Truck and Barter: Wow II

November 30, 2004

Wow II

By Bob

An extra $5.6 billion must be spent on New York City schoolchildren every year to give them the opportunity for a sound, basic education, which they are guaranteed under the state constitution, a court-appointed panel has found.

Beyond that, $9.2 billion worth of new classrooms, laboratories, libraries and other facilities must be built and maintained to relieve overcrowding, reduce class sizes and provide the city's 1.1 million schoolchildren with an adequate place to learn, the panel said.

But how much of that should come from the state or from the city itself the panel did not say, leaving unanswered one of the most daunting and contentious questions facing the lawmakers responsible for coming up with the money.

"Now we needed to roll up our sleeves and make sure the Legislature enacts this reform so that the children can get what they need," said Michael A. Rebell, executive director of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the plaintiffs in the case.

O.K., a few thoughts come to mind. This is a direct assualt upon our democracy when judges can make such decisions. Nothing shows more how a certain segment of this country will use any means necessary to achieve their agenda. Unable to win elections, they simply find sympathetic judges to do their bidding.

I'll post the whole article in the extension.

Update: This post at Redstate.org suggests the recent vote against stripping racist language from the state constitution in Alabama may have do with an add on giving a right to an education. I originally cringed when I read about the vote, but if it is to stop the above nonsense then I don't blame them.

Update II: Here is a New York Sun article from a few months ago talking about this. It gives current spending as $11,122 per pupil. The district has more 1.1 million students.

An extra $5.6 billion must be spent on New York City schoolchildren every year to give them the opportunity for a sound, basic education, which they are guaranteed under the state constitution, a court-appointed panel has found.

Beyond that, $9.2 billion worth of new classrooms, laboratories, libraries and other facilities must be built and maintained to relieve overcrowding, reduce class sizes and provide the city's 1.1 million schoolchildren with an adequate place to learn, the panel said.

But how much of that should come from the state or from the city itself the panel did not say, leaving unanswered one of the most daunting and contentious questions facing the lawmakers responsible for coming up with the money.

"Now we needed to roll up our sleeves and make sure the Legislature enacts this reform so that the children can get what they need," said Michael A. Rebell, executive director of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the plaintiffs in the case.

The report marks a major turning point in a case that educators, advocates and politicians are counting on to transform the city's schools. Nearly every state has battled over school spending in court, but the case in New York is one of the biggest - both in terms of dollars and the number of children involved - and most closely watched school financing lawsuits in the nation.

Four months have passed since lawmakers in Albany missed the deadline imposed by the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, to begin fixing the "systemic failure" it found in the city's schools. And while the courts have refrained from holding legislators in contempt for failing to act, the report is a significant step toward a court takeover of what has traditionally been a legislative role: deciding exactly how much money should be spent on schools.

Throughout the 11 years that the case has wended through the state's courts, judges have taken pains not to step in and dictate exactly how much extra money should be spent on the city's schoolchildren. But the Legislature essentially forfeited that prerogative by its own inaction, the panel said.

"It therefore falls, by default, to the judiciary to fashion an appropriate remedy to ensure that the sound basic education constitutional mandate is honored," wrote the panel of referees. Its members were E. Leo Milonas, a former state appellate judge and past president of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York; William C. Thompson, a former member of the New York City Council, state senator and appellate judge who is the father of the city's comptroller; and John D. Feerick, the former dean of Fordham University's School of Law who was also a president of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

Though it is technically a recommendation, the report is likely to carry a great deal of weight in court. Justice Leland DeGrasse, the state judge in the case who must now decide how much of the report will be turned into a legal order, created the panel for the sole purpose of helping him decide how to rule on the thorny questions it tackled. Beyond that, Justice DeGrasse handpicked some of the best-known names in local legal circles to sit on the panel, ignoring nominees from the parties.

In its report, the panel called for an aggressive timetable, suggesting that the state have no more than 90 days to come up with and enact a plan to put the extra $5.6 billion toward running the city's schools. Once that begins, it gave the state four years to reach the full amount. The panel then gave the state the same amount of time to figure out how to put $9.2 billion toward school construction and repairs, but allowed that money could be phased in over five years, instead of four.

Posted at November 30, 2004 05:40 PM

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