OPINION: Find a fairer way to finance schools

Martin R. Cantor is director of Dowling College's Long Island Economic and Social Policy Institute.

There was good news and bad news in Tuesday's school budget votes. The good news was that most Long Island school budgets passed. The bad news was that the State Legislature is still sidestepping its responsibility to reform how New York State schools are financed.

But with consensus building for a cap on local property taxes, an opportunity is developing to reform education financing in New York State.

State leaders must not mistakenly believe that cutting aid to education is reforming the system. True reform will address the chronic problems of adequately financing education and eliminating the disparity between high-wealth/low-need school districts and high-need/low-wealth school districts. Legislators have to discard the old method of allowing regional shares of state aid or the wealth of school districts to drive the financing debate.

The discussion should be about how and where dollars are spent. There are still too many children in poverty on Long Island who are not meeting state standards, and if the regional economy is to improve, these children must graduate from high school, take their place in the regional workforce, and become responsible citizens capable of supporting households.

Few on Long Island will dispute that our school districts perform well for the taxes we pay. But we can and must do better. For every tax increase approved, as happened overwhelmingly on Tuesday, there should be a corresponding improvement in educational results. Spending more to achieve comparable levels of past achievements can no longer be accepted as the norm.

Research has shown that the biggest drivers of school success are students' income level, appropriately certified teachers, and percentage of students who have special needs or who are English Language Learners. With Long Island's demographics changing, these issues must be addressed.

The needs are not specific to New York, yet our state lags behind states such as Kentucky, Massachusetts and Washington, which have enacted reforms that eliminate the financial disparities between high-wealth/low-need and low-wealth/high-need school districts.

One example is the enacted Kentucky reform measures, which focus on instruction, teacher support, pupil support and administration functions. Resources are allocated to the most effective strategies at the classroom, school and district level. Priorities include appropriate class sizes for core and specialist classes; effective professional development for teachers; awareness of changing student demographics; tutoring; an extended school day and summer school to provide additional instructional time to help struggling students; and a shorter summer break.

Kentucky's Support Education Excellence formula began with an adjusted base guarantee per-pupil minimum, funded through local taxes and state aid. Added to the base guarantee were adjustments for special-needs children; low-income students; students unable to attend regular school because of short-term health problems; and population-density-based transportation needs. School districts were allowed to generate up to an additional 15 percent of the adjusted-base guarantee through property taxes or from a combination of other local taxes.

Districts with property wealth below 150 percent of the state average received state equalization aid to fund the adjusted guaranteed minimum. School districts could also raise another 30 percent of the adjusted-base guarantee through locally enacted taxes, but this revenue is not equalized by the state.

The result in Kentucky was improved school financial equity, and along with that has come an improvement in Kentucky's high school graduation rates. In 2000, before the reforms, 74.1 percent of 25-year-olds in Kentucky were high school graduates. By 2008, after enacting the reforms, Kentucky high school graduates increased to 80.4 percent.

Given the Kentucky example, it would be a mistake for school boards, school administrators and state legislators to congratulate themselves for the school budget vote success. It only minimizes the problems that lie ahead, and the hard decisions that must be made if New York State is to adequately educate all of our children.