'Fair' Funding For City Schools

City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein (pictured) offered reporters a better picture of his new school funding formula this afternoon.

The plan, called "Fair Student Funding," will change the City's school funding formula to account for other mitigating factors that are not currently included in funding projections.

Those factors include low academic performance, poverty, special education and students for whom English is a second language. Schools with greater numbers of such students will be handed more money, while schools with fewer students will be handed less.

The vast majority of funding to City schools is spent on teachers, and the plan would make it easier for schools with students who are considered tougher to educate to hire better teachers (current teacher salaries will not be affected, only new hires). Schools that perform at a higher rate and have fewer poor kids, i.e. schools in middle class neighborhoods, will likely see their funding cut when the budget projections are released in March.

Logically, when long-time teachers in those better schools retire, principals will not have the money to replace them with teachers of similar qualifications. Middle-class outcry over this new proposal will likely be forthcoming.