Pulling Together for Public Education

By Micah Lasher
April 2016

I. Introduction
The 31st State Senate is served by a dazzling array of public schoolsfrom Gregorio
Luperon High School for Science and Mathematics, founded in 1994 to serve new,
Spanish-speaking arrivals to New York City; to community mainstays like P.S. 9 on the
Upper West Side, which my sister attended, and P.S. 33 in Chelsea; to innovative school
models like Muscota, Amistad Dual Language and P.S. 333/Manhattan School for
Children, where my oldest son is a kindergartner.
The families of the 31st State Senate are among the nearly one million, citywide, who rely
on our public schools. And every day, our teachers and principals give everything
theyve got to educate our children for the future. But at the same time, the State of New
York has abdicated its most basic role in public education: providing the support our
schools and educators need as they do this extraordinary work. You can see the
constraints with which our schools must contend as a result on any day, in any classroom.
We forget at our peril the external challenges that our students face and that we ask our
schools to overcome, and too often in recent years, policymakers including myself have
been led astray by a sense of urgency to seek quick fixes and panaceas. As New Yorks
failed experiment with new tests, evaluations and standards has made clear, the notion of
free reformof meaningful improvement without meaningful investmentis magical
thinking. We must refocus on what matters and pull together to give all public schools
every teacher and every childthe tools they need to succeed.
As a New York City public school graduate, I have long felt passionately about the
importance of public education, but today, as a parent of one public school studentand
two more on their wayI have the most personal possible stake in the future of our
public schools. To fundamentally change the States pattern of disinvestment in public
education, however, requires more than passion. It requires a comprehensive legislative
strategy to make it happenand the strength and savvy to overcome the obstacles in
Albany. This is what Ill fight for.
II. The Funding Our Public Schools Need

Close the $4.4 billion annual gap in funding owed by the State to public
schoolsincluding those in the 31st State Senate Districtunder the terms of
the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit settlement.
Prior to enactment of the 2016-17 State budgetwhich included only a modest
payment toward unmet obligationsthe States more than $4 billion shortfall in
education funding included roughly $72 million owed to schools in the 31st State
Senate Districtmore than $2,100 per student. The State has no credibility to
place performance demands on schools when it isnt holding up its end of the
bargain. My concrete funding proposal would close more than three-quarters of
the statewide gap immediately by: enacting a modestly more progressive State

income tax that will generate $2.2 billion annually (the Fiscal Policy Institutes
1% Plan for Tax Fairness1); establishing a commission statutorily empowered
to reduce wasteful corporate tax credits by $1 billion annually; cracking down on
inheritance tax avoidance by creating a gift tax and closing the Resident Trust
loophole, which would generate $150 million annually; and closing New Yorks
out-of-state carried interest loophole that inequitably reduces annual tax payments
from out-of-state private equity and hedge fund managers by $50 million. With
this funding should come an aggressive push to meet the class size targets
established as part of the CFE settlement.
To close the remaining 23% of the gapand generate an additional $2.3 billion,
which can be used to fund some of the proposals belowI strongly support
legislation introduced by Assemblymember Jeff Aubry, A.9459, to join with
neighboring states and impose a surcharge on all carried interest income equal to
what the federal government isnt collecting.

Build the school seats our city needs.

As a matter of open policy, the New York City Department of Education and
School Construction Authority do not plan to build the school seats that even their
own planners say the City needs. The City recently upped its needs assessment to
83,000 new school seatsadvocates say the number is more like 100,000but
the DOEs capital plan contemplates the construction of just 49,000 seats. And
even this number may be fanciful: sites have been identified, and design
commenced, for just 15% of the seats needed by 2019.2 Poor capital planning
results in overcrowded schools and too-large class sizes. And a study by Make
the Road New York found that overcrowding is particularly pernicious in
immigrant communities, and that the DOE Capital Plan shortchanges the
immigrant communities where overcrowding tends to be worse.3 In order to
provide adequate environments for our children to learn, reduce class sizes, and as
a matter of equity, we must build the school seats our city needs. I would support
reforms to the school planning processincluding a review of how school space
is addressed when new residential housing is constructed, and what is expected of
developersand increases in State support to make this happen.

Invest in Community Schools to make every child ready to learn.

We ask and expect our public schools to educate every child, no matter his or her
challenges, and the needs of New Yorks one million public school children are as

http://fiscalpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Fact-Sheet-NYs-Regressive-Tax-Structure-and-the-1Percent-Solution-v2.pdf
2
Haimson, Leonie and Javier Valds. Addressing NYC's School Overcrowding Crisis. Gotham Gazette,
March 8, 2016. http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/opinion/6210-addressing-nycs-schoolovercrowding-crisis
3
Make the Road New York. Wheres My Seat? How School Overcrowding Disproportionately Impacts
Immigrant Communities in New York City. November 2015.

varied as their talents and achievements. At the same time, the extensive level of
interaction between schools and their students makes the school building a logical
hub for a range of positive government interventions in the lives of children and
families. This is the self-evident logic behind Community Schools, which aim to
unite strong academics with robust programs and social services to give every
child a chance to fulfill his or her potential. For Community Schools to be
successful requires interagency cooperation, educator buy-in, parent involvement,
and clear means of assessing progress and success. The State should direct
support to districts with comprehensive Community Schools plans, at levels
sufficient per targeted school to effect real change.

