The power of public outrage should not be
underestimated. Although school leaders
struggled to be heard in their pleas to the State Education Department about
how the Common Core Learning Standards should be introduced in New York’s
schools, it wasn’t until the broader public added their voices, and their
outrage, that the SED and the Legislature and Governor really began to pay
attention.
Over the years there have been many instances when our requests
to legislators for laws that would be helpful to schools were brushed off with
the explanation that the public wasn’t calling out for that particular
change. Legislators who cited the lack
of a public outcry as a reason not to act do not necessarily seem pleased now that
they have a public clamoring for changes with the Common Core.
With the power of public outcry in mind, school leaders are
trying to draw attention to the Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA), hoping to
make it a pivotal issue this year. As the
budget discussion began, most of the public and even many legislators did not grasp
the impact of the GEA’s automatic reduction to school aid after a district’s
aid is calculated.
The GEA was instituted during the recession to help the
state with its revenue problems. Although initially a one-time adjustment to debit
money off the bottom line after a district’s state aid was calculated, it was
subsequently made a permanent part of the funding formula, a constant negative
number in the calculation of aid.
The amount of money subtracted from school aid by the GEA is
staggering - $8.5 BILLION statewide over the past four years, over $355 MILLION
in MCSBA districts alone! This loss is
crippling schools’ ability to offer the programs students need, an impact on
the development of the next generation that cannot be calculated. But the dollar loss can be calculated and for
the coming year, the Governor’s budget proposal includes another $1.3 BILLION GEA
cut, including $65 MILLION locally.
The public is beginning to understand the GEA. Dissonance is growing louder as people
question the conflicting messages from the Governor’s office that the state has
a surplus and can rebate tax money to homeowners yet still uses the GEA to
siphon money off the bottom line of school aid.
With all the pressure on districts created by the cap on the
levy, the governor’s push for a freeze on increases in local taxes, and the
continuing depletion of reserve funds, the insidious impact of the GEA is
becoming more obvious. Many school
leaders are showing their communities that despite all the other limits on
revenue, if this money was not taken away, they could fund their programs
without exceeding the tax cap for years to come.
The public doesn’t rise up when they are content; they rise
up when they are angry. It is
intoxicating to imagine the public demanding adequate funding for education,
but they could, and they might, because to understand the GEA is to be appalled
by it.
We need to take every opportunity to inform people about the
GEA.
