EQUITY IN STATE EDUCATION SPENDING:
‘MONEY DOESN’T TALK, IT SWEARS’
Robert F. Pecorella*
Professor of Government and Politics
St. John’s University
This paper examines the distribution of education aid in New York
State from within the framework of a policy-game model. It reviews
the basic resource inequities characterizing public education in light
of student demographics, quality of educational inputs, and levels
of student academic performance. Through analysis of the politics
surrounding the demands for a more equitable distribution of state
education aid, the author seeks to clarify the relative political
influence and diverse strategies of the relevant players as well as
the rules within which current education funding options are considered.
Professor Pecorella approaches the future with a cautious optimism
that advocates can achieve equity in the education financing system.+
This paper was presented as part of a workshop organized by Professor
Pecorella on “Community Strategies in Education” which examined
the issue of educational quality for low income children at the Vincentian
Chair of Social Justice Conference, “The Moral Dimensions of
Poverty” on October 16, 1999.
Public education is a highly visible and frequently controversial
topic in New York State. It is also one of the State’s “big-ticket”
budget items. The Fiscal Year 2000 Budget allocates $12.7 billion,
more than 17 percent of total state spending, in general education
aid to local school districts. “Adjusted for inflation and the
number of children in public schools, school aid is now at an all
time high, exceeding the previous peak set in 1990, just before the
last recession” (Perez-Pena, 1999: B4). The local school districts
are, in turn, expending nearly 15 billion of their own dollars on
education. Factoring in federal monies, total government spending
on public education in New York State rises to over 30 billion dollars
in FY 2000 (Senate Committee on Education, 1998). In addition, the
State is allocating another $1.3 billion for school construction and
renovation during the fiscal year.
The political accommodations surrounding
the State’s annual education budget are fairly predictable. Usually,
the governor’s initial executive budget proposal includes smaller
education expenditures than the final budget adopted by the legislature.
In exchange for the annual opportunity to claim political credit for
increased education spending within their districts, legislators give
“due consideration” to gubernatorial initiatives in other
areas. Given the vagaries of Albany politics in other areas, that
part of the education budget process is relatively harmless. What
is not harmless, however, are the intra-state inequities in spending
included within the education budget. State education aid only partially
alleviates—and in the case of New York City actually exacerbates—the
existing inequities in per pupil expenditures in the school districts
around the State.
It is useful to consider intra-state funding inequities from within
the context of education politics generally. In recent years, the
politics surrounding education issues in New York has become noticeably
more intense and at times embarrassingly crass. The Governor’s
charter school proposal, for example, was resisted adamantly for several
years by the State Assembly’s Democratic majority until it was
tied to the proposal for legislative pay raises during the Legislature’s
December 1998 Special Session. Nor is the increased intensity in education
politics solely an Albany-based phenomenon. In New York City, Mayor
Giuliani’s proposal to fund a pilot voucher program produced
an immediate resignation threat from the Schools Chancellor which,
in turn, provoked the Mayor to suggest “blowing up” the
City’s Board of Education.
Midnight deals, resignation threats,
and mayoral terrorism notwithstanding, there is general agreement
in New York State that public education is in trouble. Depending
on
where one sits or, perhaps more to the point where one’s children
sit, the problem has reached a crisis stage. Indeed, for many New
Yorkers in the inner-city communities of the State’s larger cities,
the problems with education long ago reached the level of crisis.
It is a regrettable but durable fact of American politics, however,
that crises may well “fall in the forest” and not make any
noise, particularly if the “forest” in question is a low-income,
urban neighborhood. In recent years, however, concerns about educational
quality have become sufficiently widespread and the legitimacy of
education bureaucracies has become sufficiently questionable to require
more than the usual political response.1
This paper examines the distribution of education aid in New York
State from within the framework of a policy-game model (Long,
1958: 253). It reviews the basic resource inequities characterizing
public education in the State in light of student demographics, quality
of educational inputs, and the often disappointing and in some cases
appalling levels of student academic performance. The paper then analyzes
the politics surrounding the demands for a more equitable distribution
of state education aid by focusing on the geographical power distribution
within the State Legislature. In this fashion, the paper seeks to
clarify the relative political influence and diverse strategies of
the relevant players as well as the rules of the different arenas
within which current education funding options are considered.
