State of the State

A few fundamental misunderstandings underlie Governor Cuomo's ideas about education in his State of the State. First, school districts aren't refusing to consolidate because of tax issues. The mergers around here would actually have brought taxes down. They aren't merging because they want to keep their schools no matter what. Period.

Delivering universal Pre-K that is truly universal is something I can fully support, but it is a meaningless promise if it's unfunded.

The entire tax plan (capped for two years, then upped with rebates to folks making under $120K) hurts those schools and municipalities that have already done the hard work to bring costs down.

Bonuses for top teachers is one of those incentives that science suggests does not work as planned.

Finally, it's great to propose a huge bond for technology in the classroom, but if that money arrives and is disseminated according to the same old formulas, the rich will get the good stuff, and upstate schools will be left with the same old crap.

Tweet