Advocates for fair funding for public schools in New York have pursued a remedy from the state for years. They finally won a big increase in the budget, but were shocked to discover that almost the entire increase in funding will be diverted to charter schools, which enroll 14% of the state’s students. Either coincidentally or not, Governor Hochul’s election campaign is heavily funded by charter school advocates from the financial industry.
CHARTER SCHOOL FUNDING INCREASE WIPES OUT STATE FORMULA AID BOOST FOR NYC DISTRICT SCHOOLS
February 2, 2022
In testimony on Governor Kathy Hochul’s FY23 Executive Budget, Education Law Center warned New York lawmakers that a proposed increase in state aid to charter schools in New York City will nearly offset the aid increase to district schools under lawmakers’ promised phase-in to reach full funding of the State’s Foundation Aid Formula.
Last year, after over a decade of resistance, New York elected officials committed to fully funding the Foundation Aid Formula enacted in 2007, with a three-year phase-in. After Andrew Cuomo’s resignation, Governor Hochul declared her intention to fulfill this commitment. Her administration also reached a settlement agreement with the plaintiffs in NYSER v. State, a school funding lawsuit by public school parents in New York City and Schenectady, which conditions ultimate dismissal of the case on reaching full formula funding by 2024. The Governor’s proposed FY23 budget provides for a $1.6 billion increase in Foundation Aid, as required to meet the planned phase-in.
In testimony on the proposed FY23 State Budget, ELC underscored to legislators that the Governor’s proposed 4.7% increase in state aid to New York City charter schools will effectively negate the phase-in of formula funding to the City’s district schools. If the Governor’s proposed budget is enacted, New York City charter schools would receive an increase of $300 million this year, while the City’s district schools will be allocated an increase of approximately $345 million in Foundation Aid. Under state law, New York City is the only district that receives no transitional state aid to offset what the district is required to pay in charter school tuition.
“The math is simple and shocking,” said ELC senior attorney Wendy Lecker. “The increase in tuition payments to charter schools, which enroll just 14% of New York City students, will consume the entire increase in Foundation Aid intended for the almost one million City students enrolled in district schools. Even worse, the City is also mandated by state law to provide space or pay rent for charter schools.”
The ELC testimony also calls out the Executive Budget’s failure to make any additional investments in New York’s preschool program. In a May 2021 ruling, in the “Small Cities” school funding case, a New York Appellate Court recognized preschool as an essential element of a sound basic education guaranteed students under the State Constitution.
It is undisputed that high quality preschool provides a host of academic and life benefits, such as decreased placement in special education, decreased suspension rates, higher educational attainment, higher income, and decreased contact with the criminal justice system. Yet, tens of thousands of four-year-olds across New York lack access to any preschool classes, let alone a high-quality program. ELC is urging the Legislature to invest an additional $500 million to help ensure all four-year-olds access to this essential resource.
ELC also pressed the New York Legislature to maintain and strengthen the Contracts for Excellence (C4E) Law. This law was enacted in 2007 to ensure that struggling school districts receiving additional Foundation Aid would spend those funds on programs proven to improve student outcomes. As districts across the state finally receive these long-awaited increases in funding, it is crucial to have a strong framework for directing the funding to essential resources, including class size reduction in New York City district schools.
Sustained grassroots advocacy – coupled with strategic litigation – has moved New York to make important strides toward providing all students, including students of color, the essential resources required for a constitutional sound basic education. Lawmakers must revise Governor Hochul’s proposed budget to ensure the equitable distribution of increased funding, especially in New York City.
Related Stories:
COURT SETTLEMENT LOCKS IN NY’S COMMITMENT TO INCREASE SCHOOL FUNDING BY $4.2 BILLION
APPELLATE COURT: STATE VIOLATED EDUCATION RIGHTS OF STUDENTS IN NY’S SMALL CITY DISTRICTS
Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x 24
Big new ed reform voucher initiative in Michigan:
“Former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, an avid and longtime proponent of school choice, headlined a virtual kick-off Wednesday for a GOP-supported ballot measure opponents argue would suck funds out of public schools.
