Here's a round-up of yesterday's budget hearings: Chancellor Talks of Cuts for Schools, Amid Hissing (NYT), City Council Spanks Chancellor Klein Over School Aid Cuts (Daily News), School Budget Showdown (Gotham Gazette), and Rollback Set in Schooling of the Gifted (NY Sun). (Sidenote on City Council hearings: one Columbia Law School reader reports that the footage of The Great Liebman Chase of 2007 made rounds in his Criminal Law course.)

We still have scant details on the "$200 million in central cuts." As of this morning, David Cantor at the NYC Department of Education has not responded to a request for an itemized list of these "central cuts." Here's the best detail I've got (from Klein's powerpoint at yesterday's City Council hearing):

*$21 million from Central. For example,
- Reducing 80 positions (3% of central headcount)
- Reducing NYC Teaching Fellows tuition and stipends
- Reducing IT consultants

* $7 million from Field Offices. For example,
- Reducing 101 positions (4% of field staff)
- Reducing Integrated Service Center staff

* $30 million from Support Services. For example,
- Reducing custodial funding

* $120M from Operational efficiencies and savings. For example,
- Identifying purchasing efficiencies in buying things like trade books
- Reducing amounts of accrual budget at the end of the fiscal year

* $23M from Reduced Program expenditures. For example,
- Reducing Quality Review expenses by transitioning to in-house reviewers and moving to every 3 years for A/WD schools and every 2 years for B/P or higher schools
- Reducing number of periodic assessments in ELA and Math from 5 to 4 a year and shifting to more Web-based professional development

Do you have other ideas for central cuts? Could we spare a benchmark test? The Leadership Academy? Return the level of central staffing back to its 2004 level (a layoff of 366 Tweed staff)?