Democratic candidate for governor Cynthia Nixon spoke in Albany today at the New York State Association of Small Cities School Districts Annual Conference.
In her remarks, Cynthia addressed the inequity in our schools, highlighted the similarities between Betsy DeVos and Andrew Cuomo's approach to education and promised to fully fund foundation aid.
"After eight years of ignoring parents demands to address the enormous inequity in New York’s school funding by immediately complying with the court ordered resolution to the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit, this year Cuomo astonishingly said he is the only person talking about equity. But instead of actually addressing equity by funding foundation aid, Andrew Cuomo tried to pass the buck and blame local school districts for the inequity in New York State. I believe the fish rots from the head and it is the Governor’s and the State’s responsibility to fund our schools and to fund them equitably, which is what the Foundation Aid Formula does. But Andrew Cuomo has shown he does not care about our school children, he only cares about headlines that advance his political career. If he really was concerned with the inequity of funding that he himself created he would have been funding the formula for the last eight years, not sending pennies to our poorest school districts then demanding they show him how they are dividing it up among their resource starved schools."
"But Andrew Cuomo has never once addressed this inconvenient truth, because he’s not interested in truths, he’s interested in helping his Wall Street political donors who do not want to pay their fair share in taxes in order to fund our schools. It’s no wonder that Betsy DeVos has publicly applauded Andrew Cuomo’s approach to education - their policies are shockingly similar."
"If I am elected governor, our students won’t have to sue me to get the resources that they need and are owed in order to be provided the full educational opportunities and supports necessary to succeed in school and gain more opportunities in life. We will be able to settle the small cities lawsuit and the NYSER lawsuit because my first budget will include a plan to fully fund foundation aid. I will also appoint a gubernatorial task force on educational equity which will study the foundation aid formula and recommend updates. In my second budget we will adopt these recommendations and update the formula itself."
