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Inequality: New study confirms hard hit on poor schools
State aid cuts in 2011 twice as tough on poor as wealthy
schools
 November
18, 2011—A new study by the Alliance for
Quality Education reports that poor school districts lost
two to three times as much state aid as wealthier ones in
2011 as New York State drastically cut spending to reduce a
deficit.
The inequitable reductions revealed in the report confirm
the position of most upstate educators that the foundation
aid formulas are unfair.
“This study reaffirms the argument we’ve made for the past
year,” HFM BOCES District Superintendent Dr. Patrick Michel
said. “I realize some members of the New York State Senate
have been trying to disregard our data, but the facts are
the facts. The inequality embedded in New York State’s
school funding formula is unjust and has evolved into a
civil rights issue!”
“Those who supported the defunding of our upstate public
schools by voting for last year’s budget cuts should be held
responsible for not looking out for the best interests of
their own constituencies.”
On Tuesday, Nov. 15, the not-for-profit, community-based
Alliance for Quality Education released a report that
examined the connection between school district poverty and
wealth with the size of last year’s state aid cuts. The
analysis reviewed data for each of the state's 684 school
districts.
The report, entitled “Back
to Inequality: How Students in Poor School Districts are
Paying the Price for the State Budget,” found that
cuts affected students in all districts, but the greatest
negative impact occurred in poor districts. New York City
schools were studied separately so as not to skew the
results.
The 2011 state budget cut $1.3 billion from school
classrooms across New York. In enacting these cuts, students
in poor districts lost the most, according to the report. In
fact, the cuts in poor districts were three times as large
they were in wealthy districts.
While cuts in High Wealth Districts averaged $269 per pupil,
the average in the Poorest Districts was twice as large at
$547 per pupil. Cuts in districts classified as “Poor
Districts” were more than three times as large at $843 per
pupil while those in Below Average Wealth Districts were
almost three times as large at $727 per pupil.
The report segmented the HFM BOCES region, placing Hamilton
County schools into the North Country region, and the Fulton
and Montgomery County schools in the Mohawk Valley group.
North Country schools average cuts of $730 per pupil, while
Mohawk Valley schools saw cuts of $652 per pupil.
To put these cuts in perspective, cuts to most HFM BOCES
schools amount to approximately $16,300 for a classroom of
25 students.
HFM BOCES component districts made cuts in their 2011-12
budgets to summer school, art, music, and honors or advanced
placement courses that are essential to competitive college
applications. More than 140 positions were lost or reduced
in HFM component school districts.
According to the report, class sizes across the state went
up in 63 percent of school districts, and 11,000 teachers,
librarians, guidance counselors and other school positions
were eliminated this year
The report stated that in 2007 when New York State’s
government settled the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit,
the state prioritized the poorest school districts by giving
the largest increases to the neediest districts.
The poorest districts received increases that were
four-and-a-half times those in the wealthiest districts.
Poor districts received increases that were two-and-half
times larger than the wealthiest districts. This reflected a
commitment that state government would be the great
equalizer in ensuring educational opportunity for all
students.
However, in 2011, Governor Cuomo and the Legislature
reversed state policy by giving larger cuts to needy
districts. This represents a dramatic reversal in state
policies from prioritizing the neediest students to making
them sacrifice the most.'
The new AQE study echoes the findings of a Rutgers
University study released in October, 2011. “School
Funding Fairness in New York State” also points out the
disparity between wealthy and poor districts in recent state
funding cuts, but focuses more on the mechanical flaws in
the foundation aid formula itself, and how they perpetuate
the inequity, leading that report to characterize New York
State as one of the most regressively funded states in the
nation.
Read “School Funding Fairness in New York State”
here (pdf)
Learn more about the Alliance for Quality Education and read
the entire report at
www.aqeny.org.
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