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JUNE 2004

“Tick, Tick, Tick...”
by Assemblyman Steven Sanders

The clock is ticking. With scarcely two months to go before the Court-imposed deadline for an agreement to be reached by the Legislature and the Governor to implement a remedy in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) case, little progress has been made in Albany.

The next several weeks will be crucial in determining whether a resolution to this issue will be reached in Albany, or whether the courts will take over and impose a remedy. What’s the holdup? Very simply put, the Governor and the State Senate leadership continue to refuse to accept the findings of the State Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, which ruled, after ten long years of litigation, that the New York City school district was unconstitutionally under-funded. The Governor continues to argue—even against the recommendation of this own Commission (!) and findings of several other respected “costing out” studies—that New York City needs very little new education resources. He does this with a straight face, notwithstanding our grossly overcrowded classrooms, a high percentage of uncertified teachers, near ancient school facilities, and decades-old technology.

The State Senate maintains that New York City and other “high needs” school districts must continue to compete with wealthy school districts for scarce new resources without any significant change in the unfair way in which education dollars have been distributed in Albany for generations. The Assembly has tried to convince the Governor and the State Senate that business as usual will neither satisfy the Court decision, nor will it provide the necessary sound basic education to New York City students and other children in high needs school districts around the State. Also, notwithstanding that the CFE decision applies only to New York City, the Assembly has pushed from the start for addressing the needs of all of the 700-plus districts in the State—not only the New York City district. A court-imposed remedy will not do that.

We in the Assembly continue to argue that the Legislature and the Governor must come to a decision before July 30 and in doing so increase educational resources by at least the amount recommended by the New York State Board of Regents, which declared that a minimum of $6 billion was necessary over the next seven years on a statewide basis. Other reputable studies have pegged a number to be in excess of $10 billion.

An agreement between the Legislature and Governor Pataki is attainable, but only once all parties acknowledge that the court decision in this issue is final and binding, that it is now incumbent on our branches of government to arrive at a funding reform that will adequately invest in public education for the sake of our State’s future. We must do this not just because the court has ordered it, but also because it is profoundly in our interest to insure that all children in New York State public schools receive the quality education needed to compete in the 21st Century.

The clock is ticking.#

Assemblyman Sanders is chairman of the Education Committee. E-mail him at sanders@assembly.state.ny.us or phone 212.979.9696. His mailing address is 201 East 16th Street, New York, NY 10003.

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