Spitzer Vows School Funds, With Conditions

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The New York Sun

School systems that want to receive extra state funds ordered by the courts in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case will have to sign a contract promising to do things such as reduce class size or lengthen the school year, Governor Spitzer says.

In a speech yesterday announcing “the greatest reform agenda directly tied to the largest infusion of resources in our state’s history,” Mr. Spitzer said all districts that receive at least $15 million or 10% more in their budgets next year would have to implement research-based programs from a set menu created by the state. He said he will release numbers on additional spending for schools when he releases his executive budget tomorrow.

Mr. Spitzer also said he would change the state funding formula to channel more money to poorer districts and that he would close schools that don’t survive a new, more rigorous review process. The governor also announced for the first time that he is seeking to raise the cap on the number of charter schools in the state to 250 from 100.

The announcement met with broad praise among traditional adversaries such as the New York City teachers union, charter school advocates, Campaign for Fiscal Equity leaders, and the city Department of Education, who all claimed that the governor’s plan mirrored their own proposals for education reform. The governor’s plan does borrow from the wish lists of a variety of opposing education factions, though the governor left many details unspecified, and several proposals will hinge on how state legislators react.

Smaller class size, one of the programs districts could choose from if they opt into Mr. Spitzer’s contract, has long been a teachers union rallying cry. A new state funding formula that accounts for poverty has been a long-time demand of Campaign for Fiscal Equity advocates. The governor’s call for stricter standards in granting teacher tenure and a new accountability data system that would follow the progress of individual students echoes plans by Mayor Bloomberg and his schools chancellor, Joel Klein, to overhaul the New York City school system.

Mr. Spitzer also announced the appointment of a new deputy secretary of education, Manuel Rivera, a former schools superintendent from Rochester. The governor said he would increase funding for the State Education Department.

A lawyer for the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Michael Rebell, said he was pleased with the governor’s plan, dubbed the Contract for Excellence. The Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit recently ended with a decision in the state’s highest court requiring the state to add at least $1.9 billion in extra funds to New York City, but Mr. Rebell and other advocates are hopeful Mr. Spitzer will allocate, in the budget to be released tomorrow, at least $4 billion to the city and billions more to other needy districts in the state.

Mr. Rebell noted that Mr. Spitzer’s plan could force the city’s Department of Education to adhere to achievement goals demanded in the past by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which he said Mayor Bloomberg and the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, had avoided.

“For the past several years, we have been having difficulties with the Department of Education in coming up with a comprehensive plan in doing the things the governor is calling for,” Mr. Rebell said. “How the money is going to be spent, what kind of programs, what kind of outcomes they’re going to get from those programs, that’s the kind of accountability we’ve been asking for.”

Yet Mr. Spitzer’s assurance that the plan would be flexible about which programs districts choose possibly avoided a clash with the city. In fact, Mr. Klein said the governor’s plan borrowed extensively from the Bloomberg administration’s recent plans to overhaul the city schools bureaucracy.

“We are especially gratified that the Governor’s plan is built around a rigorous accountability system — a ‘value-added’ system just like the accountability system we’ve adopted in New York City,” Mr. Klein said in a statement.

Charter school advocates also laid claim to Mr. Spitzer’s plans. The vice president of the New York Charter School Resource Center, Peter Murphy, said the governor’s Contract for Excellence could look a lot like the performance agreements charter schools must sign before opening.

“We’ll give you the resources, but you’ve got to be held accountable,” he said. “The concepts are very similar.”

The president of the teacher’s union, Randi Weingarten, who has resisted an expansion in the number of charter schools without concessions to make it easier to organize their teachers into unions, seemed just as pleased with the governor’s plan.

“The differences between the governor’s approach to pay differentials, tenure, accountability, and school funding and that of Chancellor Klein are revealing and refreshing,” said Ms. Weingarten, who has battled in recent weeks with Mr. Klein over the city’s overhaul plans said. “The governor’s approach builds a strong school community, while the chancellor’s foster divisiveness.”

While the vagueness of the plan may be what saved it from much criticism, the something-for-everyone approach may also hint at the arsenal of bargaining chips the governor will draw on as he tries to push his proposals past potential opposition in the state legislature. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has opposed lifting the charter school cap in the past, for example, but Mr. Spitzer announced that one of the speaker’s favorite projects, universal pre-kindergarten, would be a priority during his administration. A change in the state funding formula that could allocate more money to poorer districts has always met obstacles in the Republican-controlled Senate, but Mr. Spitzer said he would link extra money for needy districts to property tax relief for wealthier areas. The director of the Educational Priorities Panel, a city-based organization that advocates reducing class sizes, Noreen Connell, said she was impressed with the governor’s deftness if not pleased with everything he announced.

“I don’t think it’s so terrible, I don’t think it’s marvelous either,” she said. “It rehashes everything that’s floating around: It’s a big effort at integration, of making everybody happy, sort of.”


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