Upstate educators rally in Albany
By Melissa deCordova
Sun Staff Writer
mdecordova@evesun.com
ALBANY – More than 800 parents, students, educators and community members from more than 30 upstate rural and small city school districts rallied in Albany for quality education this week.
The group met with lawmakers and demanded that the $250 million set aside in the Governor's budget for experimental competitive grants be redirected to classroom restorations and that additional restorations above those proposed in the Governor's budget are necessary to avoid further damaging classroom cuts.
A report released by the Alliance for Quality Education of how much school aid Chenango County school districts will get under the current Executive Budget Proposal, followed by the proposed additional restoration from redistributing competitive grants, is shown in the accomanying chart.
Since 2010, rural and small city schools have lost a total of $1.2 billion. The proposed 2012 Governor’s budget would restore only $160 million of the total cut to these schools. If competitive grants were redirected to classroom funding rural and small cities schools would see an additional $72 million in restorations.
State education budget cuts have resulted in a $4 million loss at the Norwich City School District in the previous two years. As a result, the district has lost nearly 15 percent of its workforce and programs such as summer school and after school activities.
“Any proposed increase in this year’s aid needs to be balanced against the previous two years’ losses,” said Superintendent Gerard O’Sullivan this morning.
Norwich, like all Chenango County’s schools, is a low wealth district, and any funding cuts have a disproportional effect here as opposed to aid in a high wealth district, he added.
Senator Thomas Libous (R- District 52), offered the following statement after the rally: “We made real progress in the budget working together with Governor Cuomo, but there’s still some things we need to get done. One of those things is to make sure that low wealth rural Upstate schools get their fair share. Governor Cuomo made a good start in his Budget Proposal. But we’d like to go farther and delay the competitive grants that the Governor proposed and instead direct that funding toward Upstate’s lower wealth rural schools. Our rural schools need help now.”
Sun Staff Writer
mdecordova@evesun.com
ALBANY – More than 800 parents, students, educators and community members from more than 30 upstate rural and small city school districts rallied in Albany for quality education this week.
The group met with lawmakers and demanded that the $250 million set aside in the Governor's budget for experimental competitive grants be redirected to classroom restorations and that additional restorations above those proposed in the Governor's budget are necessary to avoid further damaging classroom cuts.
A report released by the Alliance for Quality Education of how much school aid Chenango County school districts will get under the current Executive Budget Proposal, followed by the proposed additional restoration from redistributing competitive grants, is shown in the accomanying chart.
Since 2010, rural and small city schools have lost a total of $1.2 billion. The proposed 2012 Governor’s budget would restore only $160 million of the total cut to these schools. If competitive grants were redirected to classroom funding rural and small cities schools would see an additional $72 million in restorations.
State education budget cuts have resulted in a $4 million loss at the Norwich City School District in the previous two years. As a result, the district has lost nearly 15 percent of its workforce and programs such as summer school and after school activities.
“Any proposed increase in this year’s aid needs to be balanced against the previous two years’ losses,” said Superintendent Gerard O’Sullivan this morning.
Norwich, like all Chenango County’s schools, is a low wealth district, and any funding cuts have a disproportional effect here as opposed to aid in a high wealth district, he added.
Senator Thomas Libous (R- District 52), offered the following statement after the rally: “We made real progress in the budget working together with Governor Cuomo, but there’s still some things we need to get done. One of those things is to make sure that low wealth rural Upstate schools get their fair share. Governor Cuomo made a good start in his Budget Proposal. But we’d like to go farther and delay the competitive grants that the Governor proposed and instead direct that funding toward Upstate’s lower wealth rural schools. Our rural schools need help now.”
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