NYS Regents Call for $1.8 Billion More in School Aid

The New York State Board of Regents called for a $1.8 billion increase in foundation aid for schools in the 2008 state budget on Monday.

The Regents did not specify how and where the money that they called for yesterday would be spent, unlike the money allocated by last year’s state budget, which, as it gets spent, must follow a set of guidelines called the “Contract for Excellence.”

“Increasing and accelerating the foundation aid which is distributed on the basis of need puts more dollars to work serving the neediest students in low-performing schools,” Geri Palast, the executive director of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, said in a release.

“What is also refreshing about the Regents proposal is that they do not include any of the politically-motivated pork barrel spending that the State Senate Majority added outside the school aid formula this year,” Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, said in the release.

But even after parents and advocates received this strong endorsement for increased education aid, and got billions of dollars for schools from last year’s budget, many are still apprehensive about what they call the vague terms used in the “Contract for Excellence,” and hope the plan does not pass when it is voted on in a few days.

CFE and AQE both praised the Regents for advocating more funds and urged them to make the “Contract for Excellence” more specific by, for example, mandating that districts publish data showing how their state funding is being spent. They also demanded that terms and phrases such as “neediest” and “predominantly serve the neediest” be clarified.

“The emergency regulations governing the ‘Contracts for Excellence’ require greater clarity, specificity, and standardization,” Palast said.

Many New York City school parents have also criticized the city for refusing to disclose which class sizes have been reduced this year with almost $100 million in “Contract for Excellence” funds. Leonie Haimson, a mother and founder of Class Size Matters, a group that advocates smaller classroom sizes in New York City, called on parents to send a letter to the Regents board urging the board to withhold any further “Contract for Excellence” funding until the Department of Education “provides the specific figures to prove that a substantial reduction in class size in city schools has occurred this year, more than would be predicted by enrollment decline alone.”