Eight small city districts in New York are suing the state for more funding. The state of New York is spending $1.7 million on fees to experts who testify that the districts do not need more money. This has been one of Governor Cuomo’s favorite lines: “We spend too much on schools already.”
The highest paid witness for the state in Maisto v. New York will receive $208,500, and the taxpayers’ total bill for the expert testimony is $966,950, according to a Capital analysis of state records. The state is also contracted to pay $700,320 to a private firm for the services of attorneys who have expertise in school funding cases.
In the lawsuit, filed in 2008, eight small city districts allege the state is underfunding schools and therefore not fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide students with a “sound, basic education.” The eight districts are Jamestown, Kingston, Mount Vernon, Newburgh, Niagara Falls, Port Jervis, Poughkeepsie and Utica.
The state hired retired superintendents from affluent districts to prepare reports saying that the small city districts do not need more money. In addition, the state hired conservative academics who could be counted on to say that more money doesn’t matter.
WOW…payola to yet another bunch of yahoos? This is more than nuts. What a waste of precious resources for our public schools.
I read about this yesterday and am still boiling! As a school board member who has seen our very successful district lose 23 teachers, many programs, cut back on music and art it is infuriorating to have this man even in office. I do not understand the constitutionality of his not funding schools nor his right to tie reforms to the budget. Add that to the fact we school boards have to try to produce a budget without legitimate numbers to work with. I am a registered Democrat who is disgusted that Cuomo is related to our party.
Is there a way to find out who the turncoat superintendents are? Inquiring minds want to know.
Some of those superintendents are listed in the article.
I can tell you. Gregory Aidala, Roger Gorham, Thomas Coseo, John McGuire, Gregory Scott Hunter
They are all suburban Superintendents who have never faced the demands that providing services for a diverse population imposes upon urban schools. These Superintendents are also the worst types of whores! They need to be scorned by educators!
I’m not sure about the others, but Jamestown and Niagara Falls are considered urban areas which have a high poverty rate. They, along with Utica and perhaps other districts, really aren’t properly funded and are on the “endangered” list of school districts.
$1.7 million is 0.008% of the state’s education budget. If $1.7 million were divided equally among all 4530 public schools in the state, each would receive $375.
It will be impossible to achieve equitable school spending in New York as long as the vast majority of funding comes from local sources. No one seems interested in addressing that side of the equation.
Tim,
There would be more money for underfunded schools if we cut spending on tests and eliminated subsidies for charter schools supported by hedge fund managers.
So it’s okay for the state to withhold state funding because…
Sorry. I meant to post below Tim.
Common sense approach:
Fact 1: Private schools do not get any subsidy from the state/school district or any other public entity. They charge tuition and they reserve the right to admit or deny admission to anyone.
Fact 2: Charter schools are not private schools and are not subsidized. They are public schools in a different form. They survive on public funding and in some cases supplement from private donors. As a matter of fact they receive less public money than public schools on a per pupil basis.
Fact 3. Charter schools are public schools, they are not allowed to charge tuition and must admit students as they apply. If more students than capacity want to attend a given charter school, they must be chosen by lottery.
Fact 4: If charter schools are subsidized then public schools are subsidized. Creating a charter school reduces the number of students in the public school system and therefore reduces the total funding available to administer the public schools. It does not reduce per pupil funding for the public school system. Therefore the public school system is now smaller and needs less teachers and administrators. An example is LAUSD, which has about 21% students attending charter schools; therefore the LAUSD public school system is smaller than otherwise. Some of the LAUSD charters are in house charters.
I do not see any more money for underfunded schools by eliminating charter schools. This is just proper accounting. Cutting spending on testing is another story that may need a proper review.
Raj,
When charter schools are sued, they always say in defense that they are NOT public schools. They say they are private corporations contracting with the state, like Boeing. They say they are not state actors. I agree with them.
You’re missing some facts, here, Raj.
Fact #1: There are a lot of fixed costs in public education. If 5% of the student body of a school leaves to a charter school, there’s still a building to maintain, utilities to pay, administrative and counseling needs, and of course, teachers. Those fixed costs don’t go away. Yes, technically, you can cut the number of teachers in a building to save costs, but the amount is unclear. Furthermore, no planning is made for students returning from charters in mid year. They are just shoved into already existing classes, raising class sizes, sometimes dramatically.
