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Even with governance reform and full mayoral support, the new chancellor, Joel Klein, may face a thorny Catch-22.
Unless overturned by the state Court of Appeals, last month’s decision in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case effectively means that the city’s public schools will not receive more state school aid. This decision collides head-on with Albany's higher learning standards. It collides with Washington’s higher standards, too, and therefore puts the city at risk of losing federal funds.
The Campaign for Fiscal Equity decision held that the state’s level of financing public education in the city did not violate the state constitutional right to a “sound, basic education.” The Appellate Division majority opinion concluded that having the opportunity to get an eighth-to-ninth-grade education in 2002 is equivalent to a “sound, basic education.” But federal law says otherwise, and the conflict could lead to the cutoff of tens of millions of dollars in desperately needed funds.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires the states to hold schools accountable for all students reaching their state’s English and math standards in 12 years of schooling. To receive federal funds for poor and disadvantaged students, each state must have academic content standards that “specify what all students are expected to know and be able to do.” The law puts teeth behind the requirement, demanding accountability as shown by performance on state tests. Critically, those tests are required not just through grade 8, but in reading, language arts, math and science at the 10th-through-12th-grade level as well. The learning standards that the state argues are merely “aspirational” are the very yardstick for receiving federal funds.
Even worse, at the same time the state refuses to supply adequate funds, Albany is telling our students that they have to pass five Regents test by next year to graduate. In short, the standards are mandatory—but providing resources to obtain them is optional.
The appellate court believed that the opinion lacked a clear enough standard to prevent “limitless litigation.” So why didn’t it simply remand for a clearer opinion or apply the state’s own learning standards that the federal government uses to determine the release of funds?
One of the first tasks the new chancellor, with the mayor, should tackle is doing everything possible to persuade Gov. Pataki to settle the case, provide equitable funding and make learning standards truly attainable.
© Daily News, 2002
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