SHERBURNE – With a list of new proposals for public education on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2015 opportunities agenda, New York State Assemblyman Gary Finch met with teachers and administrators at the Sherburn-Earlville Central School on Friday to hash out what it could mean for schools across the state.
Finch toured Sherburne-Earlville’s facilities, meeting with teachers, administrators and students to address key concerns as the state legislature begins negotiations for the 2015-2016 budget. The visit was a chance for educators to share their views of the governor’s executive budget which has been marked with criticism by teachers’ unions for allegedly attacking public education.
Critics argue that the governor’s proposed education reform would take money away from public schools in order to fund more charter schools, thus taking steps to privatize education. The proposal would also limit the power of school boards, allow a takeover of the NY Board of Regents to give full control over public education to the governor, increase testing, and withhold preliminary funding amounts needed to formulate a school budget if schools don’t agree with the new terms.
Additionally, the governor put a more stringent teacher evaluation process on the table that would provide a financial incentive for high performing teachers while essentially banishing from the classroom teachers who don’t score as “effective” or “improving” for two consecutive years.
“There is a lot of rhetoric from both sides of the argument that just isn’t making sense,” Finch said, noting that debate over education reform is mainly pitting union leaders against the governor. “There is a distinction between the union and union members. I think the governor's battle is clearly with the unions and union leaders.”
Finch also said the Master Teacher Program, while appealing on paper, presents challenges for teachers who deal with disadvantaged students. The program provides a $20,000 stipend to high performing teachers; but Finch said it’s mostly teachers in affluent districts with high performing students who will see the greatest benefit.
“Some of those ideas just are not going to work,” Finch added. “Many of the educational problems for students start at home, so each student is different and each group of students is different ... You might have teachers working harder and being more successful (in terms of progress) in poverty districts, but rich districts are getting more credit for scoring higher on teacher evaluations because their students are doing better.”
“I think this eduction piece will have a lot of compromise,” he said.
Adding to the woes of proposed education reform is the continuing battle schools face with the Gap Elimination Adjustment which was implemented in 2009 as a way to balance the state budget. Legislators voted in favor of cutting funding to public schools over time to fill state government’s revenue shortfall. Sherburne-Earlville alone has lost more than $5.1 million in state aid in the last five years.
With a legislature torn on the issue of education, the New York State United Teachers union is countering hard, calling on statewide protests against the governor. Last week, more than 1,000 NYSUT teachers and public education advocates marched at Empire State Plaza to rally against Gov. Cuomo’s education reform agenda. NYSUT President Karen Magee called the agenda a “Trojan Horse packed with destructive proposals” in the March edition of NYSUT United, the monthly publication of NYSUT. The organization insists that the governor’s newest proposals are an attack on public education where teachers are a scapegoat for failing education policies.
Sherburne-Earlville union representative Jennifer Moore said there’s a laundry list of concerns from teachers within the S-E school district that are raising red flags, including the more stringent teacher evaluation process, limited funding for public school districts, excessive testing, and propaganda which suggests a push from the governor to privatize education.
“I don’t think people understand the true charter school piece, where they’re getting taxpayer money to help fund their system,” said Moore. “Once you put money into that equation, those charter schools are no longer focused on their students. They’re focused on their shareholders.”
Moore also explained that because charter schools don’t have to adhere to the same standardized tests as public schools, there’s a lack of balance between public and private education.
“The original plan of the charter school was to be creative and they were supposed to be working together with public schools to find best practices so that we could share and collaborate together. That got lost somewhere,” she said.
In spite of protests, Cuomo has yet to show signs of budging on his new agenda. He continues to gain support from select student and teacher groups, as well as some legislators downstate. Nearly 100 pro-charter school advocates rallied to support Cuomo’s proposal just hours before NYSUT blasted it in Albany last Monday.