“I trust parents and I believe in students. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be a shared value in Lansing,” DeVos told parents and supporters during the “Let MI Kids Learn” Facebook livestream Wednesday morning.”
If you’re looking for what ed reformers are doing for public school students in Michigan, you can stop looking. Nothing.
Remember way back when this “movement” started and they told us we had to support charters otherwise we would end up with vouchers?
Oddly, what ended up happening is all we got were charters AND vouchers. No positive plans or work performed on behalf of public school students at all. 85% of the students and families in Michigan are once again being put second to the ed reform ideological agenda.
Public schools really need their own advocates. There are none in this “movement”. If it’s not charters or vouchers they’re not interested.
Michigan Catholic Conference- “Whitmer Ought to Back School Choice Bill, Not Veto It”
Detroit Catholic -(Whitmer’s) “Veto Loss for Kids”,
MiCatholic.org “It is our conviction that school choice is an important social justice element…”
That’s rich about “social justice” given Georgetown Catholic University’s hiring of a Koch Cato Institute guy. Koch is known as a social Darwinist. Given the tweets of Ilya Shapiro, Georgetown’s law college administrator about Black female SCOTUS jurists, Catholic advocacy for school choice through a link to social justice is nothing but self-serving propaganda at the expense of democracy.
“a link to social justice” hiding self-serving propaganda: we see it over and over and over and wonder how blind the parents can be — is it really that easy to believe this stuff?
False advertising is successful in creating demand for dangerous products. Add in, religious leaders who say God wants the customer to buy the product and deception finds a new low.
I dont understand this conflict or at least to me, Can someone help me. On the one hand, Ms. Ravitch( who I trust) states the governor supports charter schools on Gov Hochul is being suported by the NYS teachers union and is being presented as Anti Charter school.
Charter school advocates point out that the powerful statewide teachers union, New York State United Teachers — a foe of charter schools — endorsed Hochul’s bid for a full term as governor on Jan. 21.
I suspect the unions are backing Gov. Hochul because she is the favorite to win.
But look at her big donors here:
https://nypost.com/2022/01/23/heres-whos-donated-to-gov-hochuls-21-9-million-war-chest/amp/
The charter school big guns are on the list.
From the article:
“Representatives from charter schools – whose students would get a funding bump as part of Hochul’s plan – also donated. John Paulson, a hedge fund owner who funds Success Academy, gave $50,000; ex-Success Academy Chairman Dan Loeb donated $30,000 and pro-charter business man Roger Hertog contributed $25,000.”
Now that Hochul released her budget, we know that the charters didn’t get a bigger piece of the pie. They got the whole pie.
Could someone help me to understand something here. This article states that the governor shows support of charter schools over public schools. A recent story in the post and perhaps other publications accuses the Governor of not supporting charter schools due to getting support of the teachers union. I live in New York and I am very concerned about support of charter schools over public schools believing that there is an interest in getting rid of public schools to create opportunities for profit of billionaires. Help me to understand if there is hypocrasy and or misleading infromation. Diane Ravitch is such an important voice.
duplicate mistake please disregard.
Advocates for funding continue to pursue more
funding, with the same “remedy”:
It’s what the Gov. DOESN’T know,
that causes a lack of funding, or
It’s what the people DON’T know
that causes “funding” to land in
the “wrong” hands.
It’s never “what we know for sure,
that ain’t so.”
For sure, it’s a gov. of/by and for the
the people.
For sure, all are equal under the
“Law”.
For sure, the rule of law, is the
guiding light.
For sure, “democracy” is the
compass.
For sure, electoral “redress”
will liberate the masses.
So, “we” continue the same
“remedies” over and over again,
and expect a different result,
AND then, call “THEM crazy.
DUH
Charter schools are parasites that feed on tax dollars and divert public funds into favored, private pockets. Legislators, flush with cash from the charter lobby, rig the system so that it enables the transfer of public funds to private companies all to the detriment of the public schools. It is a corrupt system, largely hidden from public scrutiny.
Largely hidden from the public…
“If the “soul” is in the darkness,
“sins” will be committed. The guilty one
is not who commits the “sin”, but the
one(s) who causes the darkness.”
