Story by Edwin J. Viera, New York News Connection
After 17 years, the state of New York is re-evaluating its school funding formula. The state budget agreement calls for the Rockefeller Institute to study it.
Education advocates have noted that learning loss from the pandemic and the youth mental-health crisis have made this change more necessary. Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children of New York, said the new formula must allocate funds for homeless students and students in the foster-care system.
“Currently,” she said, “the formula does not provide any additional funding for those populations of students who have distinct educational needs and often face barriers to success in school.”
A 2023 report noted that more than 119,000 New York City students are homeless. Other recommendations to improve the funding formula include providing resources for New York City to implement its new class-size requirements, improvements to special-education distribution funding, and cost-effective strategies to aid multilingual learners.
The final report from the Rockefeller Institute will be presented in early December.
Political will from Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature remains a challenge to implementing some formula changes. Levine noted that pandemic funding was used to create a host of beneficial programs for students in New York City. Without that continuous federal funding, she said, New York State has to pick up the slack.
“These are programs that were needed before the pandemic and are still needed today,” she said. “But, the federal funding has now expired, and so there’s a need for the state to contribute more resources.”
Some of those programs included doubling 3-K program participation, bolstering preschool special education, hiring 500 school social workers and psychologists, and creating a program to have coordinators help students living in shelters get to school.
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