School Choice vs. CFE Lawsuit

To the Editor,                                                                                                              2-17-05   

Several things have happened in the realm of education reform since the commencement of Michael Rebel's Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit that have rendered his lawsuit somewhat moot.

First, with the election of Governor Pataki, the State had beaten Judge DeGrasse's decision to the punch by increasing the State’s portion of public school funding through the STAR program. The State's portion of local school budgets had been steadily declining during the Cuomo years resulting in local property taxes going through the proverbial roof. Reform activists wanted a spending cap to be part of the STAR program but the all powerful education lobby succeeded in strong-arming the Assembly into dropping it from the bill. The problem as I see it is that as many of the State's 700+ districts engaged in multi-million dollar capital improvement projects, all of the STAR savings were squandered. As I had pointed out to our school board at the time, while we in East Greenbush were voting ourselves other districts' tax revenues, those other districts were selling their own building projects to their local voters the same way. It was obvious that the State would not have enough money to cover every school district's pipe dreams.

Second, after the CFE commenced, state voters where given the opportunity to provide hundreds of millions of additional dollars to public schools via a proposition on a November ballot. The voters of New York overwhelmingly voted "NO".  This makes Judge Leland DeGrasse's decision to subsequently override our vote, a case of judicial activism, and a highly impeachable offense.

Finally, the US Supreme Court has ruled that school choice, the logical alternative to throwing money, is indeed constitutional. Rather than inviting judicial activism, true education reform activists have been lobbying for school choice as a way to get a great deal more money directly to the students in the class rooms. School choice has served students in higher education very well and our colleges and universities are the envy of the world. But teacher unions and their lapdog Liberal politicians had maintained that it was unconstitutional.

Please explain to me how that can be? If a sound basic education is a constitutional right, why are we compelled to attend only schools that are run by the government? Come to think of it how can anything be a right if we are compelled by law to engage in it even if we do not wish to? We have freedom of religion but are not compelled to worship. We have freedom of speech but are not compelled to use it. We have the right to bear arms but are not compelled to own a gun. If it is unconstitutional for parents to choose the school they want their children to attend then the law should be applied uniformly. Why not compel college students to attend only the most proximate State funded university? I am not looking for answers to these rhetorical questions. I'm just hoping that if I can get reasonable people to just think things through, we may just get back on the right track.

DRC