City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Bronx City Council members Joel Rivera and Oliver Koppell all want schools built in the Kingsbridge Armory project to reduce school overcrowding, they said at a roundtable discussion with Bronx journalists in late July.

The Department of Education (DOE) took new Armory schools off the table last year and has cut more than 1,700 Bronx school seats from the current capital plan based on controversial population projections.

“We’re going to hold oversight hearings in the fall about DOE seat cuts,” said Quinn, who is ramping up her bid to replace Mayor Bloomberg when his term runs out in 2009. “We’ll also be meeting with [the DOE] to see if the formula for seat distribution needs to be changed, and if there need to be changes in [school] zoning and planning.”

The Bronx roundtable discussion was one of a series Quinn is holding in each borough.

City Council member and Bronx Delegation Chair Maria Baez, weathering a storm of media criticism, was notably absent from the discussion at Pete’s Café at 570 E. Fordham Rd., even though Quinn’s office originally said she would be attending.

Rivera, who confirmed to the Norwood News at the discussion that he will be running for Bronx borough president, speculated BAez may have been at a subcommittee meeting at City Hall. Baez has the worst attendance record of all City Council members. “Some Council members go to lots of events, but she doesn’t need the accolades,” Rivera said afterwards. “She’s a much more behind-the-scenes person.”

Reporters grilled Quinn on the oversight of education funding distribution, the city’s claim that schools have improved, and questioned whether test scores are the best measurement of a student’s achievement.

Quinn said the DOE’s new Fair School Funding has improved oversight and that schools have improved based on test scores and anecdotal evidence from teachers and parents.

Reporters also questioned why large neighborhood schools like Walton and Evander Childs could not have been divided into “small learning communities” like DeWitt Clinton instead of being eliminated and replaced with small schools (see our story in the Special Schools Section, page 9). Quinn defended the small school movement since it has led to higher graduation rates and smaller class sizes.

“I hear people talk enthusiastically about neighborhood schools, but I’m not sure if we can return to that,” she said. “But why not do both [small learning communities and small school] models if we have both models?”

Quinn trumpeted the City Council’s complete restoration of the $129 million in proposed education budget cuts. Though she supports mayoral control of schools, she emphasized that it should be renewed by the City Council instead of the State Legislature.

Quinn conceded everything wasn’t hunky dory with the schools. “We also have huge middle school questions,” she said. “But if Bronx schools had received $30 million less, then the situation would be a lot worse.”