Relates to the legislature's power over the board of regents

4 Co-sponsors

• John J. Bonacic
• Rich Funke
• Jack M. Martins
• Terrence P. Murphy

Title of bill

An act to amend the education law, in relation to the legislature's power over the board of regents

Purpose or general idea of bill

To require a statement setting forth the total expenditures made by each school district, resulting from the Commissioner's new ELL mandates, in the annual report to the governor and legislatures

Summary of provisions

Section 215-a of the education law is amended by adding a new subdivision 3 to require a statement setting forth the total expenditures on ELL services, made by each school district in the regent's annual report to the governor and legislature.

Section Two is the effective date.

Justification

The 1974 United States Supreme Court decision, Lau v. Nichols, established the right of English Language Learning (ELL) students to have "a meaningful opportunity to participate in the educational program." New York's Education Law, specifically section 3204, sets parameters as to how school districts can ensure that ELL students are provided with that "meaningful opportunity".

Subsequent to the 1974 decision, the New York City Board of Education enacted a more rigid policy that provided all. ELL students in the city with a bilingual education. Forty years later, after the disastrous roll out of the Common Core curriculum, the Commissioner of Education for New York State, promulgated new regulations that would essentially mandate that every school district in the state follow the policy of New York City- to offer any student who has not learned the English language, a bilingual education.

These new and costly regulations were adopted by the Board of Regents, without legislative approval and without an estimated fiscal impact, in the fall of 2014. Among other requirements, the bilingual education would need to be offered through both stand alone courses and integrated courses, where instruction is co-taught or individually taught by a dually certified teacher. Therefore, schools would need to hire multiple teachers for each classroom with an ELL student, unless by chance the primary teacher is bilingual, and speaks the language native to that child. The costs associated with this new mandate are further compounded by the fact that several local schools were targeted by the federal government to receive an influx of ELL students just this past year. To date, the cost of educating these students has been completely borne by the local districts, with absolutely no additional funding from the federal government.

While the Board of Regents stated that they revised these rules in order to better serve the needs of the ELL students, they did so at the expense of all of the other students in our state. As time has shown, shortsighted thinking by those making educational policy in our state, can have widespread, disastrous results. By mandating these changes without first securing any additional state or federal dollars, there is no question that school districts will be forced to cut the programs and services they offer to the general population.

Education policy, such as this, which is arbitrarily handed down from the Commissioner and the Board of Regents, without consideration for the costs associated or the impact it has on other educational programs, is the exact reason why New Yorker's spend more money than any other state per-pupil on education, and continue to be ranked in the bottom in terms of results.

Legislative history

New bill

Fiscal implications

None to the State.

Effective date

This act shall take effect immediately.