Four
preliminary comments are in order. First, policy making in the United
States is a reactive, incremental enterprise, which affords to
the status quo the benefit of most doubts. Indeed, in the
world of dueling proverbs, the pro-active admonition to “make hay while
the sun shines” stands little chance in the face of the “if
it ain’t broke don’t fix it” philosophy surrounding
American public policy.2 Second,
those domestic public policies in the United States, which are open
to popular influence, are driven by the actions of attentive non elites.3
American politics will rarely disappoint those
who remember that “most people don’t care about most issues
most of the time.” Third, public policy decisions are implemented
by government agencies that benefit politically
from the reality of the first point and coexist quite comfortably
with the consequences of the second. Fourth and most germane to
the
subject, public policies do not educate children. Competent teachers
can overcome terribly dysfunctional situations to reach children
(they
do it every day in New York City) and mediocre teachers will cheat
their students even if working in institutional utopias. The best
government can do is to structure systems and implement policies
which
do not impede excellence and/or reward mediocrity.4
THE STATE OF EDUCATION IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK
Article XI of the New York State Constitution is
the basis for the state government’s role in New York’s
education system. Section 1 requires the legislature to “provide
for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools,
wherein all the children of this state may be educated.” This
section has been interpreted by the courts to require “not simply
schools, but a system; not merely that they shall be common, but free;
and not only that they shall be numerous, but that they shall be sufficient
in number so that the children of the state may, unless otherwise
provided for, receive in them their education” (1894 Constitutional
Document n. 62, pp. 3–4 as quoted in Stone, 1994: 178).
Section 2 of Article XI provides constitutional status to the Regents
of the University of the State of New York, created by statute in
1784, as the governing body of the State’s system of common schools.
Currently, there are sixteen Regents, one from each of the State’s
twelve Judicial Districts and four from the State at-large, who are
selected by the State Legislature for seven-year overlapping terms.
The Regents are responsible for New York’s comprehensive educational
system including: “all public and nonpublic elementary and secondary
schools; all postsecondary institutions including State University,
City University of New York and all independent and proprietary schools;
all museums, libraries and historical societies; vocational and rehabilitation
agencies; and it also has jurisdiction of 31 major professions”
(Legislative Manual, 1989: 538–39). The Regents select the State’s
Commissioner of Education who serves at their pleasure. “Comparative
research has found no other state in which a single education authority
has been assigned, either by constitution or by statute, the breadth
of responsibilities assigned to the Board of Regents/Commissioner
of Education” (Stone, 1994: 179–80).
In 1999, elementary and high schools in New York State will be responsible
for the education of nearly three million students, a higher number
than at any time since the end of the 1970s (State Education Department,
1998: 19). Moreover, enrollment increases are expected to continue
at least through the early part of the 21st Century.
Responsibility for the actual delivery of education services in New
York lies with the State’s 718 local school districts, the overwhelming
majority of which function as independent local governments with their
own budgetary authority. The five school districts representing the
cities of Buffalo, New York, Rochester, Syracuse, and Yonkers, however,
are not independent. Within these five districts, which include over
40 percent of students in the State, school budgets are part of the
overall municipal budgets. The 429 suburban independent school districts
in the state also include more than 40 percent of the State’s
students with the remaining students enrolled in rural or small-city
school districts. Not surprisingly, the New York City district is
the State’s largest with 37 percent of total student enrollment.5
Financing Public Education: Equity and the
Role of the State
Local control of education means that a substantial proportion
of the funding necessary to run schools must be raised at the district
level. As a consequence, the 713 independent school districts in
New York State are heavily dependent on local property taxes
to support their operations, while the five large-city districts
are dependent on the largess of local municipal officials
for money. Because the traditional source of sub-state revenue
in the United States is the property tax, the extent of the fiscal
resources available for education is dependent on property values
within the school districts.6 Obviously,
such a system favors communities with higher property values. Wealthier
school districts are able to secure greater resources with less
tax effort, i.e., employing lower assessments or actual tax rates,
than are their less wealthy counterparts. Consequently, with less
effort and certainly with less proportionate “fiscal pain,” residents
of wealthier school districts are able to expend more on education
per pupil than those in middle-class districts who are, in turn,
capable of spending more than residents of school districts in
low-income communities. The federal fiscal role in education has
been small relative to total expenditures. Since the passage of
Elementary and Secondary School Act (ESEA) of 1965 [ESEA], federal
expenditures have accounted for less than 5 percent of New York
State’s education spending.
