State pols fail to meet school funding deadline
By DEIDRE McFADYEN
City schools did not get a long-anticipated infusion of new state aid this year after the governor and state legislative leaders failed to meet the court’s July 30 deadline for overhauling the state’s inequitable education funding system.
Three court-appointed referees, all highly respected in legal circles, now have until Nov. 30 to recommend a plan to provide city students with a "sound, basic education."
"While we are disappointed by the inability of Gov. Pataki and the state Legislature to comply with the court’s deadline for devising a plan to properly fund New York City’s public schools, we hope that the appointment of these eminent special masters will end the delay and ensure that our kids get the resources they need as quickly as possible," said UFT President Randi Weingarten.
With school funding reform off the agenda, the gridlock that has become Albany’s defining feature eased enough for lawmakers to pass the latest budget in state history on Aug. 10.
That budget, more than four months late, increased education aid statewide by $740 million. The $300 million for city schools, which reflected the city’s usual share of new state education aid, was less than the sums Gov. Pataki, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno had proposed giving the city in their competing plans to address the school aid lawsuit. It also fell far short of the $2 billion "down payment" sought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the organization that brought the lawsuit in 1993.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Leland DeGrasse, the trial court judge who ruled in January 2001 that city schools were inadequate and seriously underfunded, chose two retired judges, E. Leo Milonas and William C. Thompson, and a former law school dean, John Feerick, to recommend a solution to the problem that the governor and Legislature did not solve.
"The court has set up a powerful panel that will get the job done in four months," said CFE Executive Director Michael Rebell. "The Legislature played around with this thing for 14 months."
Justice DeGrasse asked the three referees, none of whom had any prior involvement in the case, to pay particular attention to certain issues, including teacher quality and facilities.
The panel has asked the two sides for their ideas on how to address those problems. The panel may also retain one or more education experts of its own to advise it.
With respect to raising teacher quality, Rebell said that the CFE’s proposal would focus on mentoring, professional development, incentives for recruitment and retention, and the equitable distribution of qualified teachers.
The CFE’s compliance plan, similar to the Governor’s proposal, also says that all teachers need to be paid competitive salaries.
The UFT and the state Board of Regents will be submitting amicus curiae or friend-of-the-court briefs in mid-September. Justice DeGrasse denied the Bloomberg administration’s request to be a full party to the lawsuit, but granted it friend-of-the-court status as well.
Friends of the court both comment on the plans submitted by the two sides and offer suggestions in areas in which they have a particular interest or expertise.
The UFT’s submission will focus on improving teacher quality, including the importance of across-the-board competitive salaries, and lowering class size.
Justice DeGrasse said at the Aug. 3 hearing that it wasn’t the court’s role to "make policy" or "micromanage." But the three referees do have the authority to dictate specific benchmarks for class size, teacher training, and personnel. The CFE predicts that the panel will attach a dollar figure to its reform plan.
The judge is expected to issue a final court order in January based on the panel’s November recommendations. His order figures to set the terms of the debate for next year’s budget battle.
Advocates fear that the governor will appeal Justice DeGrasse’s order, which would further delay new aid reaching city students.
If it likes the judge’s remedy, the CFE plans to quickly lobby to turn it into a bill.
"We’ll be making a full-court press to urge the Legislature to pass it and not let this thing drag out any longer," Rebell said. If the special masters present a good proposal, he added, "It becomes a very potent organizing mechanism."
The Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, ruled in June 2003 that the state needs to revise its education funding system in a way that brings more money to New York City schools. It gave the Legislature until July 30 to formulate a plan.
The CFE, the Board of Regents, Mayor Bloomberg and the governor’s Zarb Commission all crafted funding proposals intended to meet that goal.
In the final months leading up to the deadline, Pataki, Silver and Bruno unveiled their own reform plans.
Silver proposed giving New York City an additional $3.9 billion in state school aid spread out over five years, while the governor and Bruno contemplated boosting city school aid by $1 billion over the same period.
The governor and Senate Republicans proposed drawing on proceeds from expanded legalized gambling, while Assembly Democrats did not identify how the state would raise the new money.
The bills proposed by the governor and the Senate also called for creating a new state office to monitor the performance of failing schools and administer the statewide system of accountability. The Assembly said that the State Education Department could assume that function.
On June 22, the last day of the regular legislative session, UFT President Randi Weingarten was arrested along with 21 other protesters for blocking the entrance to the state Capitol [see story at left]. The human chain that she helped form symbolically barred lawmakers from leaving without a deal on school funding reform.
But the personal animosity that has marred relations between the governor and the leaders of the two houses of the Legislature made consensus impossible.
Justice DeGrasse’s choice of referees earned widespread approval. Milonas, the president of the City Bar Association from 2002 until May, was previously a chief administrative judge of New York State and an Appellate Division justice. Feerick, who led the City Bar Association from 1992 to 1994, was dean of Fordham University School of Law from 1982 to 1998. Thompson, the father of the city comptroller, served as a city councilman, a state senator and an appellate division justice.
While the three competing legislative plans addressed low-performing school districts statewide, the special masters will only be required to resolve New York City’s funding shortfalls, the focus of the original lawsuit.
The referees decided not to hold public hearings after the State Attorney General’s Office objected. Instead, they have established a liberal friend-of-the-court procedure, inviting all those who submitted supporting briefs in earlier phases of the lawsuit to contribute written comments in this stage as well.
The panel was to hear a second round of oral arguments on Sept. 8.
