UFT presses state for fair funding

The UFT is pushing New York State to update the formula it uses to allocate Foundation Aid to better reflect the actual cost of education and the particular needs of each school district’s students.

“The formula has to be changed because it is not fair and it is not providing adequate base funding in a lot of different places,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said at a City & State education summit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan on Aug. 15.

Under no circumstances, he said, should this year’s review be used as a vehicle to reduce overall state education aid. “There is a fear that this process is about figuring out a way to cut school funding,” Mulgrew said at a public hearing on Foundation Aid in the Capital Region the day before.

At that hearing, Mulgrew recommended adding weights in the formula for children in temporary housing or foster care and children who are English language learners and including money for New York City to implement the state class size law.

Mulgrew also said the formula should not use a “one-size-fits-all” weight for students with disabilities. “If you think it costs the same for a child who is getting one single support service as for a child who has severe medical and emotional disabilities, that is just wrong,” he said.

The formula for Foundation Aid, which is the state’s largest education grant to public schools, is under scrutiny since Gov. Kathy Hochul and state legislative leaders, as part of this year’s state budget, directed the State University of New York’s Rockefeller Institute of Government to study the formula and suggest modifications. The Rockefeller Institute held five public hearings this summer to solicit public feedback.

Education advocates, including the UFT, have been calling on the state for years to revise the Foundation Aid formula, which has not been updated since it was first developed in 2007.

The formula relies on data from the 2000 U.S. Census, a regional cost index that was last updated in 2006 and a now-unreliable measure of students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, according to Mulgrew. It also uses the Successful School Districts model, which is not updated regularly and is overly dependent on standardized test results to distribute funds, he said.

Mulgrew and NYSUT President Melinda Person testified at the Aug. 15 public hearing that schools are much more of a social safety net for the community now than they were in 2007, and it costs more now to provide the additional services that children and families need.

Person said that full funding of the Foundation Aid formula in 2021 took nearly 15 years to achieve, but in the meantime, “the devastating effects of chronic underfunding of our schools had taken root.”

“The guiding question,” she said, “should be how can we fund our schools so that we provide all of New York’s students with the education we promised them in our state constitution.”

A half-dozen UFT members testified at the Rockefeller Institute’s first public hearing in New York City on July 16. They spoke about how chronic underfunding of New York City public schools has led to overcrowded classrooms; inadequate support for English language learners and students with special needs; and overburdened school social workers, counselors and psychologists.

Vincent Corletta, the UFT chapter leader at MS 137 in Ozone Park, Queens, told the panel that the formula doesn’t provide enough funding for mental health services, among other things. His school, he said, has only three school counselors and two social workers for nearly 2,000 students.

“Now is the time to fix these flaws with Foundation Aid,” Corletta said.

The Rockefeller Institute has an early December deadline to complete its review and issue a final report.

“Trying to do this in four months is not going to work,” Mulgrew warned at the City & State summit. “Can we make incremental changes? We might have to go down that path.”