DOE's Blue Book Stats Don't Add Up, Critics Say
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The Department of Education uses a complicated formula to figure out which of the 1,600 schools are overcrowded and which have room to spare, but many are questioning the math behind it. NY1's Lindsey Christ filed the following report.A thick white booklet known as the Blue Book has turned neighbor against neighbor on the Lower East Side, in Flushing and over and over again in Harlem. It's filled with data on how many students are in each school building, and is also used to decide where to build new schools and which buildings have room to share with charter schools. But many say the numbers are all wrong.
"We're facing a real school facilities crisis. The current Blue Book makes the situation worse because it doesn't show the true levels of overcrowding," said City Councilman Robert Jackson.
Every year, the Department of Education updates the Blue Book based on a survey sent to principals. But at a City Council hearing on Wednesday, parents, activists and council members questioned the formula, saying many of the schools the DOE says have extra space are actually overcrowded.
"Where kids are getting their special services in hallways and in closets, where kids are having lunch before 10 o'clock, where hundreds of kids are in trailers. And yet the DOE still lists these schools as under capacity. And they are making incredible decisions based on that data, that false data, like putting new schools and charter schools into buildings," said Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters.
"Fifty-five percent of the principals are saying the information contained in that book is inaccurate, something's wrong here," Jackson said.
The Department of Education defends the Blue Book, saying its counts are accurate. They also say proposed legislation requiring more enrollment data is unnecessary and too much work for principals.
"We understand your desire to have additional facilities information to build on those achievements, but as we continually strive to improve our capital planning, we must balance this desire with a realistic sense of what information is easily accessible and useful," said Kathleen Grimm of the Department of Education.
Whether it's fights over losing art rooms, sharing space with charter schools or waitlists for local kindergartens, many say the DOE's formula for evaluating overcrowding is broken and needs to be fixed sooner than later.