Cuomo-nopoly

On Board Online • March 2, 2015

Timothy G. Kremer
NYSSBA Executive Director

Greetings, fellow members of the "education monopoly." Have you heard about the new game invented by our governor? Ironically, it's called "Cuomo-nopoly." When you pass go, you have no idea what you will collect. There is a cap on what you can spend unless you convince a supermajority of players to allow it.

Other players don't build hotels; they build charter schools. They are on your properties, but you have to pay them rent.

Don't land on the corner square or you'll be sent to jail, I mean, "receivership." Then you sit back for the next five turns as someone from Massachusetts throws the dice for you.

Jokes aside, public education is dealing with some very serious issues right now. And although he calls himself "the students' lobbyist," our governor does not seek to persuade but to dictate. He can't seem to decide what he feels more passionate about - improving public education or bad-mouthing it.

Let's start with his rhetoric about public schools being the last monopoly. How, exactly, does a governmental obligation to provide free education to all school-age children equate to exploitive business practices?

It's true that the only viable choice for parents in many communities is the local public school. This is not a wrong that should be corrected but a rational allocation of public resources. Our collective obligation as a society is to be sure that our state government adequately funds and rationally regulates public schools so they can - this is really basic - fulfill their mission of preparing students for success in college, career and citizenship.

I was thinking about this as Gov. Cuomo delivered his State of the State address and executive budget proposal last month. I was stunned when I heard his take-it-or-leave-it offer of enhanced school aid enacted simultaneously with his proposed reforms - a long collection of items that came out of nowhere and have been discussed with few, if any, people outside the governor's office.

I view the higher level of funding he offered as the floor for the state to begin to meet its obligations to schools under our state Constitution, which the government has systematically and intentionally ignored for years.

For now, it's impossible for local budget planners to have a clue where state funding will end up. All-or-nothing, apparently, is a real possibility.

If anyone has a monopoly - i.e., unchecked power - it's the governor when it comes to the state budget. In 2004, New York's highest court put the governor firmly in the driver's seat in the state budget process when it ruled that the Legislature violated the state Constitution whenever it tried to amend appropriations bills submitted by Gov. George Pataki. The Court of Appeals also clarified, in the same ruling, that the governor can use post-April 1 budget-extender bills to present legislators with fait accompli budget plans that they can either accept or reject, but not modify.

State legislative leaders must find it difficult to negotiate under these circumstances, and it's a cold welcome for our new Assembly speaker, Carl Heastie. Lately the governor has been royal in his approach, issuing budgetary fiats (and being a rather prolific producer of poison-pen letters to the acting commissioner of education).

At the same time, the governor deserves credit for taking some brave stands. I like the governor's proposal for a five-year probationary period for teachers. I also agree with him that the teacher and principal evaluation system needs to be changed, because it is not yielding credible results. We live in New York, not Lake Wobegon. But, I hasten to add, doubling down on the measure of questionable standardized test scores is not the approach I would recommend.

The receivership model is worthy of discussion. There are a number of components of the governor's proposal that NYSSBA supports, including flexibility to alter collective bargaining agreements, elimination of last-in first-out provisions, and increased authority to remove staff without giving them bumping rights in other schools. However, we believe that boards of education should have these rights. NYSSBA is troubled by the fact that the powers are reserved for the receiver only.

Gov. Cuomo's style is bold. One could argue that our state can use boldness right now. But playing Cuomo-nopoly is a lousy way to spend a long, cold winter.