The data in Table I point to four general conclusions about the
impact of the State funding role in New York. One, state aid substantially
increases per
pupil educational expenditures in a number of school districts including those
located in: the four largeurban school districts other than New York City,
lower-income small cities and suburban areas of the State, and the rural areas.
In fact, the data indicate that the school districts in the State’s other
large cities (all but Yonkers located in upstate New York) as well as those
in the smaller upstate cities and suburbs emerge from the state aid process
better off than the State average. Two, although rural school districts remain
below the State per pupil spending average, they experience the highest relative
increases in the State. Three, even after State aid is factored in, however,
per pupil expenditures in New York City remain below the state’s average.
Moreover, it is worth noting that New York City’s local per capita education
expenditures are similar to those in other large urban areas in the State.
Four, despite the fact that their local per pupil expenditures are 183 percent
higher than the local average, upper-income, suburban school districts are
provided with nearly $2,000 more in per pupil state education aid.
The impact of this largess becomes clear if we consider what would happen if
the State funds allocated to the upper-income suburbs were allotted instead
to districts below the average State per pupil expenditure, i.e., those in
New York City and in the rural areas of the State. Without
taking one dime of the suburbs’ locally generated education funds thereby
allowing them to maintain their practice of spending significantly
more than the State overall average from their own resources, the
decision to redirect State aid money would bring the City and the
rural areas up to the State’s per pupil average. In short,
a small redirection of State effort would substantially increase
the equity in education spending around the State. Such a redirection,
however, is not only politically difficult, it has been made illegal
in New York. Section 3602 of the State’s Education Law includes
a “save harmless” provision which guarantees funding
to all districts even if student attendance decreases (New York
Education Law).
It is also worth noting that Table I understates the inequitable treatment
afforded to New York City. If the more than $10 billion in State education
aid appropriated in 1995- 96 were apportioned based strictly on student numbers,
the City would have received an additional $177 million, adding $168.70 for
each student bringing the per pupil total to $3724.93.7 The
shortfall in fiscal year 2000 is expected to exceed $200 million. It is not
surprising that a prominent education journal ranked New York State as 48th in
the degree of equity in the distribution of its educational resources (Education
Week, 1998).
The teacher-student relationship is the fundamental connection
in any educational system. Table II illustrates the diversity in
teachers’ working conditions
around the State. New York City teachers are responsible for more pupils and
are paid significantly less than teachers in several other jurisdictions. The
average median annual salary of City teachers is 40 percent lower than that
of their counterparts in upper-income suburban districts. The fact that City
teachers are more likely than teachers in other parts of the State to be pursuing
post master’s work or doctoral degrees only exacerbates these regional
inequities. Indeed, such inequities may go a long way to explaining the high
teacher turnover rate in the City.
Additionally, teachers in New York City schools
face nearly 17 percent of the students who have limited proficiency
in English. Teachers have to develop strategies to overcome the
income and racial divides. More than 90 percent of New York City’s
750 “high minority” schools are in the “high poverty” category.8 With
58 percent fewer computers per student than the state average and
with a much lower percentage of new generation computers in use
than the state average, New York City lags far behind other jurisdictions
in the State on the ability to provide students with the necessary
skills
to function in this economy. In fact, in terms of general information
sources, schools in New York City have 67 percent fewer books available
per student than the state average and 162 percent fewer books
per
student than upper-income suburban districts. (State Education Department,
1998: 80–81).
State Funding and Educational Performance: A Correlation
Analysis
Two conclusions emerge from examining student performance
data (State Education Department 1998) on schools achieving State
standards in 3rd and 6th
grade reading 1996–97 and schools passing
the Regents Examination 1995–1997. One, there are far greater
problems with student performance in the large cities of the state
than in other jurisdictions. Only the large city districts contain
a substantial percentage of elementary schools with students who fail
to achieve third or sixth-grade reading levels. Moreover, these urban
districts lag significantly behind those in the rest of the state
in percentages of high schools with students taking and passing Regents
Examinations. It is hard to escape the conclusion that: “Generally
speaking, the ‘bad’ students are in urban districts…
[and] the ‘good’ students are in suburban, wellfunded districts” (Stashenko,
1999: B3).
