- Target:
- New York State Governor and Legislature
- Region:
- United States of America
- Website:
- www.fmschools.org
When Governor Cuomo released his executive budget proposal, he tied an increase in school district state aid to the state Legislature’s willingness to pass an education reform agenda that includes modifying the existing teacher and principal evaluation system and implementing more stringent tenure requirements.
If the Legislature does not enact the education reforms below, districts will not see an increase in state aid for 2015-16 or 2016-17. He is proposing:
- An overhaul of the existing teacher evaluation law;
- More stringent tenure requirements;
- Funding to expand preschool programs;
- Lifting the cap on charter schools; and
- A new turnaround process for the state’s lowest performing schools.
In addition, the state Division of Budget announced that schools’ state aid figures would not be released until the Legislature passes this education reform agenda. So districts are currently developing school budgets without knowing one of their two primary sources of revenue.
In addition, the Governor’s budget proposal outlined a plan that would change the teacher evaluation process so that 50 percent of scores are based on state exams and the other 50 percent on observations. Currently, state assessments factor in for 20 percent of the overall score, and the observations account for 60 percent. The other 20 percent is based on local pre- and post-test assessments that evaluate students’ growth.
Besides increasing the weight of the state tests in teachers’ scores, the Governor’s plan would involve outside evaluators performing the observations. At this point in time, the state has not said who those evaluators would be and how they would be paid- by the state or through local school districts’ operating budgets.
In addition, the Fayetteville-Manlius School District is reaching out to its local legislators, asking them to help pass bills that have recently been introduced that call for the elimination of the Gap Elimination Adjustment, or GEA. The state introduced the GEA in 2010 as a way to take back money it promised school districts so it could fill its own budget gap due to the economic downturn at that time. The GEA was never repealed, even though New York now expects a surplus. Senator John D. DeFrancisco and Assemblyman Al Stirpe have both signed on as co-sponsors of the legislation to eliminate the GEA.
We, the parents of children attending schools in the Fayetteville-Manlius School District, call upon the Governor and the New York State Legislature to provide our schools with the support our children need. We request the following:
• Immediate repeal of the Gap Elimination Adjustment and restoration of the $2 million per year in state aid our children are entitled to receive;
• Creation of a task force to look at well-functioning teacher evaluation systems nationwide before imposing a one-size-fits-all approach;
• Reduced emphasis on state testing as a means of evaluation teachers’ success, because several subjects (and grades K - 2) are not tested statewide, and because the tests are a single data point and not a comprehensive measure of teacher effectiveness;
• Provision of New York State aid projections (“school runs”) to our school districts as quickly as possible so that they may begin to plan for next year’s budget.
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The Support Our Schools petition to New York State Governor and Legislature was written by Larissa Brenner and is in the category Education at GoPetition.