More help is needed for New York schools to address poverty, special needs and health among students, advocates say

The clock is ticking faster for the Rockefeller Institute, which took on the challenge of modernizing a formula that distributes $25 billion in state money to New York’s nearly 700 school districts.

On Tuesday, dozens of New Yorkers — from school principals to parents — spent three hours telling Rockefeller officials that New York’s “Foundation Aid” formula is outdated, inaccurate and grossly inadequate to measure the rising costs of student needs in the wake of the pandemic.

They also demanded that the Rockefeller Institution fix it.

“Will there be enough political will to make the changes we know are needed?” Marian Bott, an education finance specialist for the League of Women Voters of New York State, asked during the first of five public hearings the Rockefeller Institute will hold this summer.

The story continues after the gallery.

The stakes are high because of the huge sum of money involved — 10.5 percent of the state’s total budget. In addition, the state’s Foundation Aid is intended to close the opportunity gap that separates students in wealthy school districts from those in communities that can’t collect as much property tax.

The state budget set aside $2 million for the Rockefeller Institute, an Albany think tank that is part of SUNY, to make recommendations to Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature. But it gave them only until early December to get their act together — about 20 weeks — so any changes could affect next year’s budget.

Several teachers indicated on Tuesday that there is simply not enough time.

“Your challenge is not to listen to the noise, but to come up with a better formula… A good recommendation for you might be, ‘We need more time,’” said Lou Wool, principal of Harrison and superintendent of Lower Hudson Valley Middle Schools.

It is not surprising that almost all speakers wanted more help for more things, something Hochul may not want to hear.

Formula Foundation Aid does not measure post-pandemic challenges

Representatives from Westchester school districts showed up in droves for the first hearing, at the High School of Fashion Industries in Manhattan, as did officials and parents from New York City. Officials from New Rochelle, Dobbs Ferry, Tarrytowns, Yonkers, Rye City, Ossining and Mount Vernon were among those who addressed four Rockefeller Commission representatives, including its chairman, Robert Megna.

Most of the comments fell into two broad categories: the well-known complaints that the formula doesn’t accurately measure even basic things like a school district’s poverty level and regional costs; and the more recent concerns that Foundation Aid doesn’t account for the growing numbers of students with disabilities, English language skills and — especially since the pandemic — mental health and other challenges.

“We, like many school districts, face the enormous task of educating ever-changing students in ever-changing times,” said New Rochelle School Superintendent Corey Reynolds, who also spoke on behalf of the state association of small school districts in the city.

The plight of the Bedford school district shows how poorly the Foundation Aid formula measures true financial need in school districts, Erica Pierce, a Westchester County legislator who represents Bedford, told the panel. While part of the district is home to a small number of wealthy people, Mount Kisco Elementary School serves an immigrant community; half of its students are English-language learners and 78 percent are economically disadvantaged.

But of the 46 counties in Westchester and Putnam, Pierce said, Bedford ranks 38th in Foundation Aid per pupil. If the formula measured median income instead of average income, Pierce said, Bedford would go from the top five wealthiest counties in the region to nearly the bottom quarter.

Right now, she said, “our children are losing.”

The Yonkers school district, New York’s third-largest with nearly 23,000 students, ends up with a budget deficit every spring because of unreliable state aid, leaving the city begging for more, John Liszewski, the city’s finance commissioner, told the panel. “Yonkers is in affluent Westchester County and borders NYC, which means our property values ​​are relatively high,” he said. “That works against us in the Foundation Aid formula.”

Seventy-seven percent of Yonkers students were classified as economically disadvantaged in 2022-23, but the city ranked 222nd in the state in Foundation Aid per student. The city has increased its contribution to schools by $498 million over the past 13 years, adding to the burden on local taxpayers, Liszewski said.

“Our children deserve the same educational opportunities as every other child in the state,” he said.

Tanesha Grant, a parent, grandmother and community organizer from New York City, noted that the Rockefeller Institute officials at the hearing were all white.

“This panel does not reflect me at all,” she said. “This is one of the big problems in education … Our students never seem to get what they need.”

Speakers say many New York school costs should receive government support

The main concerns about the Foundation Aid formula were as follows:

• The formula calculates student poverty rates using data from the 2000 census, a fact that has been widely ridiculed.

• When calculating poverty, we need to look beyond the number of students eligible for free or reduced lunches, an outdated measure.

• The formula groups school districts into just nine regions in New York when calculating costs. Westchester is grouped with northern counties, rather than Long Island and New York City, artificially lowering costs in the formula. Some have called for the expensive Lower Hudson Valley to be made into a new region.

• More and more students with disabilities have very different needs and therefore different education costs. These are not included in the formula, but they should be.

• The rising costs of educating immigrant students, migrant students and others with limited English proficiency are also not reflected, but they should be. These students “come from a variety of educational backgrounds, including recently arrived students with no prior formal education,” said Tarrytowns Superintendent Ray Sanchez.

• According to several educators and advocates in New York City, the formula should take into account students in temporary housing and foster care.

Moreover, Michael Rebell, a key figure in a 2007 lawsuit that led to the Foundation Aid formula, said the state has failed miserably to calculate what it costs to provide New York students with a “solid, basic education,” as the appeals court required in 2003.

Rebell said the Center for Educational Equity at Columbia University’s Teachers College, where he is director, will calculate the costs and develop its own new Foundation Aid formula to benefit Albany.

Does adjusting Foundation Aid mean we have to spend more?

The question hanging over the whole process is whether the calls to update and improve the Foundation Aid formula make more aid necessary.

Nearly all speakers at the first hearing asked the Foundation for additional assistance for new or changing school costs.

But Hochul, who had supported big increases in Foundation Aid for two years, tried to stop the windfall in 2024-25. She proposed cutting Foundation Aid in half for New York City school districts, violating a rule that previously prevented annual cuts. The Legislature wouldn’t go along with it, and no one included a cut in the final state budget.

When she asked the Rockefeller Institute to evaluate Foundation Aid, she asked them to take affordability into account.

Only Andrew Rein, chairman of the nonprofit Citizens Budget Commission, proposed Tuesday cutting aid to districts that “have enough money” if aid to needy schools can be increased. He said districts should be eligible for cuts to Foundation Aid and that New York’s STAR program, which provides tax relief primarily to people in “wealthy regions,” should be ended.

The Empire Center, a conservative think tank that has been a leading critic of New York’s education overspending, is preparing to testify before the Rockefeller Institute. But Empire Center President and CEO Tim Hoefer told The Journal News/lohud that New York’s aid approach has driven up spending on schools to nearly $30,000 per student, while “the results have been mediocre at best.”

He said the Foundation Aid increase would be taken into account when teachers and others negotiate salary increases.

“If done well, the study will not only make recommendations based on the concerns of numerous special interest groups, but will also address, for example, how the Foundation Aid formula can improve outcomes, best practices from other states, and how to solve difficult foundational problems such as special education funding,” Hoefer said in an email.

Legislative leaders could fight Hochul over proposed changes that would result in cuts to aid. Sen. Shelley Mayer, D-Yonkers, chair of the Senate Education Committee, told The Journal News/lohud that she did not support “a district losing what it gets.

Upcoming hearings are scheduled in Buffalo, Long Island, Central New York and the Capital Region. The Rockefeller Institute is accepting written submissions on its website.

While there is no hearing in the Lower Hudson Valley, Sen. Bill Weber said Thursday that he will hold a discussion and testimony session on July 29 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Rockland Community College’s Cultural Arts Theater.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: NY school aid: More needed for student poverty and special needs