The data also clearly indicate that New York
City schools have the most pronounced studentperformance problems
of all the urban areas in the State. Whereas fewer than one-fifth
of the elementary schools in New York City have 80 percent or more
of their students meeting thirdgrade reading standards, more than
three-fifths of the other large city schools do. Even more tellingly,
more than 90 percent of other schools in the State (100 percent
in
upper-income suburban districts) have 80 percent or more of their
students meeting the third-grade reading standards. The results
are
similar for sixth-grade student performance. At the high school level,
New York City has a disturbingly small percentage of students taking
and passing the Regents Examination. New York City also contains
92
of the 99 high schools included within the State Education Department’s
Schools under Registration Review (SURR) program (State Education
Department, 1998: 20).
A more in-depth examination of the data makes it abundantly clear
that there is intra-city as well as intra-state differences in educational
performance in New York. The City public schools with the most difficulties
are those in low-income, African-American or Latino communities.
Moreover,
the local districts in such communities have the City’s least
experienced, lowest paid teachers. The basic point can be stated directly:
the wealthier and whiter the students, the more educational opportunities
available to them. Indeed, the intra-state and city racial and class
inequities are so stark that it is difficult to contradict those observers
who see public education as serving a “class reproduction”
function in American society.
THE POLITICS OF EDUCATION IN THE NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATURE
Policy analysts need to consider the context within which policymakers
operate. The primary decision center concerning education aid in
New
York is the State legislature. Analyzing the distribution of state
aid, therefore, requires a review of the decision-making context
constraining
legislative politics in New York. Since 1975, control
of the State Legislature has been divided with the Democrats in
charge of the Assembly and the
Republicans holding a smaller but stable majority in the Senate.
Under a highly partisan system, majority party conferences
charge their legislative leadership with developing unified policy
positions
and representing them in negotiations with the other house and the
governor. To assist the leaders, the conferences grant them the
authority
to select the chairs and majority members of committees; to fill
lower leadership positions; and to allocate staff among members.
The majority
party conference, therefore, effectively makes the policy decisions
for each house.9 The majority
conference in each house reflects the regional nature of party politics
in the State. While the Republican majority in the Senate includes
mostly suburban and rural members, there is a decided “downstate
cast” to the Democratic conference in the Assembly. Since gaining
control of the Assembly in 1974, more than 60 percent of the Democratic
conference each session and all five assembly speakers have been
from
New York City.
Given the City’s influence, it is not surprising that for a quarter
century, the Assembly has emphasized a “Liberal or statist approach” to
government which includes support for relatively generous State spending
on education. As Table III indicates, Democrats in the Assembly
are decidedly more liberal than Republicans in the Senate and New
York City Democrats remain the most liberal of all the regional groupings.
Indeed, the Assembly Democrats have used their influence to push
for
a host of social programs that were resisted, at least initially,
by the Republican Senate and sometimes even by Democratic Governors.
The question remains, then, as to why the Assembly has been unable
to produce a fairer distribution of State education aid for New York
City
schools.
The answer is twofold. From a statewide perspective, it is found in
the regional distribution of political power within the New York State
Legislature; from an Assembly Democratic perspective, the answer lies
in the diversity of the party conference and the multi-faceted nature
of policy responsibilities.
Suburbanization and the State Senate’s Majority Conference
In New York, the State Senate is the center of suburban political
power and Republican control of that body explains a good deal about
the distribution of State education aid. Of the 35–26 Senate
majority the Republicans held in 1999, 19 members were from rural
areas of the State, 11 were from suburban districts, and only five
were from New York City. Eleven members can wield substantial political
influence in a 35 member party conference if they are unified on what
they perceive as a salient policy issue. School aid issues meet the
two criteria of unity and saliency. The independent school districts
in the areas these members represent become annual test cases, evaluated
in biennial elections, of a legislator’s ability to “bring
home the bacon.” Characterizing state aid for schools as “the
single most important issue” on Republican senators’ political
agendas, Berne writes: “The Republican senators bargain hard
for their school district state aid because of the personal identification
with specific [school] districts and the importance of state aid for
education for their constituents” (Berne, 1994: 260). In budget
negotiations with the assembly speaker and the governor, therefore,
education aid looms very large on the senate majority leader’s
agenda, i.e., it is a bottom-line issue not to be traded away for
other political concessions.10
Moreover, upstate Republican senators, anxious
to hold their majority, have no incentive to fight suburban school
aid, particularly since their districts do so well in the distribution
formula. This often singular focus helps explain the Senate’s
success in channeling education aid to districts where any reasonably
equitable definition of need indicates it should not go. Consequently,
the relatively small cities and suburbs of upstate New York receive
substantial increases in funding which pushes their school districts
above the state per pupil spending average. Upstate rural areas receive
the largest increases in state funding; and the upper-income suburbs
continue to be rewarded with nearly $2,000 per pupil in state education
aid. It is not a coincidence these areas are all represented by Republican
senators.
