Organizations supporting larger investments in traditional public schools, and organizations arguing for larger investments in charter schools today made their case before a joint assembly and senate session of lawmakers who are debating the merits of the education component of Gov. Cuomo‘s proposed $142 billion budget.
Cuomo’s plan calls for an overall $1.1 billion or 4% increase over last years state funding for schools, but tied the additional spending to reforms on how districts evaluate teachers and principals. He also increased the cap on charter schools by 100 to a total cap of 560 statewide, including 24 slots for new charter schools in the city.
StudentsFirstNY, a statewide education reform advocacy organization that supports charter schools , today was joined by public school parents and advocates in testifying before a New York State Joint Committee on Education in support of Cuomo’s education plan.
“My grandson Dre is an example of a child who is being failed by our broken education system. I am here today to represent the many parents and grandparents like myself who believe that taking the necessary steps to reform our education system must happen now,” said AU Hogan, a New York City public school parent and grandparent. “Governor Cuomo is right – ‘education is the great equalizer.’ I am proud to stand in support of the Governor because he is fighting for kids across the state, kids just like my grandson.”
StudentsFirstNY Director of Organizing Tenicka Boydlso said when students in high poverty communities are three times as likely to be taught by an unsatisfactory teacher than a student in a low poverty community, this is a fight for equity.
“We have failed generations of students and their parents with policies that have sought to provide more comfort for the adults than quality education for the students,” she added.
On the flip side of the debate Alliance for Quality Education’s Executive Director Billy Easton told the joint hearing that Cuomo is holding school children hostage to a politically-motivated agenda.
“The governor is holding the state legislature and the school districts children and families they represent hostage to a reform agenda promoted by billionaire hedge fund managers,” said Easton. “He says he will not give a penny to art, music, school libraries, or anything else unless the legislature agrees to more emphasis on Common Core testing and punishing for students and teachers. It is like a gun is being held to the heads of the legislature and they must say no to our public schools being hijacked by the agenda of the governor’s campaign donors.”
Easton also railed at Cuomo’s reform plan for teacher evaluations saying it will “dramatically increase the role of state standardized tests which will result in more teaching to the test.” Experts have warned against using test scores in this way and that such evaluations ‘can have unintended consequences that reduce quality, he said.
Easton assailed Cuomo proposal as a massive diversion of hundreds of millions of dollars into private schools and privately run charter schools.
“Unlike funding for public schools this funding is not being held hostage by the proposals that threaten public schools. He supports a dramatic expansion in the number of privately run charter schools, but does nothing about the fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayer funds in these schools,” said Easton.
“He promised legislation to ensure these schools fairly serve all students, rather than weeding out harder to serve students, but his proposal is toothless and just provides privately run charter schools with cover. He also supports an education tax credit for private schools which is essentially a voucher program and a giveaway of taxpayer dollars to wealthy contributors who can afford donations of one million dollars to private schools,” he added.
