By Stephen Baron

City Council members expressed outrage on Tuesday that two of the Bronx’s top-performing high schools may face significant budget cuts if the Department of Education passes its 2009 budget without changes.

At a Council budget hearing, Councilman Oliver Koppell criticized Schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s proposal to cut budgets at 74 top performing schools to compensate for a $99 million shortfall, the New York Times reported.

Schools affected include the Bronx High School of Science and the High School of American Studies at Lehman College.

“Chancellor Klein’s proposal verges on insanity,” Koppell said in a statement. “These cuts will have a devastating effect on the quality of education our best schools can provide their children, forcing them to offer only a ‘bare bones’ curriculum that does not provide sufficient challenge or enrichment.”

Based on its analysis of budget figures provided by Department of Education officials, Class Size Matters speculates the cuts would have significant negative effects on maintenance, class size, after-school programs, Advanced Placement courses, SAT preparation, summer school and tutoring.

The exact size of the cuts was unclear to many on Tuesday. For Bronx Science, data provided by Class Size Matters shows that it will face a cut of 5.39 percent, totaling $825,448.

But Principal Valerie Reidy said a figure on the DOE’s Web site showed a cut of 5.7 percent, totaling about $1 million.

For American Studies, Class Size Matters data shows a 5.56 percent cut totaling $167,672.

“At the top schools, most kids are not likely to drop out, but they won’t get as good an education,” said Leonie Haimson, executive director of the non-profit Class Size Matters, whose mission is to shrink class sizes in public schools. “AP courses are going to be cut way back, as will college counseling. There is no need for education cuts for any school, especially with a $4 billion budget surplus.”

Reidy said she has already met with the school’s administration, and expects to have meetings with the teachers union, the staff and the parents association in coming days. “We’ll look at our budget department by department, but we’ll work from the periphery in so as not to cut core programs,” she said. “When a child wants to grow higher, how can you say no to that? We have students who want to skip lunch to take more courses. We have to be creative and judicious with our budget. I wish I had a magic wand or a pot of gold, but we’re just keeping our fingers crossed.”