EdVANTAGE Blog

A few items on our website pertaining to Governor Cuomo’s proposed budget for education:

• Our testimony at last week’s Assembly-Senate budget hearing.
• An excel spreadsheet that produces easy to read printouts of the Governor’s School Aid proposal for any district.
• A power point presentation I did for superintendents in Western New York last Friday.

Part of my presentation attempted to convey how different and better the state budget outlook is for schools compared to a year ago.  Obviously, however, the tax cap is a huge dark cloud on the horizon.

Battle lines are forming over one aspect of the Governor’s education budget – his proposal to devote nearly a third of his overall proposed increase — $250 million – to incentive grants intended to encourage and reward gains in student achievement and management efficiency.

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Governor Cuomo will unveil his proposed 2012-13 state budget at 2 pm today.  Details, including School Aid runs, may not be available until that time or later.

The Governor made a lot of news on education over the long weekend, however, revealing plans to use School Aid to force action on teacher evaluation.

Initially, it was reported that the Governor would propose holding up School Aid increases for districts which failed to implement new teacher and principal evaluation procedures by December 31, 2012.

By itself such a proposal would only increase pressure on school districts to compromise with their local unions under a law which the Governor has said, “protected the teachers union at the expense of the students and instituted a system that was destined to fail.”

There had to be more to the plan.  Today’s New York Post and New York Times provide more details.

The Post reports,

Gov. Cuomo will give New York’s teachers one month to agree to a statewide performance evaluation plan — or he’ll write his own educator-rating scheme into the budget for legislative approval, The Post has learned.

In the ultimatum — which Cuomo will level at the United Federation of Teachers and New York State United Teachers as he presents his budget today — the governor will also insist the state union drop its lawsuit challenging certain provisions of the evaluation system, a source close to the administration said.

The governor would have up to 30 days to present a budget amendment that spells out the details of a teacher-rating system, something he promises to do if the unions don’t sign on.

Districts would then have until early next January to get the new system up and running or else the state would withhold a 4 percent increase in school aid, sources said.

 

In this post:

1. Governor to appoint education commission
2. Teacher evaluation conflicts
3. School finance news

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The Board of Regents adopted its School Aid proposal for 2012-13 this week.

The Regents proposal would attempt to re-start the Foundation Aid formula which was first enacted in 2007 as a resolution of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity’s challenge to the constitutionality of the state’s system of funding public schools.

Big increases in Foundation Aid were approved in 2007-08 and 2008-09, but the formula has been frozen for the past three years.

Meanwhile total aid from all formulas (excluding Building Aid and Universal Prekindergarten) has been reduced through large “Gap Elimination Adjustments” in each of the last two years.

The Regents propose an overall increase in aid of $805 million or 4.1 percent, consistent with the unique two-year appropriation for School Aid in the current state budget.

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Yesterday, Governor Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos announced agreement on a package of legislation expected to be approved during a special legislative session this week.

The agreement improves the outlook for School Ai in next year’s state budget.

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A summary of state budget deficit forecasts and School Aid projections…

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A week ago, we released our report, At the Edge:  A Survey of New York State School Superintendents on Fiscal Matters.

It has generated a lot of attention.

I was invited to discuss the report with Liz Benjamin on Time Warner cable’s Capital Tonight statewide television show.

Superintendent Neil O’Brien of Port Byron (Cayuga County, west of Syracuse) and I discussed it with Susan Arbetter on the statewide Capitol Pressroom radio show.

It received a good amount of print coverage.  I think Gannett News Service did the best piece, running in many of their papers.  See this version from yesterday’s Rochester Democrat and Chronicle as an example.

A Sunday editorial in the Albany Times Union said, “The superintendents’ report should be required reading.”

UPDATE:  And on Wednesday (October 19), as reported in the New York Daily News, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer cited our report in advocating for part of the President’s jobs plan.

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Yesterday, the Council issued a report on its survey of superintendents on school budgeting issues.

The report, titled At the Edge, is available here.

A presentation summarizing the survey is here.

A key theme of the report is that although schools absorbed one of the biggest cuts in state aid ever in 2011, and now face operating under a property tax cap, this was not the first tough year.

State aid was also cut in 2010-11 and most aid was frozen in 2009-10.  At the same time, schools have had to absorb steep increases in pension and health insurance costs.

As a result, going forward, schools find it harder and harder to make cuts that don’t cut jobs or hurt student services.

A spokesman for Governor Cuomo responded to the report by saying, “The schools and school districts chose to make these reductions in the classroom rather than dip into their reserves, cut back on the bureaucracy or reduce the growing number of administrators.”

But the report plainly contradicts these claims.

Nearly 90 percent of superintendents are concerned by the extent to which their districts are already relying upon reserves to fund operating costs.  Without the reserves used this year, their districts would have had to cut spending by over 4 percent, raise taxes by an additional 7 percent, or adopt some combination of the two.

The report also shows that districts cut administrative positions more steeply than teaching jobs.  Superintendents reported eliminating an average of 7.5 percent of administrator positions in 2011-12, compared to 4.3 percent of their teaching staff.

The 2011-12 state budget took the unusual step of enacted a two-year appropriation for School Aid, covering both the current and 2012-13 school years.

Under the enacted state budget, School Aid for 2012-13 is projected to increase by $805 million, or 4.1 percent.

Is this a ceiling or a floor, and whichever it is, how solid is it? Read the rest of this entry »

In this post:

• Cheating
• State revenues short of projections
• Obama Jobs Bill — Implications for New York schools
• Governor to sign bill requiring new school procedures on head injuries
• Blue Ribbon Schools in New York State
• Teacher evaluation in New York City

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