Albany, NY

Friday, January 12, 2001

School-aid wisdom

A judge orders the state to find a fairer way

to distribute aid to education

State Supreme Court Justice Leland DeGrasse's landmark decision overturning New York's archaic and unfair school-aid formulas should come as no surprise. The formulas -- some 40 calibrations that have been refined over the years -- continue to shortchange urban and rural schools, while protecting aid levels for affluent suburban ones. Now, says Judge DeGrasse, that has to change.

Fortunately, Gov. Pataki appears to be on the same wavelength as the judge. In his State of the State address last week, Mr. Pataki called for overhauling the formulas and putting the present system in the "ashcan'' of history. That is promising rhetoric, but the governor's proposal won't be fully known until he releases his budget next week, with the details of how he proposes to distribute $14 billion in aid to the public schools. Already, some critics fear he will actually hurt urban and rural schools by giving local officials more power in deciding which programs to fund and which to ignore, such as pre-kindergarten.

The judge's decision grew out of a six-year lawsuit brought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which charged the state with shortchanging New York City schools to the point that students are denied their right to a quality education, as specified in the state constitution. The judge not only agreed with the plaintiff, but went further in declaring that the state formulas violated the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 because of their negative impact on minority students, most of whom attend urban schools.

Despite the emphasis on New York City, the ruling will have an impact on other city school districts as well, including Albany, where officials have long complained that the city does not receive its fair share of state aid. As Mayor Jennings recently pointed out, the state includes the huge Empire State Mall complex in its calculations of Albany's property wealth, which makes the city appear much better off than it is. A fair reform would consider the state's payments in lieu of taxes rather than the property's market value.

The heaviest impact of any reform proposal would fall on the suburbs, however. For years, the state Senate has thwarted attempts to reduce state aid to affluent districts and direct it toward poorer urban and rural schools. Former Gov. Hugh Carey championed just such a reform, but he faced formidable opposition from Republican senators who represented largely suburban areas on Long Island and upstate. One of the major obstacles to change is the so-called hold-harmless provision, which guarantees that no suburban district will receive less aid in a new school year than it did in the previous one. That narrows the room for reform to any new dollars included in the state budget -- a tactic that in effect precludes sweeping reform.

It is possible that Gov. Pataki will appeal the judge's decision rather than try to comply with his order to come up with a new distribution plan by Sept. 15. Surely the temptation to delay this controversial issue is great. Mr. Pataki is expected to run for re-election next year, and school aid will likely be a major campaign topic. But the governor should put children's welfare ahead of politics and reject an appeal. It's past time to fix a school-aid formula that has been known to be unfair for decades. And now a judge has declared it not just unfair, but unconstitutional as well.