“As Americans, we love to think of ourselves living in the land of equal opportunity, a country where anyone who is willing to work hard can make it. But we have to look no further than our schools to know that today, the opportunities that our country provides is anything but equal.”  – The Education Trust

 

Lack of Proper Funding

The fight for increases in the education funding within New York City has been an uphill battle that is still in process of unfolding. New York City public school’s are known to be one of the most segregated out of all of the states (Fessenden),  but this is only further complicated by the inherent inequality that the city itself is needing to deal with, as an article by Marnie Eisenstadt quotes based on a report given by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, “New York City contributed more than 45 percent of the state’s taxes and other revenues: $32.8 billion in 2010. But it only received 40 percent of the money the state passed out. Upstate counties (not including the Capital Region) contributed 24 percent of the state’s taxes and revenues but received 35 percent of the state money that was doled out in 2010.” (Eisenstadt) For the amount of tax revenue NYC generates, it has a significantly lower return rate from its state-funded expenditures.

Due to this lack of proper funding directed towards NYC as a whole, it has lead to many disparities within the schooling systems scattered throughout New York such that in out-of-city schools teachers are paid more with their source of greater resources. Therefore, the better teachers apply to work in those schools leaving underfunded schools within the city with inexperienced and unqualified teachers, as well as being supplied with inferior facilities and technology and as a result it’s students being adhered to a lower standard of curriculum to those of their counterparts in wealthier areas. (Lemasters)

 

Campaign for Fiscal Equity

There has been a campaign in attempt to reconcile this unfair treatment of the city headed by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE). The CFE is an organization comprised of students, parents and other organizations concerned with education system issues. They sued the state for not providing enough funding for city schools in order so that they would have a “sound basic education” that is entitled to their students based on the rights given to them by the constitution. Finally in 2006, 13 years after the original charge was made to the state, did the State Court of Appeals favor the CFE and stated that New York state owed the city over 5 billion dollars in education funding. While this was great news, the recession in 2009 led to a set back in the plans and state funding that was originally supposed to be distributed over a four year period only two years later was that increased funding reversed. (Education Law Center) While only up until recently has the state has been increasing the amount of funding they were originally supposed to be providing, they are still short, causing members of the CFE to do annual walks to Albany in demand of their already won money. (Disare)

In compliance with the courts legislative ruling favoring the CFE, in 2007 the governor and legislature enacted the Foundation Aid formula. It was designed to be the primary form of distribution schooling aid increases in a progressively targeted manner. Yet, according to research done by The Citizens Budget Commission, there are many problems with it including, “Inconsistent local share calculations do not uniformly and fairly account for a district’s ability to pay; Arbitrary floors, ceilings, phase-ins, and add-ons to aid amounts distort final funding distributions; and Outdated measures of poverty understate or overstate need in many districts.” (Friedfel)

 

Inequality in Funding

As New York itself isn’t receiving proper funding, this has been an even worse financial circumstance for the already impoverished minority schools within high-poverty labeled districts. Even though New York boasts to be one of the states that spends the most money per student in education, which according to the most recent release of NCES data states that it spends $19,952 per student. This only serves to mask the inequality within it. Based on research done by the Education Law Center, NY received a D when graded on funding distribution equity, highlighting it as a “regressive” distribution state. (Education Law Center)

Besides for not receiving proper funding from the state, inequity originates within the inherent nature of how funding is generated. Since funding is also a localized system that is produced by property taxes, the wealthier districts end up having more to spend. As can seen by the chart provided by the New York State Association of School Business Officials (NYSASBO), 55.5% of education revenue is derived from local funding sources.

Further, looking at the second chart, “In each of the three studies years the lowest need school districts spent more, taxed less and drew on a great deal more tax revenue per pupil than the highest need school districts.” (Winakor)

 

While The Department of Education of NYC states, “Our mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access,” The condition of the NYC public schools can attest to the failure in their attempts to achieve this goal. While they are promoting student achievement, they are doing so by providing the little funding that they do have to the high achieving academic excellent schools in the wealthier districts to further fuel their success. This comes at the expense of providing even lesser funding to those schools in lower income districts that don’t necessarily produce high achieving students, and has been proven to have a lower graduation rate than schools within low need districts as well as a lower percentage rate of college readiness students. (Frank) As proven by a study done by the Education Trust whose research concluded that states in the U.S in general “spend on average $1200 less per student in high-poverty districts than students in low-poverty ones,” and goes on to single out NYC school districts that they serve as “prime examples of unfair budgeting practices, where comparability with non-title I schools is not being.” (Data Center) What is even worse is that these under funded schools still have to adhere to the mandates that the state demands of them, dictating the little funding are receiving to areas not necessarily on their priority list, causing further detriment to the system.

 

It’s Not the End

While funds do seem to be increasing at this current point in time, what needs to be kept in mind, even if NYC does manage to get the proper funding, this is only half the battle, as Allan Odden, Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, states “Locally, if we just work on getting more money and use it the same old way without raising expectations or professional development, then there will be only modest improvement in the schools.” (Public Broadcasting Service)

 

Works Cited

“Data Center.” Data Center – Data First. Center for Public Education, n.d. Web. 22 May 2017.

Disare, Monica. “Have Supporters of a Lawsuit Demanding Billions in School Funds Finally Found Their Moment?” Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat, 03 Oct. 2016. Web. 22 May 2017.

“Education Law Center.” New York | Education Law Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 May 2017.

Eisenstadt, Marnie. “Upstate NY Grabs More than It Gives in Upstate-Downstate Fight over Tax Dollars.”syracuse.com Advance Digital, 20 Dec. 2011. Web. 22 May 2017.

Fessenden, Ford. “A Portrait of Segregation in New York City’s Schools.” The New York Times. The     New York Times, 10 May 2012. Web. 22 May 2017.

“Finance ~ How Do We Fund Our Schools?” PBS. Public Broadcasting Service, 11 Sept. 2008. Web. 22 May 2017.

Frank, Sally. “Reports.” Office of the New York City Comptroller Scott M Stringer ICal. Office of the New York City Comptroller, 22 Sept. 2016. Web. 22 May 2017.

Friedfel, Dave. “A Better Foundation Aid Formula.” Citizens Budget Commission of New York. Citizens Budget Commission, 12 Dec. 2016. Web. 22 May 2017.

Lemasters, Linda. “Disparities Between Urban and Suburban Schools – Education Facilities Clearinghouse.” Education Facilities Clearinghouse. EFC Publications, 11 June 2015. Web. 22 May 2017.

Winakor, Arthur H. “The Faculty Dollar.” The Journal of Higher Education 14.8 (1943): 421.www.nysasbo.org New York State Association of School Business Officials, Dec. 2016. Web. 22 May 2017.