Dear Editor: As a Queens parent and an active member of the Alliance for Quality Education, I would like to respond to state Sen. Frank Padavan's letter of April 5 defending education spending.He was critical of your recent coverage of the state education budget. I found the senator's letter to be disingenuous and deliberately misleading in what he omitted.
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 13 with 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 it was fighting to ensure more money for wealthy Long Island districts. The Senate, with Padavan's support, did win $120 million in added pork barrel school funding, mostly for Long Island, but it did not succeed in destroying the governor's fair funding formula.
Padavan also failed to mention that under Senate President Joseph Bruno (R-Saratoga) leadership, the 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.
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