The aftermath of the win in court by the Campaign For Fiscal Equity is that the players of the politico-educational complex are defined, and the public sees how money, not equity, is the goal of the Powerful 3 (the three men who control New York State): Governor George Pataki, a Republican; the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Democrat; and the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, a Republican.

Robin Hood, Santa Claus and Financing for Schools
By MICHAEL COOPER (NY TIMES, June 6, 2004)

ALBANY, June 5 - It has been nearly a year since the state's highest court ruled that New York City's schoolchildren had been deprived of their constitutional right to a "sound, basic education" and ordered the state's elected leaders to find a remedy.

Now, as the July 30 deadline imposed by the court nears, and Gov. George E. Pataki and the leaders of the State Legislature wage an increasingly bitter battle over what to do, there is this one area of agreement: They all want to increase school aid across the state, even to wealthier districts that have done fine by their students in the past.

The court decision, state officials note, is about adequacy, not equity. As long as they bring spending on New York City schools up to a level the court finds acceptable, they see no reason not to spend more in wealthier parts of the state as well. That may make it harder to pay for their plans, but in Albany, where education spending is the choicest cut of the pork that lawmakers fight for each year, it makes winning political approval much easier.

So Governor Pataki's proposal calls for a $100,000 grant to every school district in the state - enough to pay for an extra teacher or two. The Republican-controlled State Senate, with its base of power in the suburbs and upstate, wants to set aside $840 million to spend on districts that are not classified as "high-needs."

Even the Democratic-controlled State Assembly, whose power base is in New York City and whose plan would set aside the most money for the city and other high-needs districts, calls for increasing spending by more than $850 million in other school districts around the state.

The three men who control New York State - Governor Pataki, a Republican; the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Democrat; and the Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, a Republican - are arguing about how much to spend on education, where exactly to spend it and how to come up with the money.

The political warfare has grown so heated that most other major state business has ground to a halt. But the one thing that all of them have said at one point or another is that they have no desire to play "Robin Hood" by cutting aid to wealthy districts in order to redirect it to poorer ones.

In fact, their plans would not only hold aid to wealthy districts steady; they would increase it.

"Forget about Robin Hood," said Edmund J. McMahon, an analyst at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative policy group. "It's Santa Claus. Everybody gets something under the tree."

From the start, the court decision has been a political nightmare for officials in Albany, where lawmakers fight tenaciously to bring more education spending to their districts and any slight increase or decrease is seen as a major victory or defeat. Officials argue endlessly over a school funding formula that is more complex than anything found on the new, tougher math Regents exam. And they go to the mat for it: in 1988, a group of Republican senators from Long Island held up the budget for weeks to increase their share.

Even the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the group that brought the landmark lawsuit, decided to push for a statewide funding solution. It issued a report this year that called for increasing spending in 517 of the state's 680 school districts.

"We really came to the decision that if we could get a functioning lab in every school, decent class sizes, gym facilities, an adequate education in every school - to get there is such a huge battle," said the executive director of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Michael Rebell. "Maybe in 20 years, if we ever get that, somebody else can say that they want to go for equity. But that's not our battle."

Mr. Pataki and the leaders of the Legislature argue that they must increase spending all over the state because school districts all over the state have needs, whether or not they are classified as "high-needs." To increase spending just for New York City, they note, would leave the state open to legal challenges from other school districts.

"There's a political reality, but there's also an educational reality," said Steven Sanders, a Manhattan Democrat who is chairman of the Assembly's Education Committee. "Even districts not defined as high-need still have needs."

All of the plans would increase spending in New York City, but an analysis by the Citizens Budget Commission, a budget watchdog group, found that they varied significantly. On the high end, the Assembly's plan would increase state spending by $6.1 billion over the next five years and send 64 percent of it to New York City. In the middle, Governor Pataki's plan calls for increasing state education aid by $4.5 billion, with 49 percent of it going to New York City. The Senate's plan calls for spending an additional $4.7 billion in state aid, with roughly 36 percent going to the city.

The president of the Citizens Budget Commission, Diana Fortuna, said that the statewide approach could make the proposals much harder to pay for.

"Obviously, they feel a political imperative to spread this money around, and make the solution more politically acceptable," she said. "But that's not what the court case was all about. Giving away money to low-needs districts makes the proposals more expensive and less likely to be successful."

Of course, at this point all of the competing proposals are just that - proposals. And if Governor Pataki and the Legislature fail to reach an agreement, or if the court rejects their plan, the court can appoint a special master to order a remedy.

If that were to happen, officials said, the mandated increase would go only to the district that started the lawsuit in the first place: New York City.