New York: LANGUAGE COMPANIES SHUT BY NEW DEPT. OF ED POLICY

[Francis Hult]

Via lgpolicy...
 

City Limits WEEKLY
Week of: November 10, 2008
Number: 663



LANGUAGE COMPANIES SHUT BY NEW DEPT. OF ED POLICY
Small businesses in the boroughs won't survive under new textbook
purchasing rules. > By Helen Zelon

Connie Attanasio of Middle Village, Queens, has a master's degree in
education and has been in business for 25 years providing books for
students learning English and the teachers who guide them. Harlem-born
Jesse Harris has been distributing language books and materials on
African-American themes to city schools from his Bronx business since
1971. Genaro Bastos, an adjunct professor of sociolinguistics and
language acquisition at Queens College and New Jersey City University,
is a book provider, too, delivering works from his business in
Woodside, Queens, to the city's schools since 1980. These small
business owners - and dozens of others like them - have built
relationships over decades with teachers, principals and other
educational leaders. As minority entrepreneurs, they typify the kind
of success that Mayor Bloomberg celebrates as the lifeblood of the
city. Yet they say their businesses soon will be forced to close due
to new procurement regulations enacted by the Department of Education
in order to save money. Like all city agencies, DOE is under the gun
to cut spending in the wake of the state budget crisis.

"Once this is implemented, I'll be out of business," said Bastos. "All
my efforts have been spent serving school districts in New York City.
Now, schools are no longer my customer; the customer is New York City.
They change the rules, and now, you can no longer play the game.
There's no way I can survive."

Polyglot and penny-pinching

Two in five New York City public school students speak a language
other than English with their families. One in nine are formally
classified as English language learners (ELLs); at least as many have
attained basic proficiency but still require academic support. Dr.
Pedro Ruiz, coordinator of the New York State Department of
Education's Office of Bilingual Education and Foreign Language
Studies, sums up the size of the challenge by simply calling New York
"a bilingual state." The city's limited-English proficient (LEP)
students, who according to Ruiz speak over 170 different languages,
account for three-quarters of that population statewide; in other
words, this particular textbook market is centered in NYC far more
than in Rochester or Troy.

Until now, schools have relied on local vendors - practically all of
whom happen to be minorities - for guidance in finding the best books
for students learning English. The vendors in turn researched,
developed and honed lists of books from publishers worldwide, bringing
titles to the New York market that overseas publishers lack the
resources to promote.

Under new Department of Education bidding guidelines, most of these
established vendors are no longer eligible to compete for DOE
contracts, because they don't meet new minimum thresholds of $5
million per year in sales. The new rules also require deep purchasing
discounts and sophisticated technological capacities - impossible
targets for people like her, says Attanasio, who heads an Ad Hoc
Committee of Minority Business Owners formed in response to the new
DOE regulations.


Full story:
http://www.citylimits.org/content/articles/viewarticle.cfm?article_id=3649&content_type=1&media_type=3


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