2007-2008 Enacted School Aid Budgets

Building on the historic investment in education proposed in the 2007-08 Executive Budget, the Enacted Budget provides an increase of $1.8 billion in education funding. This increase is comprised of a school aid increase of more than $1.76 billion, and an increase of $80 million in other education-related programs, including aid for non-public schools.

• Overall School Aid Increase: On a school year basis, the 2007-08 budget provides a total of $19.6 billion in General Support for Public Schools, including $19.3 billion in formula and expense-based programs and over $300 million in categorical school aid programs.
• Universal Prekindergarten Increase: An increase of $146 million for Universal Prekindergarten (UPK), bringing total funding to $438 million in 2007-08.
• School Facilities Funding: An increase of $148 million for EXCEL and other building aid. This will support $2.6 billion in State bonding under the EXCEL program when fully implemented over the next two years, supplementing other reimbursements supporting school construction.

Needs-Based Investment

• The 2007-08 State budget reforms the traditional approach to school aid and implements a Foundation Aid program to target additional funds based on education needs.
  • Foundation Aid consolidates 30 aid categories to streamline and simplify the calculation of State aid.
  • The Foundation Aid increase of $1.1 billion accounts for 63% of the $1.76 billion statewide increase in school aid.

Accountability

• The budget ties investments to reforms and accountability.
  • Contract for Excellence – School districts receiving large Foundation Aid increases of 10 percent or $15 million that include schools with substandard performance will be required to develop a “Contract for Excellence,” which will require school districts to use aid increases for programs and activities demonstrated to produce improved student achievement. The five categories of allowable expenditures through the Contract for Excellence include class size reduction, increased student time for learning, restructuring of schools, teacher and principal quality initiatives and full-day kindergarten and prekindergarten.
  • Other accountability measures include development of improvement targets for individual schools and school districts by the Regents, including State assessments and graduation rates, by July 2008. School districts will be required to provide a student progress report that gives parents information about their child’s educational progress over multiple years of testing and by July 2010 the Regents will establish a system to provide cumulative achievement measures based on data about each student’s progress.
  • Superintendents, principals, and teachers with a strong educational performance will be recognized and encouraged to assist low performing school districts.
  • The Schools Under Registration Review program will be expanded to increase the number of schools required to implement a reorganization plan.
  • The budget creates a Taskforce on Preschool Special Education to review the relationship between preschool special education and other early childhood programs, as well as math and science initiatives that will increase the supply of qualified math and science teachers in schools across the State and recognize and reward talented middle school students in math and science.

Charter Schools

• The budget doubles the potential number of charter schools, raising the cap by 100 to a total of 200. In addition, a new process will be established to provide for increased public input in decisions about the establishment of charter schools.
  • A total of $22.5 million is provided for Transition Aid for local school districts impacted by a concentration of children attending charter schools.