Fact #2: While, yes, technically, charters have to accept everyone, they don’t have to provide the same kinds of services that public schools do, and they don’t have to keep the kids they admit at the beginning of the year. This means that when services are unavailable or kids are pushed out, the charter keeps the money, but the public school has the student, who still has to receive services. But now, the public school has less money in which to provide services. Just this week, a charter school literally drove a kid over to our public school, told us that he is no longer welcome at their charter school, and dumped him on us. He has an IEP, but we haven’t even gotten all of the paperwork from the charter yet. The charter, however, keeps ALL of the money for that student from this year.
Fact #3: Cost per pupil is an average, and some students are FAR more expensive to educate. Those students are almost never in charter schools, because charter schools do NOT provide those services, nor are they required to. So those more expensive students are now more highly concentrated in the public schools, with less overall money to go around.
Fact #4: You say that private schools don’t get any subsidy from the government. Where have you been? MANY private schools get public subsidies, in the form of books, transportation, food services, etc. This is legal, according to the Supreme Court.
Fact #5: Duplication of services by public schools and charter schools is a huge problem. Instead of one set of administrators, buildings, programs, etc., having charter schools means that those services are duplicated three or four times. For example, there are three charter schools in the boundaries of my school. This means that there are now FOUR sets of administrators, buildings, special education coordinators and service providers (like speech services), counseling staffs, etc. That does NOT save money.
You need to talk to teachers in public schools and see what charters are doing to them. You need to see the ridiculously overcrowded classes. You need to see the huge percentage of students with special needs in public school classes. I have one class where over 30% of my students have special needs. THEN, and only then, come talk to me about how charters save the system money. Thank you.
@Tim You aren’t one to comment on what is equitable. Based on your earlier replies, you have no concern for children of color except for the ones who attend charter schools.
Success Academy students in classrooms with flat screen tvs take away space from Latino children in the same building attending a public school, which has text books from 1998. Of course, according to your logic, the problem with that isn’t Success Academy. It’s public school mismanagement. I think not. Success Academy is a corrupt and unethical organization and we all know it.
At least you could make your hypocrisy less transparent.
That is a hilarious bit of projection coming from the person who justifies the extreme district school segregation in tiny District 3 by saying 0.4 miles in the city is really more like 10 miles because of the density (?).
Segregation isn’t going to go away if school placement is determined by where people live. Funding in New York won’t be equitable as long as a handful of wealthy, exclusionary suburbs can self-fund their schools. When the anti-choice crowd wants to take this stuff seriously, I’m all ears.
To Tim: Teaching Economist, is that you? Your arguments sure sound like it.
No, I’m not Teaching Economist. I don’t work in education. I’m not paid to write posts. Etc.
@Tim – Who says we don’t take unequal funding seriously? You are too invested in your blame game.
“Choice” has done nothing to reduce segregation. Charter schools exacerbate funding inequities.
I am surprised that only 8 cities are in this suit. I can think of several in my neck of the woods that have been severely underfunded the State in recent years. Schenectady got especially screwed last year, and their superintendent has been fighting scrappily for more. According to this article, “he median school district in New York receives 82 percent of its foundation aid, and Schenectady gets only 54 percent of its aid. According to the complaint, 5 percent of majority-white districts get under 60 percent of their aid, compared to 27 percent of minority districts. So districts with mostly minority students are five times more likely to be underfunded.”
See the complete article at http://bit.ly/1wRr3uX
I thought we already went to court and won this fight?
Reblogged this on Tillett For CT and commented:
Elected Officials waste tax dollars because they do not feel the cost of those taxes or how it hurts our hard working families
1.7 million for these “experts” which might be spent on the public schools. Makes perfect sense. Perhaps the superintendents from the affluent school districts fear that THEIR school funding will be cut. Don;t know but one would think that they would have more common sense but there are politicians both in and outside of the public schools.
All NYS districts have seen losses of state aid, it’s just that the affluent districts have more reserves and better community support as buffers against the onslaught from Albany.
The moral is that some people can be bought and those sorts of administrators should not be running school districts.
Ellen #IntegrityCounts