Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, has been named by Governor Cuomo to a commission “charged with advising the State on how to best invest the Governor’s proposed $2 billion Smart Schools Bond Act in order to enhance teaching and learning through technology,” as announced by the governor’s office today.* Read More
The Citizens Budget Commission has posted some nifty charts breaking out the difference between New York State and the U.S. averages for different categories of public elementary and secondary school spending. One noteworthy data point: between 1999 and 2009, spending per pupil on employee benefits for instructional staff rose 169 percent in New York... Read More
Yesterday brought a march on Albany by something called the “Educate NY Now campaign,” in which the union-backed Alliance for Quality Education (AQE) figures prominently. The demonstration served to bring attention to AQE’slatest statistical hobby horse — an “opportunity gap” created by the $8,601 difference in per-pupil spending among the wealthiest and poorest schooldistricts in New York. Read More
The Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) litigation of 1993-2006 established the principle that New York State is constitutionally obligated to ensure funding of a “sound, basic education” for pupils in New York City schools. Today, the state’s highest court cleared the way for a lawsuit claiming that funding levels for about a dozen of New York’s small city school districts doesn’t meet that requirement. Read More
Charter schools sharing space in New York City public school buildings cost less to operate than traditional public schools, counter to the findings of a 2010 research memo from the Independent Budget Office (IBO), according to a white paper issued today by a research group affiliated with former state comptroller candidate and financial advisor Harry Wilson. Read More
In 2008 ... Albany schools had 31 employees making more than $100,000, according to SeeThroughNY, an online database maintained by the Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More
The government transparency website www.SeeThroughNY.net added the latest available collective bargaining agreements of 81 public school teachers’ unions, the Empire Center, which runs the website, announced Tuesday. Read More
As noted by the Empire Center for Public Policy, the median salary for teachers in Western New York was $62,697, compared with $72,990 statewide. Read More