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Commentary: New York's Pending Education Meltdown by Bill Heller
Thanks to Francesco L. Fratto, Director of LOTE & ESL, Half Hollow Hills CSD for bringing this piece to our attention.
New York's Pending Education Meltdown
by Bill Heller
New York's Pending Education Meltdown
by Bill Heller
Bill is a Spanish teacher at Perry High School in Perry, NY wrote an editorial about budget cuts and the impact on rural schools.
It would be understatement to call Governor Cuomo’s budget cuts to local school districts anything less than “criminal.” Wealthy suburban districts with large property tax bases will be able to continue to offer the high quality programs and support systems that consistently “earn” high ratings from self-important business publications. At the same time, our small town and rural districts, which are much more dependent on state aid, are being forced to cut flesh and bone from their already austere program offerings. The proposed funding cuts are unjustly targeting districts who serve significantly more children living in poverty than their suburban counterparts. As one local superintendent was quoted as saying, we are being forced to do “less with less.”
The sad thing is that the Governor knows that our dysfunctional legislatures will waste time posturing, quibbling and wrangling so long that, even if they are eventually able to come to an agreement, it will be too late. The damage will have already been done and the Governor’s proposal will have become the de facto reality. Those funds that the legislature may restore will not be able to be used to replace cut programs and positions once the budget is approved by voters.
The Governor based his cuts on mythology instead of reality. He and his minions have perpetuated a fantasy that all non-urban districts are sitting on huge piles of cash and padding their budgets with unnecessary largess and waste. Fiscal practices that create savings for capital improvements and budget for unforeseen contingencies, which are considered prudent financial management in the business world, are denigrated and vilified by the current administration in Albany. The capricious nature of the dysfunction of Albany doesn’t allow for any reliable and trustworthy long range fiscal planning. The collateral damage of this glaring incompetence is the education of our children. While solutions ultimately may be made at the ballot box, children don’t get a do-over on their formative years.
At the same time when, out of one side of his mouth this Governor talks about producing “career and college ready” students and providing students with “world-class education,” the very programs which are hallmarks of quality are being cut beyond redemption. Foreign language programs, which should be expanded down to the elementary school, as they are in places like Finland, South Korea and other countries noted for their high educational outcomes, are being pared down in ways that hinder their efficacy. Business courses, art and music classes are being reduced or eliminated. These hits are doubly harmful in rural areas because they lack the community, cultural and corporate agencies which can pick up the slack in more urban areas.
Schools in rural areas are an important focal point of vitality of their communities. School musical productions and sporting events provide a channel for community involvement and a source of civic pride. The school provides a gathering place for important events in the life of small towns. Locally elected school boards keep the school responsive to the specific needs of the students served by the district. The politicians in Albany are always promoting district mergers and consolidations as their solution to rising costs. However, the process and consequences of such mergers are so onerous that communities rarely will approve them. The BOCES model for sharing services does not result in significant savings because of having to support a whole “middle man” bureaucracy. The state should instead offer incentives for merging central administrative services, including the positions of superintendent and business manager in ways that allow communities to keep a local school board, reduce the need for bussing, maintain independent sports teams and retain fiscal autonomy.
Facile solutions spoken in sound bites would only be band aids to the present crisis. The armchair pundits, who fancy themselves as experts on public education because they once darkened the door of a classroom, blame all of the present financial ills on unions and tenure. Teachers are asked to take pay freezes instead of receiving the salary for which they justly negotiated in their contract. The consequences for the incompetence of Albany is laid on the shoulders of the teachers, who are too often presented with the horrible ultimatum of taking a pay cut or seeing their colleagues laid off and their programs decimated. Cynically asking teachers to “share in the sacrifice” would make sense if there had ever been a time when teachers were given bonus money when the state was prospering. Wild claims of lavish benefit packages based on anecdotal reports of provisions in outlier contracts are generalized to taint the entire profession. Teachers in most districts do contribute significantly to their insurance and when I retire, I will pay 100% for my health care.
I believe it is the time for dramatic action. It has become obvious that our own local legislators are either too impotent or even covertly complicit to stand up for our children. For too long, our small town school districts have been treated like second-class entities and have assumed the mentality and coping strategies of a battered victim. As a short term solution to fend off the imminent devastation of our rural school programs, I would propose that local school boards and superintendents refuse to set their budget and postpone their budget vote until the legislature and governor reach a final agreement. If rural Upstate school boards and superintendents, backed by the support of their communities, took this principled and courageous stand, it would provoke a crisis which would force Albany to act.
