Earlier this week, the State Senate and Assembly released their own budget proposals, fully rejecting Governor Hochul’s proposed cuts and harmful changes to the Foundation Aid formula. Unlike Governor Hochul, both the Senate and Assembly clearly recognize the importance of fully funding public schools at this moment. With student needs growing and the impacts of the pandemic still being felt in classrooms around the state, now is not the time to be pulling back on the state’s support for students.

Email Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Speaker Carl Heastie now urging them to continue to fight for public schools in the enacted budget! Tell them they must hold the line on protecting Foundation Aid from the Governor’s harmful cuts and changes.

Now the bad news. Neither the Senate nor the Assembly included any funding to fill the hole left by expiring federal pandemic relief at the end of this school year. That will leave some schools with an immediate gap in funding critical personnel and programs, including mental health support staff, summer tutoring, and early education programs. While the districts with enough local resources have been able to catch up, students in some districts with fewer resources continue to struggle — many of them the same districts that the State chronically underfunded for years, and which educate a majority of Black and brown students.

Now, we find ourselves in a place that we know feels very familiar to so many of you: fighting, yet again, to save the funding that our public schools and students rely on.

Every single year, New York State’s governors have done the same, tired dance over education funding. Will they or won’t they fund our schools? What this means practically is school districts are never able to plan ahead. Never able to count on state aid from one year to the next, they are unable to make the most of funding increases, denied the opportunity to try new programs, grow, or expand. This impacts everything from social emotional supports to programs like art and music, which are so often the first on the chopping block when cuts happen.

Enough is enough. We are constantly fighting for restoration of funding, when we should be fighting to transform. Governor Hochul has the power and responsibility to end this ongoing cycle of unpredictability, so we can have a better and more equitable public education system for all.

Email Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Speaker Carl Heastie now urging them to continue to fight for public schools in the enacted budget, and hold the line on protecting Foundation Aid from the Governor’s harmful cuts and changes.