Was Les Miserables-Monseigneur Bienvenu,
banging on the door of the
“foundational cornerstone” of the
BAMBOOZLE?
Another on-target quote, NoBrick. Exactly why I am offput by complaints about “greedy” billionaires/ corporations & self-serving philanthropists. We hand the keys to the city to brigands, then curse them when they lay waste to it.
Nobody goes into public school education to get rich in the monetary sense.
But if your lust is for personal economic gain, you may be in luck as a charter school operator. As a bonus, if you finesse the jargon and optics, you may pass as a child advocate and free-enterprise philanthropist while indulging your appetite as a profit-hungry tycoon.
Ah, a nefarious folly devoutly pursued and lamentably too often realized!
Raiding the public treasury to feed your empire-building cravings makes you, in a white-collar sort of way, a smash and grabber and identity thief. And if you preside over a New York-base charter syndicate, you may rake in millions of dollars every year for your shady efforts.
Not every heist is illegal. Not every entrepreneur is an embezzler. No need to scour the Internet to find an astonishing quantity and variety of vetted stories of charter school corruption, scandal and criminality nationwide, including but not limited to misappropriations, tolerance of abuses to students and staff and exclusionary practices of bigotry.
Government oversight provides some protection against straightforward ethics violations, but they are more pro-actively enforced with public than with charter schools. Charter schools like to carry on under the radar of scrutiny and regulation and feel that as non-government schools, that is their prerogative.
But they also demand the privilege of tapping into taxpayer funds public schools” and self-identify as “public charter schools” to perpetuate that ruse.
If “government schools” and “public schools” are interchangeable terms, how can the charter schools attach to one category and not the other? Because they get away with the curious sin of wordplay.
Investing in charter schools means sinking your assets into a sales product . Investing in public schools means dedicating your soul to the advancement of the next generation. Not all dividends get the same return.
Charter schools get copious drafts of slick and well-heeled backup from some of the most ruthless and demagogic think-tank, foundations and faux-philanthropists in America. The Internet is crawling with them. Many of them use blogs as vessels of indoctrination.
To maximize recruitment, they pretend to be all things to all people. They couch their spiel in appeals to equity, using imagery and the language of progressivism while using verbal coding and subliminal messages that appeal to the seamier side of traditionalism.
It is partisanship, not partnership.
It’s like a dictator who unites a nation by making false assurances to industrialists and laborers, forging a makeshift, doomed apparition of unity of purpose and commitment, when in fact their differences are irreconcilable.
Not all dictators are flesh and blood. A tyrant can beguile in the form of a package of lies.
Devote your career to public school education and, if you’re frugal, you may squirrel away, after a long succession of decades, sufficient resources to become a snowbird when you retire. But if luxury, extravagance and self-congratulation are your drivers, then you must become a charter school honcho.
Should faith pan out that we will all be called to account for the lives we have lived on earth, then it’s the public school petitioner who will have the highest credit score.
Well stated.
Great description of the vile shenanigans connected to the commodification of public education. If the pubic only knew where their taxes go.
Ah, yes, another example of cutthroat capitalism at its worst, something Traitor Trump has practices all of his life and is still practicing.
Do anything to win, break any laws, lie, cheat, steal, and make sure to crush your opponents and/or competition.
I have been thinking about how public schools have almost no allies in politics and even the most progressive politicians who THINK they are allies are too often unwittingly complicit in pushing, legitimizing and amplifying all of the false narratives that make the public blame union teachers and public schools.
The NYT has been running stories lately about the specialized high schools in NYC, public high schools available exclusively to 8th grade students who get the very highest scores on a single day exam.* Doing well on that exam is irrelevant. The SOLE criteria for admission is how many of the other 8th graders taking the same version of the exam are answering more right questions than you are. If a student outscores 97% of the other students taking that version of the exam, that student will receive a very high SHSAT score. If a student “only” outscores 80% of the other students, that student will receive a significantly lower score. Missing 0 questions can put you in the 97% if 3% of the students also missed 0, and a scaled score would reflect outscoring 97% of the other students. Missing 1 question can put you in the 85% percentile if 15% of the students missed only 1 question or fewer (including the 3% who missed zero). By the same token, if a student misses 2 questions and 97% of the students taking that version of the exam miss 3 or more questions, then a student who missed 2 questions on that version of the exam would receive the same scaled score as a student who missed 0 questions on the other version.
