State Education Department officials released information stating that New York State owed its students $4.3 billion in educational funding. Four-point-three-BILLION.
The number isn’t even fathomable. What does $4.3 Billion look like? What could education transform into with $4.3 billion? How much is owed to my school?
There’s an app for that.
With the Public Policy in Education Fund, the Alliance for Quality Education launched a new web app this week, which includes the breakdown of exactly how much is owed to your school, for every school in the state.
This powerful tool will let you realize exactly how wrong the state is doing your school. Do you wish you had a new Math teacher? Wish you didn’t have to continue to buy paper for your school’s front office? Wish your students didn’t have to have “free time” in the auditorium rather than outside on the non-existent playground?
This web app will tell you about all the opportunity New York is robbing from your community and every community across the state. It is also a telling display of the racial inequities that exist in our school funding formula. A school can be owed $1 million, yet the school down the street is owed nothing.
It’s not the school down the street’s fault; it’s our government.
New York State has perpetuated racist and classist violence against our neighborhood schools by refusing to meet their most basic needs. This money that is owed comes as a result of a lawsuit settled in the highest courts of New York, which declared that the existing formula of funding was exacerbating inequity. The State then came up with the Foundation Aid formula, a formula used to equalize the system of school funding through property taxes, by intentionally funneling money into communities that could not generate enough funding on their own.
Well, this year Governor Cuomo has proposed to eliminate that formula. This is a direct threat to the Black, Brown, and low-income communities across the state, that are dependent on the formula for a chance at equity. This is also a gross display of indifference for the needs of very specific populations.
Head to whatismyschoolowed.com to get informed about the money Governor Cuomo is trying to take from your school. When it angers you, head to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/peoples-march-for-education-justice-tickets-32070172750 to register for our march for education justice!