News Channel 13 – WNYT
Albany
http://wnyt.com/article/stories/S1797007.shtml?cat=300
Tyese Edwards soared from 7th to 8th grade easily. She did not, however, move on to 9th and that, claims her mom, is the direct result of no longer getting Academic Intervention Services, or AIS.
Other parents who attended the rally outside the State Education Building on Monday had similar stories. They, along with education advocates, believe that slimming the number of students who receive additional help to pass state exams, graduate and prepare for the workforce or college is shortsighted.
“They’re ignoring the future,” complains mother of five, Irene Hawkesworth.
But inside, the Board of Regents decision to give school districts more flexibility when it comes to AIS distribution was unanimous. Some board members questions the value of AIS and others labeled it an “unfunded mandate.”
“This isn’t a situation where there is just money sitting there,” explains NYS’s Education Commissioner David Steiner.
In the end, education advocates left the Regents meeting disappointed but not surprised. They say this is what happens when a state cuts nearly $1.5-billion in education funding.
“New Yorkers know you can’t have a budgetary assault on public schools without kids paying the consequence,” says Billy Easton of the Alliance for Quality Education.
Easton adds that the Board of Regents is sending a confusing message. in July, they changed state standards which in turn upped the number of kids qualifying for AIS. But now schools don’t have to provide that help to everyone in that newly larger group.
It is now up to districts to decide how AIS will be distributed. It’s possible individual districts will keep AIS exactly how it is but now they have the authority to change it.
