December 19, 2013
By Billy Easton, Executive Director of the Alliance for Quality Education
The Governor’s plan for $2 billion in election-year tax cuts and giveaways shows just how out of touch he is with the needs of New York State. Under his reign, New York’s schools have suffered some of the worst classroom cuts, leaving many schools on the verge of financial and educational insolvency.
At the same time inequitable and inadequate education funding has widened the opportunity gap, leaving students in low wealth school districts struggling to even meet state and federal requirements for graduation much less being prepared for college and careers.
New York’s school children simply cannot afford to have their education sacrificed at the altar of election-year tax giveaways. It is wrong and misguided.
The Governor claims that money doesn’t matter, but his own education programs prove that it does. Last year, he lauded the addition of full-day pre-kindergarten programs – but only about one percent of New York’s four-year-olds were affected by this program and only in the communities that received money for it. Saying that money doesn’t matter in education is almost as nonsensical as saying poverty doesn’t affect a student’s opportunities.
