WICZ-TV
2/1/12
Travis Eldridge
http://www.wicz.com/news2005/viewarticle.asp?a=21966
BINGHAMTON — “I’m taking a second job. I’m going to be the Governor of the State of New York, and I’m also going to be the student lobbyist,” Governor Cuomo announced in his State of the State Address early last month.
Wednesday in the Southern Tier, groups like Citizen Action and the Public Policy and Education Fund took exception to Governor Cuomo’s remarks.
“We have parent organizations, we have administrative organizations, we have school boards and we have parents,” said Ken Smith, a teacher at BOCES. “And they are standing up to fight for the students of this state.”
Over the past two year’s, the state has cut school funding by $2.7 billion. This year’s proposed budget is only supposed to restore a quarter of that tax cut to the schools. Not enough to prevent school districts, like those here in Binghamton, from being forced to cut more programs.
“This is really about the children and ensuring all of our students, no matter where you live, your zip code should not determine your opportunity to succeed in life,” said Lea Webb of the Binghamton City Council.
Another problem Webb sees with the proposed budget involves competitive grants. In the Governor’s proposed budget $250 million are set aside for these grants, a problem for the school systems.
“It creates a system of winners and losers,” said Webb. “It’s a bad policy that also increases teaching to the test, and we’ve been following the same system in New York State, and it has not been working.”
The group’s answer to the problem is reallocating the competitive grant funding to help the higher need districts. They said it isn’t fair for students to compete against each other for their education.
