SUMMARY OF MAJOR EPP POLICY POSITIONS
1976 to 1998 Update. (¥ no longer current) (* change in order)

I. BASIC CREDO
II. FISCAL POLICIES

I. BASIC CREDO

The Importance of Public Education
The future of New York City depends on our ability to prepare and educate our children...The city must demonstrate its commitment to education if the students in New York City public schools are to receive the priority status they deserve.

A Proposal to Rescue the 1981 School Budget, 1980

Services for Children Come First
Whatever the dollar amount available for schools, the largest share possible must go to the instruction of students.

EPP Goals and Accomplishments 1976-1981

Opposition to Public Tax Dollars for Private Schools*
EPP members are unanimous in their belief that public funds ought to be devoted to public education, and we will oppose any legislative efforts to undermine that principle. The EPP has built its agenda on demanding accountability from our schools in return for their public funding. Unfortunately, private school recipients of public funds are largely exempt from taxpayer scrutiny, and so, for this reason among others, we believe they are not entitled to increased public investment.

Testimony before the NYS Senate Education Committee 1984

II. FISCAL POLICY

State Funding Policies & Practices

The Role of New York State
The EPP believes that high-quality public education is vital to the state's economic development. Good local school systems and a qualified labor force are among New York State's major attractions for the fast-growing technical, service and financial industries.

Though it is not the only factor, excellence in education takes money. The state's new initiatives to upgrade graduation requirements must be accompanied by adequate funds. With insufficient financing for public schools, students who need extra support to meet new standards may be denied adequate preparation for full participation in the labor force.

We believe education is a high priority public service, and we support taxes at the level necessary to meet the state's and the city's responsibility to all our children.

When appraising tax cut proposals, we urge legislators to consider that reducing state revenues to stimulate economic growth may be a counterproductive strategy.

Proposals for State Aid to Education, 1985-86, 1985

The Need for Equity in State Funding for Public Education
It is quite clear that our [state] system of financing education is inequitable...We need a new system of funding our public schools that will diminish the relationship between spending and wealth, and narrow the differences in spending among school districts. In addition, the State’s operating aid formula...fails to compensate adequately for the actual fiscal capacities and burdens confronting urban school districts.

"A Fair Shake for Kids" amici curiae brief submitted for Levittown vs. Nyquist, 1981

Make the Distribution of State Aid Equitable and Objective
In 1925 the state legislature enacted the Cole-Rice Law with the intention of equalizing both educational opportunity and tax burden throughout the state. Then in 1962, the Diefendorft Formula was adopted. The legislature in 1974 voted to adopt still another equalization formula, supposedly and "interim" one until the Levittown legal challenge was decided. Almost twenty years later we are still operating with this "interim" formula that has become a jerry-built contraption containing ever more elaborate calculations. Yet the state’s system of funding public education is now even more inequitable. New York outranks most other states in measures of disparity in primary and secondary public school funding. Our wealthier school districts have three times the resources of poorer school districts, a three-to-one ratio. Only two other states in the nation have this degree of disparity.

Testimony before the NYS Special Commission on Education Structure, Policies & Practices 9/30/93

The Practice of Negotiating "Shares" of State School Aid Should End
Both at the state and city levels educational needs, rather than predetermined percentages or regional "shares" should govern the apportionment of funds for the New York City school system.

Budget Briefing 1990: A Graphic Review of the Decade in NYC Schools

New York City does not receive the aid it might earn under the various state aid formulas because the state aid formulas do not govern the aid allotted to New York City. Instead, New York City’s aid is determined through negotiations, in a political process that is not conducted in an open legislative session, but takes place off-stage and has more to do with regional rivalries than with education. Each year at budget time, the Governor and the legislature decide on how many dollars will be available for public schools. Then the political leaders (or their staff representatives) negotiate as to how this total is to be shared. A set percentage is determined for New York City, basically held to about 34 percent of the total state aid distributed (or 36 percent of the agreed upon dollar increase in aid)/ New York City’s "share" has been judiciously raised in tiny increments each year. These increments in no way correspond to the amount that the City would earn if the formulas were permitted to compensate for differences in pupil counts, wealth and need as they were designed to do and if the definitions in the law were not tinkered with each year to yield the desired outcome.

Unequal State Aid for Public Schools, 1994

Fiscally Dependent School Districts
Fiscally dependent school districts do not work. EPP, as a coalition, has come to the same conclusion as the 1993 New York State Special Commission on Educational Structure, Policies, and Practices chaired by H. Patrick Swygert: The fiscally dependent school district structure inherently pits the education of children against other municipal services. New York City and Buffalo have become justifiably notorious for using increases in state school aid to decrease local tax levy funding for schools and for redirecting school aid to close their own municipal budget gaps.

