Only about a quarter of
Rochester’s 9th graders graduate four years later — and only 4 percent of those
freshmen get Regents diplomas. In 2001, only 11 percent of Rochester’s 8th
graders passed the state math exam.
                 If you live in a Rochester suburb, that’s not your
problem. It’s not the State of New York’s problem, either. Nor is it the
problem of the businesses and industries looking for well-educated workers.
It’s not the problem of the Rochester Business Alliance, the Greater Rochester
Enterprise, or Monroe County officials, all of whom are trying to attract
businesses to the Rochester area.
                 It’s not anybody’s problem except the Rochester
School District’s.
                 When the school district’s statistics make the
news, you can fume, and wonder why Rochester can’t fix things. But you don’t
have to worry about the quality of city children’s education. That’s not your
problem. The State of New York says so.
                 The state constitution guarantees that all New York
children will get a “sound, basic education.” That is not happening in any of
the state’s urban districts. But the state says the problem has to be solved at
the local level. And “local” means “city”: Rochester’s neighboring suburban
districts say Rochester must solve the problem on its own.
                 The problem is, Rochester can’t solve the problem on its own.
Last week in Albany, two suits — one originating in Rochester, the
other in New York City — continued to grind their way through the legal
system. Both seek to compel the state to give their students the education
they’re entitled to.
                 The New York City suit, filed by a group known as
Citizens for Fiscal Equity, says the problem is money: The state doesn’t give
the school district enough to do its job. CFE has detailed severe disparities
between schools in New York City and its suburbs. New York’s teachers are far
less qualified; many buildings are in abysmal shape.
                 The Rochester suit (filed by the Greater Rochester
Area Coalition for Education — GRACE) says that for this district, the issue
isn’t money. It’s the high level of poverty of its students. More than 90
percent of Rochester students are poor; the district, says GRACE, can’t
overcome the problems spawned by concentrated poverty.
                 The New York Court of Appeals heard arguments from
GRACE, CFE, and the state on May 8. Even if Rochester gets a successful ruling
at this stage, there’s a long way to go, with more court appearances. But GRACE
attorney Jim Gocker says he thinks the Rochester suit has a chance, that in the
end, the state could be ordered to develop a plan to deal with the city’s
concentrated poverty.
                 If so, that would be a shock. The GRACE lawyers
aren’t pushing for a specific remedy. But to break up Rochester’s concentrated
poverty, we’d have to meld poor students and more affluent ones in some way. We
could draw different school-district boundaries, for instance, or create more
magnet schools, or expand the Urban-Suburban program, in which about 600 city
students attend suburban schools. Any remedy would be controversial.
                 State officials insist that the concentrated
poverty of urban school districts isn’t the state’s fault. But it is, of
course: The state created the school-district boundaries. It created the
boundaries of cities, towns, and villages.
                 Low-income families can’t afford most suburban
housing, and most suburbs have turned away subsidized housing. Few suburban
districts admit city students.
Odds are,the courts won’t order the state to do a
thing, and few New Yorkers will be troubled by that. Most seem convinced that
any district canprovide
a good education if it hires good teachers, good principals. Nowhere in
the United States, however, is there an entire urban school district that’s
successful. They can’t all be hiring lousy staff.
                 Last week, one Court of Appeals judge focused on
the importance of “local control.” New Yorkers tend to think that each local
district has the right to govern itself, and the state shouldn’t butt in.
                 But school districts have “local control” only when
it suits the state. Fairport Superintendent William Cala and the Fairport
School Board learned that lesson when they said they wouldn’t pass a budget
this year until the perpetually late state passed its own budget. The state
responded that if Cala and the board didn’t pass their budget on time, they
could be removed from office.
                 The state sets certification requirements for
teachers, the length of the school year, even — over the objections of some
schools — some of the tests students must take.
                 And, Gocker notes, the definition of “local” has
changed, as have the boundaries of individual school districts. In the late
1800s, New York had more than 11,000 official school “districts” (at that time,
actually, individual schools). Now there are only 700 districts. As needs and
population have changed, districts have morphed and merged.
Among the state’s astonishing contentions as it has fought the two
suits is that New York children don’t need a high-school education. An
8th-grade education is a “sound, basic education,” state lawyers have insisted
in the CFE suit.
                 “It’s 2003,” moans Gocker, “and we’re in New York
State, and we’re talking about whether the standard is an 8th-grade education
or high school?” (If students need only an 8th-grade education, asks Gocker,
why require them to stay in school until they’re 16?)
                 In his argument last week, Gocker says, he told the
Court of Appeals: “This is the Empire State. Either we’re going to provide an
education for all of our kids, or we’re going to continue to be the most
segregated state in the union.”
                 That has severe ramifications for the state and for
every city and suburb in it.
This article appears in May 14-20, 2003.
