Friday Finance 101: NY State’s Formula for Failure
Posted on February 7, 2014
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Below is an excerpt from a recent series of policy briefs on NY State school funding
Statewide Policy Brief with NYC Supplement: BBaker.NYPolicyBrief_NYC
50 Biggest Funding Gaps Supplement: 50 Biggest Aid Gaps 2013-14_15_FINAL
Note: The above briefs received financial support from the New York State Association for Small City School Districts. All opinions are my own.
The 2007 New York State Foundation Aid formula was adopted specifically to achieve compliance with the high court’s 2006 order in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case. The State argued that this new formula was built on sound empirical analysis of the spending behavior of efficient districts that achieved adequate outcomes on State assessments. The State argued that the Foundation Aid formula applied this evidence, coupled with additional evidence-based adjustments to address student needs and regional cost variation, in order to identify a specific target level of per pupil spending for each district statewide which would provide comparable opportunities to achieve adequate educational outcomes. The State determined the share of that target spending to be raised through local tax revenues and estimated the amount to be paid by the state toward achieving each districts’ sound basic spending target.
Then, the State simply failed to fund the formula.
When enacted, the State committed to phasing-in the Foundation Aid formula from 2007 to 2010-2011. The data behind the base spending calculation had been drawn from 2003-2005, and included general education instructional spending of school districts that a) achieved 80%