CFE v. State of New York: Explaining the Landmark Decision
by Tom Kertes

While many people say that education has problems, not many are willing to examine the complex question of how to make it better. However, the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE), a non-profit coalition of parent organizations, community school boards, concerned citizens, and advocacy groups, is focused on addressing that question.

After eight years, CFE has won a lawsuit in the New York State Supreme Court that claimed that the State’s formula of distributing nearly $14 million in state aid to public education is unconstitutional and unfair to the kids of New York City. While the decision is being appealed by Governor George Pataki, CFE has been holding meetings in all five New York City boroughs to inform, educate and raise the public’s awareness about the issues involved.

Recently, at a public informational meeting held at PS 45 in the Bronx, Tom Hobart, the President of the New York State United Teachers said, “Justice Leland DeGrasse’s decision “reads like a primer for successful school reform.” NYC Schools Chancellor Harold O. Levy added, “The New York City schools cannot hope to provide an equal educational opportunity when forced to spend thousands less per student than the schools of their wealthier suburban neighbors. As someone accustomed to making decisions based on hard data, I find this inequality rationally indefensible, and as a citizen, I find it morally unacceptable.”

According to CFE, the average per-pupil spending in New York State is $9,810 a year. In large cities such as Yonkers or Buffalo, it’s $10,013. And in New York City? Only $8,934. As Judge DeGrasse emphatically stated in his opinion: “It’s not enough money.” “It’s not like we’re hiding the money in some black hole in Brooklyn, as some like to claim,” Chancellor Levy said, adding a heavy note of sarcasm to the well-attended meeting. In fact, New York City spends the largest percentage of the aid on instruction (80.3 percent, as opposed to the 78.2 percent state average, or the 78.5 percent spent in other large cities).

People at the meeting, most of whom knew little about the situation previously, were busy just absorbing the avalanche of information provided by the attorneys, Chancellor Levy and Bronx Board of Education member, Sandra Lerner. Their questions were general: “How should the state allocate the funds under the new formula?” “How could such an outrage go on for so long?” And many asked, “What can we do to help?”

“The way educational funds have been allocated for many years borders both on the tragic and the absurd,” said Michael Rudell, the attorney who argued CFE’s case in the Supreme Court. “Basically, three men—Governor Pataki, the speaker of the Assembly, and state Senate majority leader—get in a room and hammer it out all by themselves.”

Under such politically driven funding, New York City schools, with 38 percent of the state’s students, have been receiving only 35 percent of the State aid. That translates to billions of dollars not spent on the neediest school system, where a third of the pupils are illiterate and 40 percent of students fail to receive a high school diploma.

“Demography is not destiny,” Judge DeGrasse said in his opinion. The State argued contrarily, stating that more aid wouldn’t make a difference because city kids’ “educational potential is immutably shaped by their backgrounds.”

Now that the lawsuit has been won, the battle is not over. However, Jessica Garcia, CFE’s Community Outreach Coordinator, voices CFE’s push for immediate action. “Appeal or no appeal, we need public support for this decision to show the legislature that going through with this remedy is the right thing to do right now.” #

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