Archive: News

Governor Andrew Cuomo reached out to New Yorkers with an email two weeks ago to justify his plan to fix the state's 178 failing schools.  If implemented schools defined as 'failing' for three consecutive years would be taken over either by a non-profit, another school district, or a turnaround expert would be put in charge of the school.  The question is, would this initiative, like others that educators view as an onslaught by Albany on New York schools, harm school districts like Lansing's that are not failing?  Cuomo doesn't address the impact on successful schools, but notes that more than 9 out of 10 students statewide in failing schools are minority or poor.

"This is the real scandal in Albany—the alarming fact that state government has stood by and done nothing as generation after generation of students have passed through failing schools. While the education bureaucracy demands more and more money, the reality is school districts with failing schools have statewide seen an average 13.8% increase in funding over the past three years, and New York today spends more per pupil than any other state in the nation—$19,552—nearly double the national average of $10,608 per pupil."

Cuomo's email says that a school is designated as 'failing' if it's in the bottom 5% of schools across the state based on combined English Language Arts and math scores, if it's not showing progress in test performance, or if the school has a graduation rate below 60% for the last three years.

The so-called two percent tax cap requirement looks good at first glance, but it has amounted to a combination of blackmail and unfunded mandates for districts that choose to qualify for rebates to taxpayers of questionable value.  While the program appears to be good public relations, some say the added burden of documenting eligibility, plus the administrative costs of processing the documents and issuing rebate checks from Albany are not worth it.  Last year the Lansing Town Board decided not to bother documenting eligibility because they said it would cost more than the small rebate checks are worth, and said they had more important work to do that will have greater impact on the Town.

While bills have been proposed to get rid of the Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA) there is no certainty that they will be passed, despite growing pressure on Albany to do so.  The GEA has been a disaster for poor school districts, and a burden for districts in better financial straights, including Lansing.  Since the 2009-2010 school year the state has deducted a percentage of promised state aid to help restore the state's overall budget shortfall.  Both of Lansing's Albany representatives, Senator Mike Nozzolio (R) and Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton (D), sponsored or co-sponsored bills this year to eliminate the GEA.

This week Lansing Superintendent Chris Pettograsso was in Albany to lobby for the elimination of the GEA.  In January she told the Lansing Board Of Education that if GEA money was reinstated Lansing would not have a budget problem.  She noted that would just be money promised for next school year and that money lost to the GEA in past years will never be paid to school districts.  She also noted that the coming school year's GEA would actually pay the difference between the anticipated Lansing 'rollover budget' (a budget that calculates the next year's cost of maintaining everything in the current year's budget) and projected revenues.

"When we look at our difference, it's that $800,000 that we're owed for the GEA," she said.  "If that were fully restored it would make a huge difference in our budget.  Right now that will not be coming to us if the full reform agenda is not approved by legislators."

Another new threat is that school districts close to bankruptcy are looking for innovative ways out of their money woes that could potentially cost other New York taxpayers more.  Lansing School Board Member Tony Lombardo reported Monday that an Orange County high school in Tuxedo, New York is planning to convert to a stem charter school.

"One of the reasons is that it would solve a lot of financial problems for them because they would get more money for that," Lombardo said Monday.  "It looks like it is going to be approved.  Other schools in real financial stress may see this as a way out."

The first question asked after Lombardo's report was, "Who is going to pay the school's tuition?"  Charter school tuition is paid by the districts its students come from, and aid rules are different than for public school districts.

Cuomo's assertion that some New York schools are not performing is not wrong.  He cites statistics that show that while 94.5% of teachers were rated Highly Effective and Effective, only 35.8% of students are proficient in math and 31.4 percent in English language arts.

Cuomo says that over 109,000 students are currently enrolled in New York's 178 failing schools., and 77 of those schools have been failing for a decade.

"This is the real scandal in Albany—the alarming fact that state government has stood by and done nothing as generation after generation of students have passed through failing schools," Cuomo says.  "While the education bureaucracy demands more and more money, the reality is school districts with failing schools have statewide seen an average 13.8% increase in funding over the past three years, and New York today spends more per pupil than any other state in the nation -- $19,552 -- nearly double the national average of $10,608 per pupil."

Lansing School Board President Glenn Swanson has repeatedly complained that Albany's attempts to fix failing schools punishes schools that are performing well with additional unfunded mandates and a mountain of paperwork, while limiting school revenues with the tax cap mandate.  In October Swanson noted that the legislation has the effect of punishing communities that have cooperated all along by forcing them to spend limited money and resources documenting shared services that have saved money.

"What the Governor is really trying to do is encourage schools to keep their budgets within what they feel is a reasonable increase based on their formula," Swanson said last May.  "If we do that they are rewarding taxpayers by giving the money back.  So it's penalizing districts that are not able to do that."

Lansing has stayed below the mandated cap since it was established, and School Business Administrator Mary June King says she anticipates the district will come in under the cap again this year.  In a presentation a few weeks ago she estimated a tax levy increase of 3.47%.  The tax levy cap is 3.77%.  If those numbers hold she estimated the tax rate will go up by 2.76%.  Those numbers include $50,000 of proposed additions to program positions.

There is no question that U.S. schools spend more than those in some other countries that have much better academic results.  In 2012 over half a million 15-year-olds took the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) world-wide. The results showed the U.S. trailing behind 35 other countries, and ranking only 26th among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.

An Atlantic Monthly article in 2013 reported that the United States ranks fifth in spending per student after Austria, Luxembourg, Norway, and Switzerland.  Of those five the U.S. ranked lowest in the PISA results.

The question is, will state mandates do a better job of improving education than local districts?  And how will successful districts be impacted by Albany's measures to fix those that are failing?  Lansing school officials want Albany to back off, at least where succesful districts are concerned.  Cuomo says Albany can do it better.

"The time is now for the State Legislature to act and do something about this problem so we no longer are condemning our children to failing schools," he says.

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