THE letter from the state Education Department to the Borough of Queens starts off nice – Dear John-like – then it gets nasty.
“I wish to take this opportunity to reiterate that the state Education Department will not accept a situation where year after year students in certain New York City schools are not provided the full amount of instruction that they need and to which they are entitled,” the letter said.
For years the state has given Queens a break – a waiver – to violate education rules and shortchange thousands of kids by depriving them of a full complement of classes in four “extremely” overcrowded high schools.
While the state is suddenly telling the borough its kids are “entitled” to proper education, the governor and upstate and suburban state legislators don’t seem to think the same kids are “entitled” to their fair share of state funds.
In fact, they spent $11 million on an Atlanta law firm to persistently fight – and lose – a 1993 lawsuit by a grass-roots organization demanding the city’s fair share of money.
Eleven million bucks. That’s enough to build schools in Queens, where the state let the borough give thousands of high-schoolers six classes instead of the required seven.
Pataki vowed last week to reconfigure the antiquated funding formula that consistently sends a disproportionately low amount of aid to city schools.
Yesterday, Pataki addressed the issue when he introduced his budget proposal.
“It’s time for a reform,” he said, introducing a nifty new formula called “Flex-Aid” that “will allow us to target increases to the school district that needs the resources the most.”
Minutes later, he announced plans to appeal the state Supreme Court judge’s order to quit cheating city kids. A judge can’t tell the state how to dish out school money, he said.
The judge had given the state until September to fix the problem.
The state’s Dec. 18 Dear John letter also gives Queens High School Deputy Superintendent Gerard Berne until September to come up with “full day” curriculum.
The borough cannot appeal.
Money can’t teach New York City kids to be smart. But every penny counts, and fiscal reform in the city Board of Education and a Giuliani-style control can help alleviate the overcrowded and unlawful conditions that exist in Queens.
The Board of Education’s Queens representative, Terri Thomson, isn’t as influential as Pataki, but she gave a “state of the borough” address last week.
“We’re 30,000 seats short today,” she said. “In the next five to seven years, we’ll be 50,000 seats short.”
It stinks.
These guys in Albany have known for years that city schools operate in crisis mode.
They don’t care; they’d rather spend taxpayer money to keep fighting.
They figure money that should go to the city is better spent upstate and in the suburbs, where the rich kids enjoy the luxury of science labs, expansive sports fields and libraries in every building. Because the money that goes to the suburbs and upstate means lower property taxes there – and votes.
The Flex-Aid plan is a smoke screen for the stickup.