The New York state legislature approved a budget deal that pleased the charter school industry and threw in some extra funding for wraparound services. Advocates of equitable funding were disappointed, however, because the budget deal is far from what the courts agreed was necessary to supply equitable funding in New York City.

The budget includes $175 million in funding to help struggling schools offer services like health care and after-school programs. That money will be targeted carefully at schools that need it most, not just at needy districts, Cuomo said.
“The priority should be the schools that need the most help in this state,” Cuomo said.
The details of the community school funding are still unclear. Advocates said some of the $175 million could be included within the Foundation Aid, the $600-million-plus portion of the education spending that favors low-income districts.

Charter schools got a big boost. The budget deal included $54 million to increase the amount charter schools receive per student, a number double what Cuomo proposed. That amounts to a $430 increase per student next year.
The increase earned plaudits from charter advocates, but is unlikely to please the state’s teachers union, whose executive vice president called the increased support for charter schools a “radical, last-minute change” in an email to members on Wednesday.
Officials did not mention a number of other proposals that have been floated during the budget negotiations on Thursday night, including a measure to withhold funding from charter schools that fail to serve a high percentage of high-needs students. In January, Gov. Cuomo had also proposed un-freezing the formula that determines most charter school funding for New York City charter schools, rather than simply increasing per-student spending.
‘Receivership’ and teacher evaluations: No changes

Cuomo left the impression that two education measures that dominated the attention of state lawmakers last year were left untouched: the “receivership” law that outlines how low-performing schools could be put under the control of an outside leader or group, and the teacher evaluation law.
Last year, lawmakers increased the weight of state test scores in teacher evaluations. But after that sparked significant backlash, the Board of Regents passed an emergency regulation that decoupled test scores from evaluations.
The governor said the receivership law was not changed and that education funding will still be dependent on districts creating teacher evaluation plans, signaling no major changes to either law snuck into the budget deal.
Cuomo’s unwillingness to revisit either receivership or teacher evaluations is one sign of how unpopular the two issues have become.

The Education Law Center was quick to express its disappointment in the budget:

Ten years after the final Court of Appeals ruling in Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State (CFE), New York has once again failed to live up to its constitutional duty to fund public schools adequately so every child has the opportunity for a sound basic education.

Chronic underfunding of the Foundation Aid Formula has left New York $4.4 billion behind in the amount of Foundation Aid promised in 2007, in the wake of the landmark CFE lawsuit. The consequence is that school districts continue to struggle with too few teachers; large class sizes; inadequate services, staff and programs for at-risk students; and stark deficiencies in resources for English language learners, students with disabilities and other vulnerable children.

It is way past time for the Governor and Legislature to recommit to providing the funding the State itself says children need – and must have – for a sound basic education. New York’s elected leaders had the opportunity this year to begin repaying the debt owed to the state’s students. The Assembly proposed such a plan, including a $1.1 billion increase in Foundation Aid for this year with the full amount phased in over four years.

Unfortunately, the Senate and the Governor rejected the Assembly’s plan. The final budget provides $627 million in Foundation Aid, an amount insufficient to redress the severe shortages in essential resources in schools across the state. At this rate of increase, it would take an additional seven years to fully phase-in Foundation Aid. The budget also makes no commitment to phase-in Foundation Aid over the next several years, forcing yet more children to endure educational deprivation in their classrooms and schools.

“It is hard to fathom how the Governor and Legislature, for the eighth straight year, could fail New York’s public school children, despite the Assembly’s best efforts,” said David G. Sciarra, Executive Director of the Education Law Center (ELC) and co-counsel in Maisto v. New York, the court challenge to inadequate school funding in New York’s small city school districts. “Once again, New York children must look to the courts to secure their fundamental rights in the face of ongoing legislative and executive inaction.”

With the State budget again falling far short of affording children a constitutional sound basic education, all eyes are now on the Albany State Supreme Court where parents and children await a decision in the Maisto case.

One bright spot: The Legislature heeded ELC’s warning issued yesterday not to arbitrarily put 70 schools back into a “failing school” receivership program after they had been properly removed from the list by State education officials.

“We appreciate that the Legislature did not accept the Governor’s proposal to punish students and schools that have demonstrated improvement under the State’s accountability system,” Mr. Sciarra said. “We will, however, remain vigilant to keep this issue off the table in the remaining months of the legislative session.”

Press Contact:

Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Director
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x 24