Oppose the Education Tax Credit.

Every year, Republicans in Albany revive an ill-conceived and expensive idea
disguised by a motherhood-and-apple-pie moniker, the Education Tax Credit,
or, more elaborately, the Parental Choice in Education Act. This proposal
would have the effect of allowing philanthropists to redirect their tax dollars away
from the States general fund and toward private schools of their choice; in many
cases, where these individuals are already making contributions, it would simply
create a large tax break for folks who really dont need one. I would strongly
oppose the Education Tax Credit. Instead of diverting money away from core
government needs, we should support our public schools.

III. The Support Our Teachers Deserve

Eliminate the State income tax for public school teachers.

There are 158,000 kindergarten teachers in the United Statesand we pay them
all, in aggregate, less than half of what the nations top 25 individual hedge fund
managers make. The State should give all public school teachers an effective
raise by eliminating their State income tax obligations, at a cost of approximately
$1 billion per year, paid for by revenue from the carried interest income
surcharge. Research from the National Center for Education Statistics indicates
this would also reduce attrition rates among new teachers.4 It would be a small
step in the direction of fairness and compensation for teachers commensurate with
the vital service they perform, and it is exactly the kind of progressive, national
leadership role New York should be taking.

National Center for Education Statistics. Public School Teacher Attrition and Mobility in the First Five
Years. April 2015.

Fund Teacher Leader programs that improve instructional quality and

create advancement opportunities for strong and experienced educators and
teacher centers that provide ongoing professional development.
A best practice in some schoolsparticularly those that arent operating under
enormous funding constraintsis the presence of teacher leaders, who work
with their colleagues and principals to improve pedagogy, curriculum and
professional development. (This is separate from New York States Master
Teacher program, which provides grants to high-performing STEM teachers
selected by the State.) These positions improve the instructional work of schools
and cultivate potential school leaders. New York State should provide funding
for school districts that create effective teacher leader programs. At the same
time, the State should increase support for the more than 130 teacher centers that
provide comprehensive professional development for educators.

Expand residency programs for teachers in training.

The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that roughly 17% of new
teachers leave the profession within five years; other studies have pegged this
number as high as 40% to 50%.5 New teachers report being under-prepared and
under-supported, which leads to their high rates of attrition, which, in turn, leads
to a revolving door of new, under-prepared, under-supported teachers, particularly
in high-poverty schools.6 In addition to having negative effects on student
achievement, this is an expensive problem, costing states and school districts
between $1 and $2.2 billion per year. In New York, the cost has been estimated
to be between $56.9 million and $123.7 million.7
Teacher residency, mentoring and co-teaching programs are different variations
on the same idea: teachers in training who spend a year in the classroom, working
with experienced mentors, will be better teachers when they are on their own.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California,
reviewing multiple studies of teacher mentoring programs, found that these
programs improve job satisfaction, retention rates and classroom performance
among new teachers, leading to higher rates of student achievement.8 Here in
New York, students taught by graduates of the Hunter College Urban Teacher
Residency outperform students of other early-career teachers on key New York

Brown, Emma. Study: Far fewer new teachers are leaving the profession than previously thought.
Washington Post, April 30, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/04/30/study-newteacher-attrition-is-lower-than-previously-thought/
6
Riggs, Liz. Why Do Teachers Quit? The Atlantic, October 18, 2013.
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/why-do-teachers-quit/280699/
7
Rice, Jennifer King. The Impact of Teacher Experience. Urban Institute, August 2010.
8
Ingersoll, Richard M. and Strong, Michael. The Impact of Induction and Mentoring Programs for
Beginning Teachers: A Critical Review of the Research. Review of Educational Research, June 2011.

State Regents exams and course gradesand 90% of the graduates of that
programs first cohort were still teaching four years later.9
New York State allocated $3 million for teacher residency programs in the 20152016 budget, but a year later, that money has yet to be allocated. The State
should increase supportand get it out the doorso that teacher residency
programs can thrive in New York.

