Friday, July 15, 2005

Ferrer promises to lower city's drop-out rate

The New York Times and Newsday both have stories today about Democratic mayoral hopeful Fernando Ferrer's hot-off-the-press education plan. Ferrer accused Bloomberg of ignoring a drop-out crisis - saying only 38 percent of public school students are graduating on time - and brought forth a myriad of proposals to do something about it. Among them were: smaller class size, more after school programs, raising teacher's salaries and providing students with laptops. The DOE says the graduation rate is above 50 percent and that it is the highest it has been since the 1980s. But I can't imagine anyone arguing that there isn't a lot of work to be done, including Bloomberg.

More interestingly, Ferrer said he would pay for all this with the billions of dollars owed to New York City from the state government (the result of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit). It would be great if he could figure out a way to actually get the money.

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