Schools fight dominates record spending on lobbying
The schools group chaired by former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein was last year's fourth-biggest Albany lobbyist. Photo: Gotham Schools
With this story, The New York World launches The Lobbies at the Top, a guide to spending on political influence in New York State. The first edition takes a look at the power players of 2011, who won gay marriage, teacher concessions, a Medicaid deal and more.
The future of the fight over public schools has a fresh, highly visible face, and it’s called StudentsFirstNY.
But the new school-reform supergroup, founded by former New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and ex-D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee, is in fact not that new at all. It builds directly one of the biggest lobbying forces in New York State, called Education Reform Now.
In the last two years, Education Reform Now and the associated Education Reform Now Advocacy have spent more than $10 million to influence state law on hiring and firing of teachers, as a counterforce to the state’s two major teachers’ unions. Those funds helped force a change in teacher