Archive: Opinions

Albany is playing politics with our children's education and is squeezing local school districts to the point that vital resources are squishing out.  In Lansing that has meant over 40 jobs lost in our school system, major cuts in supplies and learning resources, and the threat of double digit property tax rises and cuts to educational programs despite largely responsible spending and fiscal management over the last four or five years.  The quality of education is diminishing here because of onerous state mandates that make no sense to any thinking person.

This week the district lost an accomplished top administrator when High School Principal Eric Hartz resigned.  That would have been bad enough had he resigned for greener pastures in another school district, but Hartz didn't just resign from Lansing.  He resigned from education.  He already has a non-education job lined up.  His reasons are that New York State has squeezed school districts to the point where he doesn't think he or anyone else can effectively educate our children.

I have been outspoken about my opposition to unfunded mandates of any kind.  While I understand mandates are generally well intentioned, I don't believe remote legislators in Albany should be telling local municipalities and school districts what to do, at least unless they are willing to pay to do it.  And even when the state says they will pay, they pay late or they pay less, or they just promise they will pay.

For example, under Governor David Patterson the GAP Elimination Adjustment (GEA) was applied to school aid, starting in 2011.  Since it was established it has meant millions of dollars in reduced aid to Lansing schools.  The idea was to close the state's own budget deficit by handing out less cash.

This year Albany is all a-flutter about restoring GEA money.  But the truth is that they are not restoring all of it or even most of it, and under Governor Andrew Cuomo the GEA has been made permanent to continue to help reduce the state's deficit.  Prior to the current school year federal aid was available to make up for state aid, but this school year the federal money dried up.  So are you restoring money if you are giving back less than you promised?

Or the tax cap.  The so-called 2% tax cap has so many loopholes, known as 'cut-outs' that a tax levy of 4.26% over last year's levy falls within the allowed 2% cap.  Does that make sense to you?  Don't feel bad.  It doesn't make sense to anyone.  Taxing authorities can and regularly do give themselves to exceed the tax cap.  Just this week Town Supervisor Kathy Miller noted that they are expected to even when they have no intention of raising taxes that high, because financial rating companies like Standard & Poor give higher ratings to taxing entities that show in this way that they are willing to raise the money to pay back bond debt.

When former Superintendent Stave Grimm told me the number of hours the state is requiring of principals and other administrators to administer the new teacher rating system (APPR) I almost gagged.  I believe in tenure if merit pay is attached, so the idea of teacher ranking is not entirely repugnant to me.  But I can't figure out how principals can spend the time required for APPR and have any time left to... say... pay attention to curriculum and eduction.

I remember sitting in Grimm's office while we calculated the time needed in Lansing for APPR compliance.  We calculated that if a principal has to evaluate 40 teachers in his or her school, that's 40 hours times at least four hours per teacher.  That comes to at least four 40-hour work weeks out of a principal's school year.  A school year includes 36 weeks, so that's 11.1% of each principal's school year to comply with only one state mandate.  Each principal.  A total of twelve work weeks (four weeks times three principals).

Not too long ago School Business Administrator Mary June King said that new state reporting requirements are costing the district a half million dollars per year.  And the new Core Curriculum mandates not only require hours of teacher training (which the state is not paying for), but ignore the fact that Lansing is considered a high achieving school district by the State Education Department.

Why would they dumb down the district's educational programs and curriculum?  Make no mistake, when you apply a standard across all districts you are dumbing down for the high achieving ones.

These are only some of the pressures the state is exerting on school districts.  That should have gotten our state legislators' attention a long time ago.  But now we're losing a top administrator.  How many is it going to take before all the outstanding educational leaders become so disheartened that they also leave the profession, leaving our schools to be led by paper pushers and bureaucrats who have no interest in actual education?

The tax cap is a very unfunny joke.  Increasing data collection and reporting requirements are horrible drains on education.  Mandate relief in Albany is equally unfunny.  The Governor and other Albany legislators saying that they are improving things for New Yorkers when the programs they tout have the exact opposite effect is heinous.  But when they do that with children's educations and futures... it's time to call Social Services on Albany to stop the child abuse.

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