The Multi-Faceted Nature of the Assembly Democratic Conference
The question remains as to why the Democratic majority in
the Assembly has not been more effective in securing state education
aid for its constituents. The answer lies in the heterogeneous nature
of the Democratic conference in the Assembly and the wide range of
social issues relevant to New York City representatives. The Assembly
Democratic Conference, reflecting the diversity of the party’s
support base in the electorate, develops policy positions only after
negotiations among and accommodations by conference factions. As a
rule, upstate Democrats are less “liberal” then their New
York City counterparts. In fact, a number of these upstate Democrats
campaign with Conservative Party cross-endorsement and at times are
openly critical of their own leadership in their election campaigns.
These upstate Democrats have greater districtbased political incentives
to appear independent from the downstate liberal leadership than they
have in working to help equalize the amount of education aid going
to “the City.” As a consequence, the distribution of education
aid is not a bottom-line issue with this crucial portion of the majority
conference; indeed, open support for increased aid to New York City
would probably be politically injurious in these upstate districts.
The downstate party leadership can not afford to ignore
the interests of these upstate members if the Democrats are to
hold their majority
in the Assembly. After all, the party only achieved majority status
in the Assembly when upstate urban areas began electing Democrats.
With that in mind, the Assembly leadership, although it may be
personally
and politically committed to increased equity in education funding,
does not have the same strong support base reinforcing its commitment
on this issue as does the Senate leadership.
The diversity within the Democratic conference is not solely regional
in nature. Although the New York City delegation in the 1990s includes
a decisive majority of white “liberals” and African American
and Hispanic members who may well focus on the equity of education
spending issue, it also includes a small group of “moderates”
who represent white middle-class areas of the outer boroughs and who
emphasize more conservative social agendas. Indeed several of these
City Democrats have accepted Conservative Party cross-endorsement
which has proven important to electoral success in their districts.
Moreover, as the analysis of intra-city student performance differences
showed, in many of their districts, educational problems have not
reached crisis proportions and consequently may not be preeminent
in their constituents’ minds. Therefore, while these members
undoubtedly support increased funding for the City’s schools,
the issue does not have the saliency it has in other less-fortunate,
downstate districts. There are competing social issues on the plate
of the Democratic Conference in the Assembly which, depending on the
political climate at any time, might well put education issues on
a political backburner.
The in-house political contexts described
above accompany members of the Senate and Assembly to the “negotiating
tables” where public policy matters are worked out between leaders
of the majority conferences in the two houses. On some matters, conference
members afford the leaders wide discretion in negotiating agreements;
on other matters, however, a leader brings “marching orders”
from the conference defining a more restricted area of permissible
compromise; on still other matters, one conference is more directive
than the other. It is obvious that education financing fits into that
third category with the Senate Republican Conference being significantly
more directive than its Assembly counterparts.11
Governors and Education Financing
In past years, Democratic Governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo spoke
out in favor of increased equity in education financing, often mentioning
the matter in their “State of the State” addresses and aligning
their initial budget proposals with those in the Assembly favoring
increased equity in education funding (Berne, 1994). In so doing,
both governors were being responsive, as Democratic governors in New
York must be, to their substantial voter base in New York City. When
negotiating multi-billion dollar budgets with the legislative leadership,
however, state executives are unable to focus on more than one or
two major policy issues in any one year. Given the Senate’s staunch
political commitment to “save harmless” school funding,
Democratic governors had little chance of changing the state’s
education financing policy without risking even later budgets or sacrificing
other policy initiatives.
In 1999, the political reality surrounding
gubernatorial politics and education aid is even starker. The growth
of the suburbs and the proportionately smaller turnout of the city’s
low-income voters have decreased the salience of the City vote over
the years. In 1994 and again in 1998 George Pataki won election with
a smaller percentage of the New York City vote than any other successful
gubernatorial candidate did in this century. He accomplished this
in 1994 by winning a substantial majority of a notably large upstate
turnout; in 1998, Pataki maintained his upstate support and increased
his share of the suburban vote. It is well worth noting that whereas
previous Republican governors had averaged roughly 40 percent of the
city vote, Pataki captured just over one-quarter of the city in 1994
and less than one-third in 1998 (Pecorella, 1999). In political terms,
therefore, Governor George Pataki owes New York City nothing and will
in all likelihood deliver in kind on the education aid issue.