In other words, a student’s SHSAT score is based ENTIRELY on the percentage of students who took the same exam who got more questions wrong than they did. If 97% got more wrong, it’s an extremely high score. If only 85% got more wrong, that score is lower. So whether a student misses 1 question or 10 questions is completely irrelevant. What matters is what percentage of the other students taking the same exam missed more questions or fewer.
As you can imagine, this has led to an enormous test prep industry — an arms race in test prep. Because it doesn’t matter how well-prepared a student is – it matters whether they know all the possible tricks of test taking to insure they are outperforming a very high percentage of all the other students studying to know all the possible tricks of test-taking.
Obviously, there are plenty of students who can take the SHSAT cold and do well. But there are just as many who are extremely bright and motivated who are not naturally good standardized test takers who benefit from being taught all the strategies that help them become better standardized test takers than the other extremely bright and motivated students who are not naturally good standardized test takers.
I apologize for that long explanation, but it is important to understand that to understand why it is so deflating to hear a progressive like AOC talking about public education.
I love AOC, and her father greatly benefited when he attended a NYC specialized high school. AOC seems to have studiously avoided taking a real position on admissions via a single exam – I don’t blame her because the issue has been so politicized when it would be relatively simply to come up with excellent solutions if there wasn’t so much misinformation being pushed by one side.
But a couple years ago, instead of expressing a position one way or another, AOC said this:
“Why isn’t every public school in NYC a Brooklyn Tech caliber school?”
To me, this is exactly the same position that the ed reformers say about charters.
“Why can’t every school be as good as charters?”
It is a set up for failure.
What I ask is this? Why can’t every politician — at least every progressive politician – do the basic homework to understand that “every school” can never be the same “caliber” as a school that picks and chooses students or excludes the ones who are toughest to teach.
It is virtually impossible. So why is someone as smart and pro-public education as AOC pushing exactly the same false narrative that is why the ed reformers get so much support from the public?
When that myth is the narrative, all the money in the world won’t help. Having the smallest class sizes in history won’t help. Paying union teachers a starting salary of $150,000 a year won’t help.
Because the US is not Lake Wobegon, where every kid is above average.
I am blown away by how much more K-12 students are expected to learn than when I was in a public school.
If you compared the students in the supposedly “failing” high schools today with the students in the mediocre high schools of the 1970s, how many “failing” students would suddenly appear to know more than the average student?
This isn’t about abandoning today’s supposedly “failing” high schools at all. It is about being able to make them better by lowering class sizes and providing all kinds of resources for those students without requiring all the students to miraculously perform “above average”.
It is about doing what Mayor de Blasio did with the Renewal schools and ALSO be able to have a real conversation about what worked and what didn’t — expanding what worked and changing what didn’t. Instead of progressives helping push the same false narrative that ed reformers push in which anything that doesn’t have perfect results right away is tossed away as a failing policy.
I want small class sizes for all public schools, but we better make it clear that it is NOT going to make every kid above average. It is just going to give every kid a much better education and address other needs for at-risk kids, too. That is still a very, very good thing to do. But, I repeat, it will not turn every school into a Brooklyn Tech caliber school. Why would a good progressive ever set up that impossible standard to meet?
Note from above:
*Mayor de Blasio did expand the “discovery” program, so that as many as 20% of the specialized high school seats are given to students from the most disadvantaged high poverty middle schools who had a high test score but not among the top 20% of test scores. One of the many reasons I appreciated de Blasio – he took these kinds of actions which were basically ignored, while any missteps or changes he didn’t make were used to completely mischaracterize him as a hypocrite.
