From Capital District Business Review, April 17,2000
(Annual Focus: Schools Report)Jean DerGurahian
Not many would argue that education financing needs to be reformed, but groups have various ideas on how to achieve fairness and equity. In the meantime, school districts struggle to maintain cost-effectiveness while guaranteeing high passing rates on the state's standard exams.
Cambridge Central School District in Washington County ranked No. 16 in the Business Review's rating of the 79 school systems here, but came in at No. 6 in cost-effectiveness.
The school district, with 1,225 students enrolled, spends $8,047 per pupil--compared to Bolton Central School District in Warren County, No. 10 in the ranking, which spends $15,590 on each of its 268 students.
Both school systems reported high scores in the state's math and science Regents exams, but Cambridge was able to do more with less.
That's because the rural school district has streamlined its "no frills" programs and made the Regents diploma its basic standard two years ago, said Charles Noe, superintendent of Cambridge Central. This year, the state will require all students to take the Regents curriculum.
The expectation is that the students receive high grades in the courses, because the district's focus is the Regents, Noe said.
"We've continued to produce excellent scores with meager resources," he said.
Cambridge Central reported that 103 percent passed the math sequence I and 97 percent passed the Regents biology exams. Bolton Central reported scores of 133 percent passing on the math and 110 percent passing the biology exams.
Accountability--the level of schools' achievement on the state's standard exams--is closely related to the amount of funding that should be available, according to the Campaign for Fiscal Equity Inc., a New York City-based non-profit organization that seeks to reform the state education finance system. The corporation has taken the state to trial, saying that its methods for determining aid to school districts is unconstitutional.
"To achieve an effective accountability system, the state must assure stable funding and sufficient resources to provide all students the opportunity for a sound basic education," reads a booklet the CFE has put together for its case against the state.
The state uses about 47 different formulas to first allocate funding for school districts in New York City, then to divide the rest among school systems outside the metropolis, said Jessica Garcia, outreach coordinator for CFE.
The state starts with the city and works backward, which means some districts get more than they need and others receive less, she said. "It's not only New York City that suffers," she added.
One of the factors that skews the numbers is the way the state reports the money spent indirectly on private schools, said Frank Mauro, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a Latham think-tank that focuses on the fairness of the state's tax system, government spending, and the adequacy and stability of public services.
The state can't give private schools direct funding, but that is not reflected when the state figures the amount spent per pupil in its annual report card, he said.
Some students who ride buses go to private schools, and public schools will purchase textbooks for private schools, but neither figure is parsed separately, he said.
This is unfair, particularly to urban school districts that have a lot of private school students, Mauro said, pointing to the city of Albany as an example.
"[The expenditure per pupil] makes Albany look higher than some suburban districts than it really is," he said. Albany City School District--ranked No. 79 on the Business Review list--spends $10,963 on each of its 10,380 students.
The think-tank has proposed to change the formulas used to allocate school funding that would create an average amount for each student, altered for cost differences, Mauro said. With a simpler, more fair formula, "school districts would know what they could count on," he said.
Change-NY, a conservative think-tank in Clifton Park, has a different view of how the state should reform the education system. With a voucher system, students are given more choices in schools, and the pressure is on the school districts to improve its programs, said Brian Backstrom, vice president of Change-NY.
"Bureaucrats don't know what's the best education for a child. What right does the government have to force children to go to a school they don't want to be in?" he said.
All sides agree that politics play too great a role in the education system. Noe, of the Cambridge Central School District, said he would like to offer more programs and activities, but the money just isn't there. The funding structure should be linked to performance, but schools that perform well are not being rewarded, he said.
There needs to be more non-partisan discussion among politicians about reforming the system, Noe said. "One side of the street has to talk to the other side of the street."