In summary, while Senate Republicans approach the issue of education
financing with a unified, single-focus intensity, Assembly Democrats
approach it as one of a number of issues that must be dealt with
by
an always multi-focused and sometimes fractious party conference.
In the past, Democratic governors have supplied rhetorical and initial
executive budget support for increased equity in education financing
with little effect; the current incumbent has few incentives to even
attempt to rectify the inequities. Under such political circumstances,
it is not surprising that New York City does relatively poorly in
the school-funding policy game.
STRATEGIES TO INCREASE FUNDING EQUITY IN NEW YORK
Pressures for changing public policy usually follow a
“precipitating event” or series of events that can take
a number of different forms.12 One,
a sudden and highly visible crisis, such as the hazardous waste problems
in Love Canal, can prompt relatively swift government policy response.
If a crisis situation evolves incrementally over a period of years,
however, what is for one generation “unthinkable” can become
the next generation’s status quo. Two, the persistent efforts
of well-organized interest groups, operating within a political environment
characterized by supportive or at least permissive public opinion,
can produce policy change. Such was the case with the impact of Mothers
Against Drunk Driving (MADD) on traffic laws around the nation. Three,
the mobilization of mass movements focused on social justice issues,
e.g., labor practices, civil rights, gender equality, etc., can generate
policy change if those movements evidence committed members, capable
leaders, and receptive publics. Fourth, the actions of policy entrepreneurs
within government, such as those in the Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s
Office prior to the “war on poverty” programs of the 1960s,
can initiate policy change.
Changing New York’s education aid practices will require a portion
of several of the options outlined above. An existing education crisis
must be redefined in updated terms so that what has been the status
quo becomes unacceptable; new coalitions of interest groups must pressure
for increased equity in state education aid; and policy entrepreneurs
must emerge in Albany to carry the fight forward.
Equity Reform Through Legislative Action
In the past, education reform was driven by coalitions of
professional educators and business interests and that remains true
in the 1990s.13 “Across
the country, business concerns and schools are beginning to recognize
a mutuality of interest and are forging a new relationship” (Sylvester,
1992: 23). Business interests become involved when educational problems
have larger socioeconomic implications, i.e., educational deficiencies
threaten social stability or the production process. During the first
two decades of the 20th century, public education was seen by some
as a way of socializing Eastern and Southern European immigrants to
the WASP work ethic (Tyack, 1975). At the same time, vocational education
was seen by others as ensuring “a steady stream of docile workers
into various strata of the labor force...”(Mirel, 1999: 11).
From this perspective, the educational demands of a post-industrial,
global economy may well have turned what was once a socially tolerable
status quo, i.e., inner-city educational failure, into a crisis somewhat
akin to that produced by the launch of Sputnik. Students unable to
perform on basic academic levels are not trainable for many information-age
jobs. Moreover, as full-employment indicators are revised upward by
an extended period of relatively stable growth, business interests
can no longer ignore educational deficiencies in a significant segment
of society. As a recent Associated Press report indicated: “Graduates
of the nation’s largest public school system don’t have
what it takes to succeed at work...They ranked ‘poor’ or
‘fair’ in skills such as basic math, grammar, spelling and
reading and writing English, according to a survey of 450 business
leaders…. Nationwide, employers in similar surveys said 68 percent
of publicschool graduates lack basic skills...In the City, that figure
is 73 percent” (AP State and Local Wire, 1997).
To improve student
performance, business people tend to focus on increased educational
choice. As a result, tensions emerge between the reform foci of
business
and those of unionized professional educators, which tend
to center on increased funding of the current system. However,
as increased educational choice, in the form of magnet, alternative
and charter schools, fast becomes a fact of life in American education,
organizations like New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) and the
United Federation of Teachers (UFT) begin to adapt to the new order.14 Uniting
the calls for choice with a push for increased funding of urban
schools, a two-pronged reform initiative that a coalition with
business interests might readily pursue, would almost certainly
accelerate these adaptations.
A choice-equity coalition might adopt a number of political
strategies to reach relevant decision-makers. The most obvious
and direct approach is to intensify
the political pressure on Assembly members from the City. If a sufficient number
of these members are convinced that education spending is a “make or break” issue
with a crucial part of their constituency, i.e., that their electoral fortunes
may well ride on this policy outcome, then they will work to redefine the saliency
of the issue within their party conference. In that fashion, the Assembly leadership
will be pressured to bring a less-accommodating stance on educational financing
to the bargaining table with the Senate and the Governor.