Representatives often have a limited understanding about public education. Bernie, for example, did not know the difference between a non-profit and for profit charter school. As for AOC, I see her as someone with the potential to become a leader, and I also I have heard her make inaccurate statements about education as well. Shortly after elected, she was asked about her being an ESL/ENL student in kindergarten. She said she was included in the program due to her surname. New York has never placed students in ESL based on surname. For more than forty years NYS has had a clear procedure that includes a home language survey and a screening test. Maybe her perception as a little girl was that she was chosen for surname, but this is inaccurate.
retired teacher,
I would vote for AOC for president if she was old enough (and I hope I get a chance to do so someday).
But it is disheartening when even public education allies with the biggest bully pulpits do not understand how their misinformed statements give legitimacy to the disingenuous arguments made by privatizers. I know people brush this off as unimportant, but it IS important. It shapes how the media frames the discussion to always favor the ed reform narrative. Which in turn shapes public opinion.
I have re-posted a number of times when “she who may not be named” who ran against Trump in 2016 gave what was (to me) the absolutely best and most convincing argument to support public education when she was at a South Carolina town hall moderated by a pro-reformer. It bought into NONE of the ed reformers’ propaganda (and the pro-reform host changed the subject as fast as he could, but not fast enough to stop what was a powerful and convincing pro-public school argument that successfully undermined the entire ed reform propaganda.) The pushback was enormous but I give her credit for trying. What I don’t understand is how the progressive politicians who should be immune to pushback from the ed reformers are not saying what she who must not be named said.
Perhaps a better response is to want every school to have the same resources and funding as these specialty schools which would then be geared towards the needs of that particular school.
https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2022/1/28/22907058/nyc-school-level-enrollment-decline-search
Thanks for the laugh!
“A searchable database of school-level enrollment trends is at the end of this article.”
Actually, this is an interesting article, but I think the reporter needs to look a little more closely at the searchable school by school database that is part of the article.
I really hope the article isn’t based on the information from the database.
I was curious about which schools had the biggest enrollment declines and the biggest enrollment growths. It takes one second to click on the 3rd column heading (“YoYchange”) of that searchable database to see which schools had the biggest decline and which ones had the smallest decline.
There are some 1800+ NYC public and charter schools — and among the top 10 schools with the very largest enrollment DECLINE was one of the Harlem Success Academy Charter schools — it lost almost 1/3 of its students!!! What happened to all those students on the wait list?
Maybe they all decided to go to the NYC school with the biggest enrollment INCREASE — a 247%(!!!) increase in students! Yes, it’s true (at least according to the database that Chalkbeat provides) that Brooklyn Prospect Charter School increased its enrollment from 291 students to 1009 students in a single year. Clearly Eva Moskowitz needs to beg Brooklyn Prospect to teach her how to retain and multiply students!
Now I happen to think that Brooklyn Prospect is a quite ethical charter compared to Success Academy. Not a lot of bragging and boatloads of students “disappearing” and no attempts to undermine public schools and promote themselves with misleading boasts. When I used to think charters were a fine idea, I assumed they all would be like Brooklyn Prospect and not Success Academy, because it never occurred to me that the false narratives pushed by charters like Success Academy would be embraced so completely by the co-opted education media. Plus it never occurred to me that instead of ethical charter supporters who wanted to make schools better — like Pedro Noguera — the SUNY Charter Institute would be full of lawyers and businessmen who only wanted to promote more charters. And it is truly a shame that the silence and complicity of the trustees at the SUNY Charter Institute (after Pedro Noguera resigned in disgust) allowed the voices of Eva Moskowitz and her ilk to represent them and do such damage to public schools.
But, as much as I believe that Brooklyn Prospect is a model of what an ethical charter movement might have been, I do not believe for a second that in one year their enrollment increased from 291 students to 1009 students.
Do you, flerp?
“The whole people must take upon themselves the further enrichment of the big people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a charter school in it, founded by an individual, maintained at the public expense of the people themselves, so that individuals with money can screw all the little frickin people. They can go to hell for all I care.”— John Adams 1785
Susan Rice? Reed Hastings? Tom Daschle? Bill Gates?
Could someone help me understand the recent story about Governor Hochul not supporting charter schools due to her support from the teachers union? This blog post by Ms. Ravitch talks about the governor giving a higher percentage of funding to charter schools and support from Charter schools. I would like to understand this conflict. Diane Ravitch is priceless.