is a certain argument to be made to exert a greater grip on the chaotic school system we have. But one thing I've got to question is, what need is there to even reorganize the school system? It is perfectly understandable to most students and parents already, there has never been a massive riot out on the streets demanding an easier to understand school system. So from what I can conclude, I believe his intentions to be in good faith, however, he just doesn't know what we want. His predecessors had already sorted out everything so what can he really do? And this is where our job as a citizen comes in, hate living here but have nowhere else to go? Well this is the freest nation in the world, if you really want to make a change, you have the power to do so. Tell Mayor Adams what you want to be change and so this change can happen for the betterment of this city as a whole.
And this would be shown that, at the time of writing this, Major Adams has been making it easier to find jobs and a living in this city. along with pushing for a cleaner world via implanting more renewable resources and providing care for homeless newly arrived immigrants. Not to mention, our normal school lunches have returned here in Pershing, and in fact, I would say that they have gotten a lot better. Along with that, Mayor Adams has also seen the passing of a NY state law for stricter gun restrictions, making our city and the state as a whole tons safer. So to take away from this whole experience, shout at your leaders hard enough and they'll begin working for the betterment of the rest of us (via indirectly threatening their political career).
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