Testimony before NYS Assembly Education Committee 10/25/95

State Should Fund Instruction as a Priority
State equalization of educational opportunity means to us, as a basic minimum, that instructional services should meet the need of every child in New York. In order for the state to provide the additional funding to make equalization of instructional services a reality, the state should reduce its funding of non-instructional services to a bare minimum.

Testimony before the NYS Special Commission on Educational Structure, Policies & Practices 9/30/93

State school aid should go directly to the schools in large cities as it currently does in the 715 smaller school districts in the rest of the state. In addition, we urge that all state funds go to support instructional services for children. City tax levy funds would be used for all non instructional functions and to supplement instructional service. The Panel does not see any reason why the entire package of state aids should be funneled through the municipal budgets of the big Five School Districts.

Testimony before NYS Assembly Education Committee 10/25/95

The Priorities Panel would like the Rural Resources Commission, the state legislature, and the Governor to consider a proposal to equalize educational opportunity throughout the state. This new system of funding would result in a shift in what the state funds: classroom teachers, and instruction-related materials and services, such as books, staff development, computers, and lab equipment. Other services, however vital and necessary, that are not instructionally related would be primarily funded by the local school district.

The advantage of equalizing student-teacher ratios for all districts is that affluent school district parents would no longer fear an increase in class size as a result of state assumption of school financing, and these communities as well as middle class districts, if the voters chose, could also reduce property taxes by securing savings in non-instructional school district operations. Low wealth districts would experience a significant increase in instructional staff and decrease in average class size. The gap between their schools and those in more affluent districts in computer equipment, software, science labs, and staff development for teachers would be ended. Tax relief would also be an option in these low-wealth districts. An advantage for dependent school districts, especially New York City and Buffalo with a long history of using increases in state school aid to lower municipal support for education, is that the redirection of state education funding to other purposes would become politically impossible. An advantage for taxpayers in all school districts is that inefficiencies in non instructional operations would be subjected to greater scrutiny. We would also hope that governance reforms would result from a greater clarity in the functions funded by the state and the functions funded by localities.

The Panel recognizes that there are some disadvantages to this proposal, which is why we ask for further analysis by the Commission. First and foremost, the state would have to develop a rational means of reflecting the different wage levels in different regions of the state. As in Washington State, some accommodation would have to be made for high cost regions where the average cost of teachers' salaries is high. Possibly, local school districts would be allowed to provide an amount over a state cap. But what will surely happen, should the state fund instructional services, is that the legislature and the Governor will become a party to collective bargaining for all school districts in the state. Another problem is that affluent school districts, now receiving a flat grant from the state, would get the largest increases in state funding and would also get the greatest potential tax relief. The most serious consequence is that there would still be a substantial gap in resources between affluent and low-wealth school districts which would manifest themselves in glaring differences in non instructional services and building conditions, which can also affect student learning. Affluent districts could afford more sports activities, beautiful buildings, a full choice of meals, and more administrators. Low wealth communities would continue to have limited sports programs, crumbling buildings, few health services, less counseling, and fewer administrators. But, given that state assumption of the full costs of public education in New York State does not seem to be a possibility at this time, a state assumption of the full costs of instruction would help ensure that every child begins to get a quality education, a key element of any truly democratic society.

Testimony before Legislative Commission on Rural Resources 1/11/95

Minimum Standards for Performance for State Funded Programs¥
We urge this Commission and the Governor to establish meaningful minimum standards for performance by individual schools and district administrators. Money is deobligated or disallowed in state contracts on the basis of poor performance, and the same principle should apply to educational services. Increases in PSEN/PCEN and Chapter 1 funds should be disallowed by the state after three years of poor performance by a school in the use of these funds until there is evidence of improved student outcomes.

Testimony before the NYS Special Commission on Education Structure, Policies & Practices 9/30/93 SURR Funding Policies

If new resources were to be provided to support a reorganization of a SURR school with new administration and new staff, EPP policy would support this recommendation. If, however, additional state aid were made available to a school district simply by virtue of its having a designated SURR school, EPP would object to this recommendation as a continuation of a perverse policy of providing incentives to administrators for educational failure.

We would find it discouraging -- and a throwback to past experiences with categorical programs -- if legislation is drafted to provide additional funding to districts with SURR schools that have failed in their mission to educate children without there being a requirement that these schools be reorganized significantly.