Provide the training and stability that is necessary for schools to successfully
implement rigorous and rich curricula.
The jury is back: New York States attempt to impose new standards, new tests,
and new teacher evaluationsall at the same timewas a failure. I strongly
support rigorous standards that promote critical thinking, but this poorly
implemented triple-whammy had the opposite effect: focusing classrooms across
the State on narrow success on poorly crafted standardized tests. New standards
alone wont change anything if our teachers arent properly trained and bought in,
and one cannot understate the pedagogical shift required by the Common Core.
Proper implementation of new standards will require extensive training for
teachers and a program of parent education, and the State should provide funding
specific to these purposes. At the same time, while it is critical that we be able to
assess what students are learning, we must move to educator-developed
assessment tools that actually test the critical thinking skills that new standards
are intended to develop, expand opportunities for schools to use rigorous
portfolio-based assessment, and identify alternative assessment models for
English Language Learners. Testing should be a means to help teachers and
students improve, not an end unto itself.

IV. Equity and Access for Students

Provide legally required arts, music and physical education in every school.
As a former board member of the Center for Arts Education, I strongly believe in
the importance of arts in our public schools. My sons exposure in school to
music, art and drama are the highlights of his weekand every child should have
the same opportunity. New York State has specific legal requirements around arts
education: for example, 20% of the weekly time spent in school by students in
grades one, two, and three is supposed to be spent on the arts. But these
requirements are often ignored: an audit by the New York State Comptroller
found, As many as two-thirds of sampled students did not receive an arts
education that met one or more state guidelines.10

Program Details, New Visions for Public Schools - Hunter College Urban Teacher Residency (UTR).
Accessed 04/05/16. http://www.newvisions.org/pages/program-details
10
Office of the New York State Comptroller. Compliance With State Arts Education Requirements: New
York City Department of Education. February 2014.

Along the same lines, according to the New York City Comptroller, schools
across the five boroughs are failing to meet even minimal physical education
standards, as required by New York State Education Department regulations.
Physical education is critical to preparing schoolchildren to learn, and to putting
them on a healthy path for lifean issue of particular concern given high rates of
childhood obesity. The Comptroller identified the problem as particularly acute
in Community School District 6 in Northern Manhattan, where more than a third
of schools did not have a single fulltime, certified physical education teacher.11
The State should vigorously enforce requirements for arts, music and physical
education and, provided with adequate funding, schools should be able to comply.

Ensure access for immigrant children to all of our schools.

New York State should be a national model for opening the schoolhouse doors to
all students. I am incredibly proud to have helped establish a joint examination
by the Attorney General and the State Education Department of the enrollment
policies of school districts across New York pertaining to immigrant children.12
The effort has resulted in reforms in more than twenty school districts to stop the
exclusion of students on the basis of immigration status.13 These reforms should
be codified into law.

Require charter schools to enroll and retain students with special needs, and
ensure equity for the most disadvantaged students in our system.
The failure of some charter schools to enroll and retain special education students,
English Language Learners (ELLs) and students in temporary housing is a failure
not just of the schools themselvesit is also a regulatory failure of government.
And it can no longer be ignored or shrugged off: the ELL enrollment rate in New
York City charter schools is less than half the rate at district schools; students
with severe disabilities are barely served at all. The most disadvantaged
studentsthose that most need our attention and supportare too often treated as
an afterthought, enrolled in high concentrations at already-struggling district
schools. The State should enact a regulatory framework to ensure that no charter
school gets to cherry-pick its students, and that those students most in need or
who are late to enroll are not warehoused in struggling schools.

11

Office of the New York City Comptroller. Dropping the Ball: Disparities in Physical Education in New
York City Schools. May 2016.
12
Mueller, Benjamin. Immigrants School Cases Spur Enrollment Review in New York. The New York
Times, October 22, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/23/nyregion/amid-immigrant-cases-new-yorkstate-education-dept-will-review-school-enrollment-process.html
13
Mueller, Benjamin. New York Compels 20 School Districts to Lower Barriers to Immigrants. The New
York Times, February 18, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/nyregion/new-york-compels-20school-districts-to-lower-barriers-to-immigrants.html

Prioritize integration and remove barriers to entry in public schools.

Enrollment equity is a major issue in district schools, too. Researchers at UCLA
put it bluntly: New York has the most segregated schools in the country. In
New York City, the combination of rigid school zoning policies at the elementary
school level, which tie school enrollment to stratified housing patterns; a lack of
controls and regulation to ensure equity and diversity in school choice models;
and a hodgepodge of school-based admissions criteria left 46.4% of schools
intensely segregated (90% to 100% minority) in 2010-2011, up from 27.3% in
1989-1990.14 Solutions are not simple, but as a first step, the State should require
school districts to take concrete measures to reduce the ranks of highly segregated
schools. The City of New York should proactively partner with Community
Education Councils to develop integration plans at the elementary school level,
including controlled choice policies that balance the objectives of giving
families their top school preferences and achieving integrated and equitable
student populations. For middle and high schools, the City should conduct a topto-bottom review of obstacles to equity within the choice system, including lack
of information and access for some families and enrollment screens that put
schools out of reach for many others.