It is also useful to recognize that the State Senate is not
immune from political pressure on this issue. On the one hand,
Republicans are susceptible to business
pressure generally and are largely supportive of increased educational choice;
on the other, the Republican senate majority is small enough for small blocs
of senators to exercise substantial influence in the majority conference. In
fact, a 36–25 majority means that a change of only six Republican votes
on the floor can alter policy outcomes.15 Pressuring
the five New York City Republicans to work within their party to “soften” the
conference position on equity is another strategy, which, in unison with the
other two already mentioned, might achieve results. In fact, this was the strategy
successfully employed in 1997 by tenant’s groups to protect rent regulation
after Majority Leader Joseph Bruno threatened to end it (Pecorella, 1999).
A choice-equity coalition needs to consider what “legislative success” might
look like.
Equity Reform Through Judicial Action
The State courts represent yet another option open to proponents of increased
equity in education funding. The New York State Court of Appeals has addressed
the equity issue several times in recent years. With each decision, the Court
has inched closer to but avoided issuing the type of equity-mandating ruling
handed down by a number of state courts including those in Kentucky, Texas
and New Jersey.16 In the Levittown case,
the Court of Appeals acknowledged that New York State’s education system
had “significant inequalities in the availability of financial support
for local school districts, ranging from minor discrepancies to major difficulties,
resulting in significant unevenness in the educational opportunities offered” (1982:
38). Nevertheless, the Court found that the school financing system was constitutional
because it provided all students with the opportunity of a basic education “above
the minimum standard.” The Court explained: “What appears to have
been contemplated when the Education Article was adopted
at the 1894 Constitutional Convention was a State-wide system assuring
minimal
acceptable facilities and services in contrast to the unsystematized
delivery of instruction then in existence within the State”(48).
More than a decade later, the Campaign for Fiscal
Equity brought another
lawsuit alleging that “minimally acceptable educational services
and facilities are not being provided” in their school districts.
In this case, the Court was “friendlier” to the plaintiff’s
contentions. Stipulating the truth of plaintiffs’ allegations,
the court found that “plaintiffs have alleged facts which
fit within a cognizable legal theory.” Furthermore, the
Court recognized that, again given the stipulation of truth,
the plaintiffs’ argument
that such inequity when visited upon a racial minority violated the
“disparate impact” standard of federal regulations.17
The Court, disagreeing with the Appellate Division’s
decision that state aid was a sub-allocation to the City, which
made
the actual district-by-district funding allotment, went on:
The Appellate Division’s reasoning fails to account for the fact
that the City can only sub-allocate what the state allocates to it.
If, as alleged, the State allocates only 34% of all State education
aid to a school district containing 37% of the State’s students
(81% of whom are minorities comprising 74% of the State’s minority
population), then those minority students will receive less aid as
a group and per pupil than their non-minority peers who attend public
schools elsewhere in the State, irrespective of how the City sub-allocates
the education aid it receives. We conclude that plaintiffs have stated
a cause of action for violation of Title VI’s implementing regulations
and reinstated their claim.
The case was sent back to the lower courts and the plaintiffs were
requested to show a correlation between funding and outcomes. As
Beglin
(1999: 6) concludes: “If the plaintiffs can do this, the case
could become a model for other low-standard states. If they cannot,
any change would probably come from the state legislature.”
On
May 27, 1999, in an action akin to the Campaign for Fiscal Equity’s
legal suits, Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields asked
Federal education officials to investigate the “persistent and
chronic failure” of New York City’s schools as well as “the
chronic pattern of schools in minority communities in decrepit conditions,
lacking libraries, labs and other essential facilities.” The
Borough President also indicated that she would challenge the state’s
education financing system by filing a complaint with the Office
of
Civil Rights at the Federal Department of Education (The New York
Times, 5/28/99). The Department agreed to investigate.
Legal and political challenges to the State’s education financing
system are not mutually exclusive strategies. Indeed, the threat implicit
in the legal challenges is that the Courts in New York may well determine
that “save harmless” provisions in the Education Law are
unconstitutional, thereby removing a major legal underpinning of
state
suburban school aid. Such a possibility, however, remote, is a useful
political device to encourage suburban legislators to make concessions
on school aid issues, i.e., mitigate the funding inequities legislatively
and thereby hold on to at least part of their fiscal advantage, or
risk losing their entire advantage in the courts.