Testimony before Assembly Education Committee 4/29/94

City Funding Policies & Practices

Preservation of Vital City Services
EPP has fashioned an education budget strategy that calls upon each level of government to do its part to protect classroom services for children. ...Federal tax and spending policies [continue to] cause a gap in the city budget. Therefore, we ask the citizens of New York to be mindful of the impact of the federal reductions and to support cost savings wherever possible and local taxes at the minimum level necessary to preserve current levels of vital city services.

Education Budget Options: FY 1984, 1983

Priority of Public Education
We suggest that our jails and our welfare caseloads would not be the size they are today if New York City had invested more of its resources in the education of its children. The well-educated child becomes a gainfully employed resident of this city. A poorly educated child becomes the prisoner of our jails and recipient of our social services. When we deny our youth teachers, counselors, decent buildings, and basic supplies, we deny them hope and a future as productive human beings. We also suggest that a good, decent public school education is the most respectful city service that can be provided to our residents, be they poor or middle class, whatever their race or ethnic background. So many of our other city services–garbage, police, social services–are based on the principles of waste removal or human damage control. Education, on the other hand, is the transfer of knowledge, skills and problem-solving abilities to individuals to make them more capable members of our society. Education is predicated on the possibility of improvement and growth, not removal and containment. No addition to our police force, our jail cell capacity, or our social service staff will transform this city into a more civil society. Good schools will. We call on you, the members of the City Council's Education Committee, to see that education is a priority where it counts–the city budget.

Testimony before City Council 4/22/91

City Fiscal Effort
The city has taken advantage of an increasing share of education expenditures paid out of state and federal aid funds to skimp on its own contribution to the education of the city's children, thereby facilitating the city's own budget balancing efforts. To skimp on the education of the city's children is unsound city policy. State and federal aid is meant to supplement city contributions to education, not to supplant them. Failure in the Mayor's Fiscal Year 1995 Executive Budget to reflect an increase of state aid to education would be but the latest example of unwise city budget practices.

EPP Briefing Sheet on Sharing the Costs of Education 1994

Stable and Predictable Funding for City Public Schools
While EPP believes that the Board of Education could further streamline its operations and redirect more resources towards instruction, our estimates of potential savings would not be enough to balance out current staff, supply, and repair shortages nor keep pace with increases in student registers. A steady, predictable funding base for schools is required so that educational reforms are not undercut by overwhelming increased class sizes, lack of teacher training, and a scarcity of supplies and books.

EPP Briefing Sheet on Maintenance of Effort 1994

Board of Education Funding Policies & Practices

Targeted Funds Must Go to the Designated Children¥
While different services may be provided to different students, a student must receive services in return for the funding that he/she attracts to the schools. This applies to all state, federal, and tax levy funds.

Allocation of Tax levy Funds to New York City High Schools 1979

Instructional Improvement Should be Quantified into Savings Targets
Ask community school districts and principals to develop a savings plan that would result from improving instruction at the school level. Panel members are excited about the Chancellor's proposal that schools ensure that every child in the third grade can read. This objective coincides with efforts to turn around low performing schools. In a good number of low-performing elementary schools, less than half of the students read at grade level in the third grade... If just 6 students in each of the city's 638 elementary schools did not have to repeat a grade, be referred for special education evaluation, or was able to leave Bilingual/ESL program, the average savings of $2,200 would meet a PEG target of $8.4 million dollars. EPP must add an important note of caution here: students that need these services should continue to receive them, regardless of budgetary goals. Monitoring of overall school improvement would have to accompany each school’s progress in attaining these savings.

BOE Budget Testimony 2/14/96

Funding Formula for Overage High School Students
Administrator positions should be calculated on the basis of the number of four-year students. Currently there exists a perverse incentive where by high schools that have made the least effort to see that a majority of their students graduate by age 18 are rewarded by additional administrative positions based on the net register high school formula. Since the Board of Education has been able to determine a count of 5th, 6th, and 7th year high school students in order to deprive them of physical education programs, the system has the capability of scheduling these same students for the purposes of determining the net register estimated for the high school unit personal service allocation formula. Let us be clear about our recommendation, because we are not advocating that high schools receive less funds, but more funds. We are recommending that there be a new formula, similar to the supplemental allocation for long term absentee students, where additional instructional resources are set aside to provide the staffing at the high school level to ensure that 5th year students get the instruction and extra help so that they do not become 6th and 7th year high school students.

