Long Island's high-need school districts deserve full equity

The perennial crisis facing high-need school districts on Long Island such as Hempstead and Wyandanch is far more than a budgetary gap. It is a direct challenge to the New York State Constitution.

Article XI, Section 1, established during the 1938 Constitutional Convention, mandates that the state provide for the "maintenance and support of a system of free common schools ... wherein all the children of this State may be educated." This was never intended as a lofty aspiration. Rather, it is a fundamental promise and a binding legal obligation — one the state continues to leave unfulfilled for its most vulnerable suburban students.

This mandate was tested in a 1982 Court of Appeals decision about Levittown. The court established a "standard of inadequacy," ruling that the state constitution is violated only if education falls below a "gross and glaring" level. This created a Catch-22: to trigger a court-ordered funding remedy, a district must admit its "educational product" is failing. On Long Island, such admission is seen as local economic suicide; school boards fear that declaring their schools "grossly inadequate" would devastate property values. Students pay the price of silence.

New York City broke this silence through its Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) litigation, as city leaders made a high-stakes choice by admitting their education system was grossly and glaringly deficient. This "confession" allowed the courts to bypass the Levittown hurdle and define a "Sound Basic Education" not just as a desk in a room, but as a suite of essential "inputs." These include high-quality teachers, modern technology and adequate facilities. The CFE victory ultimately forced the creation of the Foundation Aid formula in 2007.

Next, came a case that found the CFE framework applies to high-poverty districts outside the five boroughs. The 2021 ruling is a game-changer because it proves that "gross and glaring" inadequacy is not exclusive to big cities. It exists wherever the state's funding formula fails to provide the basic tools needed to meet the minimum constitutional requirements.

Long Island's high-need districts have historically chosen to protect their brand over their budgets. This widens the equity gap in the wealthiest state in the nation.

These communities represent a unique concentration of poverty, special needs and English language learners that the Foundation Aid formula historically minimized. Despite higher state aid, the formula's NYC-linked regional cost index did not account for the extreme economic disparities within Long Island.

While Albany has finally proposed replacing decades-old poverty data with current estimates in the 2026-27 budget, the accompanying "transition adjustments" or phase-ins make it a hollow victory: the formula would acknowledge a student's poverty on paper while phasing in the funding remedy over years. The time has come for these districts to stop being defined solely by local real estate values and to demand the full equity promised by the landmark CFE ruling decades ago.

These budget negotiations are quietly a moment of reckoning for a 1938 promise that has become an enforceable right. If Gov. Kathy Hochul and the State Legislature continue to ignore the unique fiscal strangulation of high-need suburban districts, they are not just balancing a budget. They are inviting a day in court.

For Long Island's most vulnerable students, the "standard of inadequacy" is not theoretical. It is a daily reality that the state no longer can afford to ignore.

This guest essay reflects the views of Robert Costello, a SUNY distinguished teaching professor of criminal justice at Nassau Community College and adjunct professor of sociology at Hofstra University.