End draconian discipline policies that begin the school-to-prison pipeline,

and ensure that charter schools have to play by the same rules.
We have seen a disturbing rise in school discipline policies that rely on fear and
shame; are used to push students out of schools, either directly or indirectly; are
too often implemented in racially disparate ways; and which can be the starting
point for the school-to-prison pipeline that has contributed to the mass
incarceration of young men of color. In the Attorney Generals office, we have
investigated and reformed the discipline policies of several school districts,
including Albany and Syracuse. The State must establish stronger laws and
regulations that put a stop to abusive school discipline policies statewide, without
stripping teachers of the authority they need to maintain order in the classroom.
We can get this balance right. And the Legislature should amend the Charter
School Law to remove any doubt that all laws and regulations governing school
discipline apply to all taxpayer-funded schools.

Protect student privacy.

In 2014, the New York State Legislature enacted a law to protect student privacy
in light of the increasing volume of data generated from student assessments and
educational technology. Two years later, however, key requirements placed on
the New York State Education Department by that legislation remain unmet,
including the appointment of a Chief Privacy Officer and the strengthening, in
conjunction with stakeholders, of a Parent Bill of Rights. The State Education

14

Kucsera, John. New York States Extreme School Segregation. The Civil Rights Project at UCLA, March
2014.

Department should immediately comply with these statutory requirements in

order to protect student privacy and restore confidence on the part of parents that
data about their children will remain secure.15
V. Investment in Higher Education and Early Childhood Development

Fully fund CUNYs operating budget, freeze tuition at current rates, and
invest in its professors.
Paul Krugman aptly described the City University of New York (CUNY) as a
powerful engine of social mobility.16 For generations, CUNY has provided
quality higher education and a ladder up for New Yorkers whose hard work and
aspirations embody the spirit of our city. (I say this with some bias: my father
graduated from Brooklyn College, and my sister earned her Masters Degree
there; my mother earned her MBA attending Baruch College part-time.) Both
City College, a jewel of the CUNY system, and the innovative CUNY in the
Heights program are located right here in the 31st State Senate District. But
because powerful interests dont walk the halls of Albany to advocate for public
higher education, the State has gradually starved CUNY at the expense of its
students, who are paying higher and higher tuitions, and its professors, who are
not fairly compensated and have been without a labor contract for more than five
years (almost alone among New York State and City public employee unions). It
is a disgrace that we would treat such an extraordinary public institution so
shabbily. In 1990, tuition covered about 20% of CUNYs operating costs; today,
tuition funds almost 50% of the budget, which has led to tuition increases and
austerity operations. The State must reinvest in CUNY, starting with a fully
funded tuition freeze and a fair labor contract for professors.

Enact the DREAM Act to give every student access to State financial aid and
scholarships for higher education.
Just as our K-12 schools should have legal obligations to educate all students, we
have a moral obligation to provide equal higher education opportunities to all
students who work hard and admirably seek a brighter future, regardless of their
immigration status. That is what the DREAM Act, sponsored by Senator Jos
Peralta and Assemblymember Francisco Moya, would do: provide access to
financial aid and higher education scholarships for all undocumented students
who meet all of the relevant requirements. There are, right now, almost 150,000
young people who do not qualify for government financial aid despite having
been educated in New Yorks public schools. Its no surprise that Washington

15

Haimson, Leonie and Lisa Rudley. Letter to State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia and the
Board of Regents. January 8, 2015. Accessed April 5, 2016. http://www.classsizematters.org/wpcontent/uploads/2016/01/Commissioner-letter-1.8.16-re-data-privacy-final2.pdf
16
Krugman, Paul. Starving Public Education. The New York Times, March 11, 2016.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/11/starving-public-education/

wont act, but New York State should take the lead. The cost is miniscule: just
$20 million, relative to $930 million we spend every year on the States Tuition
Assistance Program.

Expand access to programs serving families and children from birth.

The City of New Yorks dramatic expansion of pre-kindergarten is a remarkable
government achievement, and the State laudably provided necessary funds. But
as we consider how to give every child a shot at success in school and beyond, we
must also focus on their earliest years, when the vast majority of brain
architecture is set, and when excessive stress and adverse experiences can cause
developmental delays.17 The State should increase investment in evidence-based
maternal home visiting programs, such as the Nurse Family Partnership program,
in which a nurse works with a mother during pregnancy and the first two years of
her childs life, and which has been shown to improve the life outcomes of
children and parents.18

17

Excessive Stress Disrupts the Architecture of the Developing Brain. National Scientific Council on the
Developing Child, Harvard University. January 2014.
18
Nurse-Family Partnership. Accessed April 5, 2016. http://www.nursefamilypartnership.org/ProvenResults/Published-research

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