Testimony on BOE Budget 4/97

Eliminate Funding Incentives for Low Performance
The reality is that by far the greatest inefficiencies of the Board of education are not operational, they are educational. A quarter of the high school population takes five to seven years to graduate. $200 million in annual excess costs comes from delayed high school graduation. New York City now has the highest proportion of students m self-contained special education classes in the nation. Unlike other school systems, the Board of Education has few strategies in place to encourage the mainstreaming of students who could succeed in general education programs. The allocations to special education, which now exceed $1 billion, are larger than the allocations for the entire high school division. If these funds significantly improved the achievement levels of these students this would be money well spent. But only one in three special education students will ever complete their education, including those who simply "age out" because they turn 21 years old. The current method of funding the Board of Education creates and rewards failure. Underfunding of general education by the city and the state contributes to instructional failure, which in turn requires more mandated dollars for remediation, additional years of schooling, and special education programs

Budget Options 1992

Support for School Spending Plans
School budgets were unheard of before Joe Fernandez came to town. Every year there was a 100-page document showing how funds were allocated to the 32 community school districts. After that, the paper trail ended even for school principals, who never knew with any certainty whether they were getting a fair share...EPP strongly recommends that this public disclosure be continued and improved by an annual reporting of district expenditures, not just allocations. Only then will the public and public officials begin to understand how dollars are spent in schools, heretofore a mystery.

Testimony before the Chancellor’s Search Committee 4/20/93

Current budget practices throughout the NYC school system are highly centralized. Although districts differ, community school districts, their superintendents, school boards and parent groups have very little leeway in deciding how or where to spend available resources.

At the community school district level, too, power has been retained at the top, reserving almost no latitude for school-site managers and their client groups. Community school boards and parent groups have been granted more input in personnel choices than in budget choices...

The spending plans are an important step forward. They open up budget process to a wide audience. They expose districts to citywide comparison, and permit wider understanding of inter and intra-district equity in allocation of resources. They spotlight the priorities of each district and give parents and school board members the tools to raise questions and alter priorities. In addition, they create a standardized, continuous record that will document school-spending policies over time.

The spending plans need improvement. They are not yet user-friendly. The many anomalies in the reports need attention. Missing from this first year's data was information on actual expenditures for the previous year. The plans for each program at each school would make much more sense if the reader could see how much was actually spent in the program the year before. This information is readily available because amounts allocated for the spending plans use the same budget codes as those used in reporting actual expenditures throughout the year.

Equity in the Funding of Public Elementary & Middle Schools in NYC 1995

Federal Policies & Practices

Maintaining a Federal Role in Public Education
The federal government has an important role to play in public education. Federal funds have provided support for disadvantaged children, including minorities, students with limited English proficiency, handicapped children and economically or educationally disadvantaged children that states could not or would not provide. Federal support for education -- both legal and financial -- must be maintained and strengthened. (no citation)

Federal Responsibility to Fund a Larger Share of Special Education Costs
In the past decade, the civil rights of people with handicapping conditions in every aspect of life have been expanded and protected by statutes and court decisions. This national commitment to improve opportunities for handicapped people has had a particularly far reaching effect on our education system...Unfortunately, the federal government, while mandating valuable services to children with handicapping conditions, has not fulfilled its financial commitment to local school districts faced with paying for these services.

Special Education Funding: A Story of Broken Promises, 1981

Drive more Title I Funding to Schools in High-Poverty Communities
In fact, this research found that the academic achievement levels of children from low-income families eligible for Chapter 1 services but attending schools in affluent districts were higher than the achievement levels of most students (whether Chapter 1 eligible or not) attending schools in low-income districts.

Yet under current Chapter 1 targeting system, urban high-need counties generally receive less funding per low-achieving child than rural and mixed high-need counties. The new targeting proposed by Secretary Riley would shift 34 percent of funds from the lowest poverty counties and 17 percent from the second lowest poverty counties in order to increase funding to the highest poverty counties by 15 percent and the second highest poverty counties by 1 percent.

Testimony before U.S. House Subcommittee on Elementary & Secondary Education 10/18/9

Federal School Funding Should Be Responsive to the Impact of Federal Immigration Policies
Currently, Chapter I funds are being stretched even further by the flood of immigration that New York City has experienced in the last decade. Over 120,000 new immigrant students have entered our schools in the last three years alone. Title Vll seems to refashion Bilingual and Immigrant Education programs and funding, but does not provide a significant increase in money. The New York City Mayor's office reports that the federal government contributes only $5 out of the $664 dollars per pupil that it costs the Board of Education to provide additional instructional services to Limited English Proficient students. Since the federal government sets immigration policy, it seems logical to the Educational Priorities Panel that this unit of government needs to provide assistance to local school systems that are affected by immigration.

Testimony before U.S. House Subcommittee on Elementary & Secondary Education 10/18/93