Hundreds of school children, parents, Democratic lawmakers and union organizers came to the Capitol to rally for more money for New York’s schools. The event was part of what’s become known as Moral Mondays, modeled after similar events in North Carolina.
That movement was led by Reverend William Barber II, a North Carolina chapter leader of the N.A.A.C.P in response to Republican budget cuts. Barber also attended the Albany rally, where he took on Gov. Andrew Cuomo directly. He criticized the governor, who has been at odds with the unions, for “attacking teachers” and using his political power "to settle scores just because you are mad that somebody criticized you."
Cuomo angered teachers when he said last fall that he intends to break the public school monopoly. He later said he found it “incredible” that less than 5 percent of teachers got low ratings in the latest teacher performance scores and reversed an earlier plan he supported to protect teachers from getting bad ratings if their students do poorly on standardized tests.
The rally comes as a study released by the Alliance for Quality Education, which is closely allied with the teachers unions, finds that the funding inequality between rich and poor schools has grown wider under Cuomo's tenure. A 2005 court order in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case was supposed to remedy that by providing billions of additional dollars to districts including New York City.
Barber compared that delay to a citizen who would be arrested for not paying an overdue parking violation. “Somebody needs to arrest the attention of this governor,” he said.
Barber also railed against charter schools, which he says only add to inequality and “isolation” of poor students. Cuomo supports these privately managed but publicly funded schools.
Barber compared the governor to his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, who died earlier this month. He said the elder Cuomo understood income, class and race disparity when he gave his Tale of Two Cities speech at the 1984 Democratic National convention.
In the past, the current governor said he’d like to spend more money on schools, but that was difficult because of New York's multi-billion dollar deficit. However, New York State United Teachers Vice President Andy Pallotta pointed out that the state is now running a surplus.
“We’re not broke anymore,” Pallotta said. “Spend the money, Gov. Cuomo.”
A spokesman for the governor's office said New York “spends three times as much per pupil in high needs districts than it does on low needs districts, and that funding has only increased over the past four years." Spokesman Rich Azzopardi also called critics “special interests” and said the governor is trying to inject “accountability and innovation” into the school system.
A report by the governor’s budget office shows the state spends more per student on the poorest schools. But advocates said the figures do not take into account the disparity in local taxes, where poor districts have lower collections of local property taxes.
Representatives of charter schools also came to the capitol Monday, also seeking money. Kyle Rosencrantz, of the Northeast Charter Schools Network, said his group collected 4,800 signatures from parents and teachers at charter schools. They're asking for more money in the new state budget to build more schools and to pay their rent, known as facilities aid. He says the schools see the lack of money as the “biggest impediment” to creating more charters. He’d also like to see the state's cap lifted on the number of charter schools allowed in New York.
Rosencrantz said the charter school action was not timed to coincide with the rally, and is merely a coincidence.
Also on Monday, Cuomo announced he’ll move up the date of his budget release by one week to Jan. 21. He’s expected to detail school spending and other financial plans