November 9, 1996
by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and LAURA WILLIAMS, Daily News Staff Writers
City teachers and principals yesterday were drawing up shopping lists to spend $70 million promised by Mayor Giuliani for new textbooks.
“I already have my orders worked up,” said Yve Douglass, principal of Public School 3 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.
“At the top of the list is to buy new social studies books,” she said. “Then I will buy reading materials. Then I will buy grammar books. I don’t have to worry too much about math books; math doesn’t change too much.”
The mayor yesterday confirmed that he’s earmarked tax revenue from a Wall Street boom to buy books for public schools.
The $70 million comes on top of $69 million already in the schools budget for texts this year.
“The infusion of money is for the purpose of curing what is reported to be a problem for some time — that some of the textbooks are 15, 20, 25 years old, out of date,” Giuliani said yesterday at PS 191 on W. 61st St. in Manhattan.
The Board of Education has begun assessing schools to determine which have the greatest need, said spokesman David Golub.
The money should be available within six months, Giuliani said.
School administrators said the money will help fill a gaping need.
State funding for textbooks allows for about $35 a year per student, well short of meeting demand, administrators said.
“One good social studies book is $35,” Douglass said.
“We have social studies books from six, seven years ago,” said Sheryl Moye, principal of PS 97 on E. Houston St. “In this world, things are changing as we’re talking. Look at Eastern Europe.”
Administrators said they see the funds as a sign that relations between City Hall and Livingston St. have warmed.
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