View From The Middle

By Charles Rogers

State’s Kids Are Entitled To H.S. Education — Finally!

Ideal World scenario: New York City’s schoolkids will, in the not-too-distant future, be extremely well educated, thanks to a lawsuit settled by the New York State Court of Appeals last week. In essence, the state’s highest court ruled in a case entitled "Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. New York State" that every public school student is entitled to the opportunity for a meaningful high school education.

Not elementary school — high school.

That’s four years’ more learning than previous legislators and Governor Pataki had ever figured on — or apparently ever thought our students were capable of.

The decision by the court overturns a lower court’s ruling that the state must only ensure that students receive an eighth-grade education and reinstates a previous trial court ruling that all children are entitled to a "sound, basic education" that prepares them for "capable" citizenship. It also notes that the current funding system is inadequate.

Of course, the court also ordered that the Governor and Legislature should undertake a study "to ascertain the actual cost of providing a sound basic education in New York City" and that an accountability system should be included to ensure that the students actually receive proper opportunities for success.

They specified that the "sound basic education" would include a meaningful high school education with the skills and knowledge to function productively as civic participants in society, including being capable voters and jurors able to sustain employment.

The ruling, of course, means the city will have the right to spend more money on educating its children. It is yet to be determined where the money will come from.

Is it a laugh, or what?

Here we are in the midst of a supposed disastrous budget deficit from every standpoint, city and state, and the court is saying we must now put more money into the education system. Mayor Mike Bloomberg said he was "ecstatic" at the prospect that funding will be forthcoming, as were most other advocates. However, once again, we’re asking: where will the money come from? And when it does come, will it be used for the correct purposes?

I agree with the sentiment that money for education is a good thing — an untouchable, like "apple pie" and "Mom" — but how dare they even intimate that the funding is the most important thing here.

The important thing is the idea that young students have the potential for success! Actually, it’s a boost of confidence, whereas before the ruling, it seems our young pupils were being told they didn’t really have such a potential and they were lucky to be given the opportunity to get through the eighth grade. How stifling!

Now, all of a sudden, the courts are telling the community of educators to say to schoolchildren, "Hey, kid. We knew you could do it all along! We knew you could get through high school!" It appears that, until now, the legislators and the courts didn’t think enough of their constituents and their constituents’ children than to see that they got something better than an eighth grade education.

Once the funding is allocated, the big job is to see that the money gets to the right places. Is it going to flutter down from Albany — having been derived through taxes (we know it’s not going to come as a result of a new State lottery!) —or will it then be given to a number of separate agencies and committees, ad infinitum, and be scattered? Probably. Hopes are that it’s not put into a pile that will then be cut to pieces, with only a portion going to education and the rest to "cure" some fiscal ills.

I’m taking bets as to whether it is eventually going to do some good. You can bet right beside me that whatever happens, positive or not, it won’t come about for a long, long time.