It would be understatement to call Governor Cuomo’s budget cuts to local school districts anything less than “criminal.” Wealthy suburban districts with large property tax bases will be able to continue to offer the high quality programs and support systems that consistently “earn” high ratings from self-important business publications. At the same time, our small town and rural districts, which are much more dependent on state aid, are being forced to cut flesh and bone from their already austere program offerings. The proposed funding cuts are unjustly targeting districts who serve significantly more children living in poverty than their suburban counterparts. As one local superintendent was quoted as saying, we are being forced to do “less with less.”
The sad thing is that the Governor knows that our dysfunctional legislatures will waste time posturing, quibbling and wrangling so long that, even if they are eventually able to come to an agreement, it will be too late. The damage will have already been done and the Governor’s proposal will have become the de facto reality. Those funds that the legislature may restore will not be able to be used to replace cut programs and positions once the budget is approved by voters.
The Governor based his cuts on mythology instead of reality. He and his minions have perpetuated a fantasy that all non-urban districts are sitting on huge piles of cash and padding their budgets with unnecessary largess and waste. Fiscal practices that create savings for capital improvements and budget for unforeseen contingencies, which are considered prudent financial management in the business world, are denigrated and vilified by the current administration in Albany. The capricious nature of the dysfunction of Albany doesn’t allow for any reliable and trustworthy long range fiscal planning. The collateral damage of this glaring incompetence is the education of our children. While solutions ultimately may be made at the ballot box, children don’t get a do-over on their formative years.
At the same time when, out of one side of his mouth this Governor talks about producing “career and college ready” students and providing students with “world-class education,” the very programs which are hallmarks of quality are being cut beyond redemption. Foreign language programs, which should be expanded down to the elementary school, as they are in places like Finland, South Korea and other countries noted for their high educational outcomes, are being pared down in ways that hinder their efficacy. Business courses, art and music classes are being reduced or eliminated. These hits are doubly harmful in rural areas because they lack the community, cultural and corporate agencies which can pick up the slack in more urban areas.
Schools in rural areas are an important focal point of vitality of their communities. School musical productions and sporting events provide a channel for community involvement and a source of civic pride. The school provides a gathering place for important events in the life of small towns. Locally elected school boards keep the school responsive to the specific needs of the students served by the district. The politicians in Albany are always promoting district mergers and consolidations as their solution to rising costs. However, the process and consequences of such mergers are so onerous that communities rarely will approve them. The BOCES model for sharing services does not result in significant savings because of having to support a whole “middle man” bureaucracy. The state should instead offer incentives for merging central administrative services, including the positions of superintendent and business manager in ways that allow communities to keep a local school board, reduce the need for bussing, maintain independent sports teams and retain fiscal autonomy.
Facile solutions spoken in sound bites would only be band aids to the present crisis. The armchair pundits, who fancy themselves as experts on public education because they once darkened the door of a classroom, blame all of the present financial ills on unions and tenure. Teachers are asked to take pay freezes instead of receiving the salary for which they justly negotiated in their contract. The consequences for the incompetence of Albany is laid on the shoulders of the teachers, who are too often presented with the horrible ultimatum of taking a pay cut or seeing their colleagues laid off and their programs decimated. Cynically asking teachers to “share in the sacrifice” would make sense if there had ever been a time when teachers were given bonus money when the state was prospering. Wild claims of lavish benefit packages based on anecdotal reports of provisions in outlier contracts are generalized to taint the entire profession. Teachers in most districts do contribute significantly to their insurance and when I retire, I will pay 100% for my health care.
I believe it is the time for dramatic action. It has become obvious that our own local legislators are either too impotent or even covertly complicit to stand up for our children. For too long, our small town school districts have been treated like second-class entities and have assumed the mentality and coping strategies of a battered victim. As a short term solution to fend off the imminent devastation of our rural school programs, I would propose that local school boards and superintendents refuse to set their budget and postpone their budget vote until the legislature and governor reach a final agreement. If rural Upstate school boards and superintendents, backed by the support of their communities, took this principled and courageous stand, it would provoke a crisis which would force Albany to act.
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