Securing Fair School Funding PreK-12
The Center works in New York State and nationally to support school-funding adequacy and equity and secure students’ educational rights.
In New York, the Center for Educational Equity works to uphold all students’ right under the state constitution to a meaningful opportunity to a “sound basic education,” which was secured in the CFE case. Our goals are
- to hold the state accountable for adequate and equitable school funding and
- to ensure every school is equipped with the essential educational resources necessary to meet the needs of its students.
In 2021, the state, under Gov. Kathy Hochul, settled the long-running New Yorkers for Students’ Educational Rights (NYSER) case, the CFE follow-up lawsuit initiated by Michael Rebell representing plaintiff parents, students, and education stakeholder organizations statewide. The state legislature committed to phase in over three years of full funding to the Foundation Aid Formula, adopted in 2007 to implement the CFE decision.
However, there is no plan for sustaining fair and adequate school funding after the three-year phase in. This puts students’ rights in jeopardy.
One of the most important actions state leaders could take to ensure sustained, fair school funding for all New York students is to institute a permanent, independent cost commission. The commission would be responsible for assessing the costs of ensuring all students in the state a sound basic education by using a valid, transparent method for cost analysis, creating a new funding formula, and serving as a watchdog for adequate and equitable funding going forward.
Click below to read our proposal for a permanent "Commission for Fair Funding."
Author(s): Michael Rebell and Jessica R. Wolff
Published: The Center for Educational Equity, November 2022
In 2021, New York’s governor and legislature committed to full funding of the Foundation Aid Formula, which had been adopted in 2007 to comply with the state constitution’s guarantee to provide all children a meaningful opportunity for a sound basic education. The state will likely fulfill this commitment in the next school year. But critical questions now need to be faced in looking to the future: What will happen after 2023-2024? How will the state government ensure the future of fair school funding?
In the 16 years since the current formula was adopted, New York has seen many changes in demographics, school policies, and state education mandates. As a result, many new resource inequities and inadequacies have developed. These must be remedied to ensure all schools are fairly and adequately funded and students’ constitutional right to a sound basic education is honored in 2024 and the years to come.
Other Important Resources
- Essential Resources: The Constitutional Requirements for Providing All Students in New York State the Opportunity for a Sound Basic Education, 2nd edition (2017).
- Universal PreK. With the Center for Children’s Initiatives, we make the case that prekindergarten is part of the sound basic education to which all New York children are entitled. Learn More >>
The Center supports students’ educational rights to school-funding equity and adequacy across the United States. Through SchoolFunding.Info, we support nationwide efforts to establish strong state constitutional rights to education through litigation and/or statute and to secure the funding needed to uphold those rights for all students. We consult with litigators and advocates around the country. We serve as a resource for the media on legal developments in school finance around the country.
Visit SchoolFunding.Info for developments in school-funding litigation and education finance reform in all 50 states.
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