Let's see if the Times-Ledger will print my response to Senator Padavan's misleading letter...
April 15, 2007
Dear Editor:
As a Queens parent and an active member of the Alliance for Quality Education (AQE), I would like to respond to New York State Senator Frank Padavan's letter ("Padavan defends battle over education funding" - Times Ledger - April 5th) in which he was critical of your recent coverage (Battle over school funds intensifies – John Tozzi - March 15th editions) of the state education budget.
I found the Senator's letter to be disingenuous and deliberately misleading in what he omitted on the issue and in what he failed to mention.
Senator Padavan asserts that he supported the governor’s education spending plan. That is partially accurate, but the Senator wanted to fundamentally change the Governor's formula in ways that would transfer future aid away from New York City to wealthy suburban districts. The Senate education budget that passed on March 13th with Senator Padavan's support included just such a change to the funding formula.
The Senate did fight for more school aid than the Governor proposed, but as has been widely reported in the press, the Senate was fighting to ensure more money for wealthy Long Island districts. The Senate, with Senator Padavan's support, did win $120 million in added pork barrel school funding mostly for Long Island, but they did not succeed in destroying the Governor's fair funding formula.
Senator Padavan also failed to mention that the Bruno-controlled Senate education budget did not include the foundation formula that will ensure New York City’s fair share of education aid for years to come. Without the foundation formula there would have been no way to ensure that the old inequitable method of doling out school aid -- the very same system that has underfunded New York City for decades -- did not return next year or in subsequent years.
Senator Padavan failed to mention that the Senate's education budget conveniently did not include the foundation formula that will ensure New York City's fair share of education aid for years to come.
The Senate budget also completely gutted Governor Spitzer's "Contract for Excellence" – the accountability measures by which parents and the public will be able to have a say in how the Department of Education allocates that funding.
This issue is critical to parents like myself, who feel disenfranchised and marginalized by the Chancellor and utterly shut out of the decision making process at Tweed.
One can only hope that next year Senator Padavan will choose to break ranks with his Long Island Senate colleagues and support the kids in Queens by ensuring that there is no more political pork in school aid. But being a realist, I know he will probably continue to support the status quo - business as usual - in the senate by short-changing New York City public school children.
If Senator Padavan were really serious about standing up for the rights of New York City's public school children and less concerned about not making waves for his Senate cronies, maybe then the AQE would not have to rally parents outside his office.
In closing, I believe Senator Padavan is the one throwing around the meaningless figures and the one making the unfair incorrect accusations - his dissembling of the facts only serves to mislead the voting public.
Sincerely,
David M. Quintana