CONCLUSION
While there are few reasons for unqualified optimism among proponents
of increased financing equity in New York State, there are feasible
political scenarios that should keep them from despair. Success in
politics is largely a question of structuring incentives within a
decision context in such a way that your favored outcome emerges
as
preferred by the majority. The political incentive system operating
around education policy in the New York State Legislature currently
favors the
status quo, which is precisely why it is the status quo.
There are signs, however, that change may be at
hand. As political coalitions, comprising important components
of New York’s attentive
nonelites, mobilize to pursue changes in the state’s
education financing system, the political incentives impacting
legislators
on
this issue may also change. If that occurs, funding equity
might well become the new status quo.
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ENDNOTES
1 Two examples suffice to make the point. One, American twelfth
graders ranked near the bottom in math and science scores in
international
comparisons (Schmidt et al., 1998). Two, a 1997 nationwide
IBM study found that only 7 percent of high school seniors
had the math skills
required for entry-level manufacturing jobs(Litow, 1999).
2 For insightful analyses of incrementalism, See Hayes, 1992;
and Lindblom, 1959; 1979.
3 Attentive non-elites are active participants in American
politics who influence policy to the extent that their participation
translates
into votes, campaign contributions, or the potential for creating
social instability.
They are distinct from economic elites who operate from more
systemically privileged positions. See (Pecorella, 1994).
4 For an insightful analysis of the distance between specific
political reforms and student achievement, see Hill and Celio,
1998; and Bryk,
Kerbow, and Rollow, 1997.
5 For more information about this system see, State Education
Department, 1998; for analysis of past SED reports, see Berne,
1994.
6 Historically the two other broad-based taxes—income tax and
sales—have been the province of the national and/or
the state governments.
7 In Fiscal Year 1996, 37.6 percent of the $10.4 billion in
State education aid comes out to $3724.93 per pupil.
8 High minority school is defined as one where more than
80 percent of the student population is of African-American,
Hispanic,
or Asian
backgrounds. High poverty school is defined as one where
more than 40 percent of the student body’s family
is on public assistance. See (New York State Department
of Education,
1998).
9 For useful analyses of legislative politics, see Pecorella,
1998(a); and Stonecash, 1998.
10 In recent years, conference committees have met to iron
out budget differences between the two houses. Few doubt,
however, that behind
this new “open system” lies the usually definitive power
of Albany’s “big three.”
11 This is not meant to imply that the leaders in Albany
are puppets of their conferences. It does mean however,
that the
leaders must
be (and generally are) aware of the political needs of
crucial components of their majority and protect those
needs in negotiations
with the
other body. By doing this with as little fuss as possible,
they maintain both their own power and their party’s
majority.
12 For insightful analyses of public policy agendas, see Kingdon,
1984; and Cobb and Elder, 1983.
13 The literature on education reforms in the 1990s is replete
with examples of business involvement in the reform efforts.
See (Eason,
1999; Finn and Gau, 1999; Ravitch, 1999; Hassel, 1998; Hill
1998; Ravitch and Viteritti, 1997; and Sylvester 1994).
14 NYSUT which represents teachers from throughout New York
State is obviously less focused on funding equity than is the
UFT which
represents teachers in New York City.
15 To lose a floor vote because of intra-party defections in
Washington is a problem for the party leadership; in Albany,
however, such an
occurrence would represent a devastating rebuke requiring a
change of leadership.
16 In those states, the courts found existing inequities in
state education financing to be unconstitutional and directed
that corrective
action be taken.
17 Under a “disparate impact” standard, no proof of “intent” is
required to affirm that discrimination has occurred. See
34 Code
of Federal Regulations 100.3[b][2] for the specific regs.
*Robert A. Pecorella is the Chair and Professor of Government
and Politics at St. John’s University. He is the author
of Community
Power in the Post-reform City and the co-author of The Politics
of Structure. Dr. Pecorella has published articles in Polity,
Public Administration Review, and the Journal of Urban Affairs.
He has been a Professor in Residence with the New York State
Assembly
Intern Program since 1986. He holds a Ph.D. from Pennsylvania
State University.
+This paper appears in this publication in abridged form due
to space constraints. For the unabridged paper contact the
Vincentian Center.
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