As the school year ends and summer begins, many educators are wondering what schools will look like and whether they’ll still have positions next fall.
This recent wave of layoffs and rollbacks recalls the carnage of the Great Recession, when New York, and most other states, saw devastating cuts to public schools—especially those in low-income neighborhoods.
While cuts to education funding are being discussed in many states, the picture looks particularly grim in New York, which not only faces an alarming revenue shortfall (estimated at $10-13 billion for 2020), but expects budget gaps of up to $19 billion annually over the next four years.
In Rochester, an embattled district where 100 teachers were let go earlier this year, 800 possible additional layoffs have already been announced. School districts in Troy and Albany are anticipating an equally staggering number of teacher layoffs. And the situation is the same across New York, where school boards are bracing for a situation similar to the aftermath of the 2008 stock market crash—when 20,000 staffers were laid off—if federal stimulus aid doesn’t materialize.
With forty percent of the state’s children packed into the five boroughs of New York City, parent and teacher groups have mobilized against Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposed education cuts, which would slash funding for everything from afterschool, arts, and vocational programs to air conditioning. De Blasio has also ordered a teacher hiring freeze.
As Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza put it, “We are at the bone.”
This recent wave of layoffs and rollbacks recalls the carnage of the Great Recession, when New York, and most other states, saw devastating cuts to public schools—especially those in low-income neighborhoods. As an art teacher with only three years on the job, I myself was laid off in a wave of eliminated subjects and positions.
But why did we accept those revenue shortfalls, which were caused by Wall Street greed, and why accept them today? New York used to have a statewide progressive tax that fully funded all of its schools; why can’t we restore it?
In 2007, just months before the Great Recession, state courts upheld a 2003 appeal forcing the legislature to procure basic per-pupil funding in low-income districts. This landmark case affirmed the right to an equal education for all New York schoolchildren, and it went into effect when then-Governor Eliot Spitzer approved the “Foundation Aid” formula.
By 2008, poor schools were finally funded, with over $1 billion allocated as the first of four aid installments. Revenue came in through a temporary millionaire’s tax surcharge that increased rates on those making $1 million by less than one percent, and at progressively higher rates for upper brackets.
With more funding, schools reduced class sizes while expanding pre-K and Saturday classes. But after the economy imploded, the revenue shortfalls of 2009 provided an excuse for newly elected Governor Andrew Cuomo to make an astounding claim: the $4 billion due to impoverished students was no longer “owed.”
Statewide education cuts of $1.3 billion in his first budget would set the tone for a Cuomo administration that would always put billionaires first.
Around this time, Cuomo received cover from the U.S. Department of Education with $700 million awarded in federal “Race to the Top” funds tied to the expansion of standardized testing and linking teacher evaluations to test scores.
Working with Republicans, Cuomo would approve only about one-tenth of the funds required by the Foundation Aid formula in the next year’s budget, a trend that continued for years, only inching up slightly despite New York’s continually improving economic recovery.
When de Blasio first ran for mayor of New York City, he campaigned on a promise to tax the rich to fund Universal Pre-K. De Blasio won, but Cuomo blocked New York City from hiking taxes on its multi-billionaires, instead funding pre-K in a gradual rollout paid for through cuts to other student services, such as counselors.
With the coronavirus pandemic now gripping New York and projected state revenues once again plummeting, we cannot repeat the mistakes made in the aftermath of the Great Recession, using revenue shortfalls as an excuse to deny schools funding required by Foundation Aid law.
In late March, the federal stimulus CARES Act appropriated $1.1 billion for urgently needed technology in New York’s emergency transition to remote learning. But in early April, Cuomo’s state budget cut $1.1 billion from K-12 education, the exact amount that Congress had allocated.
At the height of the pandemic, Cuomo announced a partnership with prominent tech billionaires Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt to permanently expand remote learning.
That aid was meant for poor students, but because Cuomo made cuts across the board, high poverty districts like New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Yonkers lost about five times more than affluent districts.
Calls for taxing the wealthy only grew louder. A poll commissioned by the state teacher’s union had found resounding public support at ninety-two percent.
A letter signed by dozens of “Patriotic Millionaires” made clear long before the pandemic that even the wealthy agree their taxes should be raised. This runs counter to Cuomo’s assertions that higher taxes will make the ultra-wealthy leave the state (which did not happen in 2011, when the millionaire’s tax was in full effect). In fact, the number of millionaires in the state increased.
At the height of the pandemic, Cuomo announced a partnership with prominent tech billionaires Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt to “reimagine” public education to permanently expand remote learning, appointing a panel that glaringly lacked practicing K-12 educators.
Public outrage was swift, with petitions topping 146,000 signatures as press reports recalled Bill Gates’s long record of educational missteps.
Watching Cuomo putting billionaires first, teachers began pushing to reinstate the millionaires’ tax. There are also a number of other proposals outside of income tax hikes that could generate tens of billions, including stock transfer taxes, corporate taxes, taxes on luxury items, or digital advertising.
New York’s Constitution has enshrined the philosophical value that regardless of where you start from, education is supposed to be the great equalizer. Under the current system, social mobility is down, and wealth and income disparity are at historic highs.
We can, and should, fix that.