LI's segregated schools still need help in state budget

The recently enacted state budget includes the most school aid in state history, $35.9 billion, as well as the most-ever foundation aid, designed to provide greater state funding to districts with high-needs students — $24.9 billion. But for all these milestones, the budget fails to fund adequately Long Island's intensely segregated districts and increases aid to some wealthier ones.

In addition, by changing a key component of the foundation aid formula — replacing the Consumer Price Index (now at 3.8%) with a 10-year rolling average (currently 2.8%) to determine formula increases — the state has undermined the notion that foundation aid has been fully funded.

Last year, ERASE Racism revealed that Long Island has 11 school districts that are at least 90% students of color — what we call “intensely segregated school districts of students of color.” Those districts are Amityville, Brentwood, Central Islip, Elmont, Freeport, Hempstead, Roosevelt, Uniondale, Valley Stream 30, Westbury, and Wyandanch.

Since then, that number has grown by three — Baldwin, Copiague, and Lawrence. Basically, in 2024, the year of the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision that declared previously legal racial segregation in education unconstitutional, intense racial segregation in education is growing on Long Island

And those 14 school districts did not fare well in the state budget.

Foundation aid was not increased at all for Lawrence (0%) and grew only marginally for Westbury (0.13%), Copiague (0.64%), and Amityville (0.9%).

Another six districts saw only slight increases in foundation aid — Freeport (1.72%), Roosevelt (3.84%), Elmont, (3.94%), Baldwin (5.36%), Brentwood (5.41%), and Central Islip (5.56%).

Only four districts received an increase in foundation aid greater than 7% — Uniondale (7.5%), Wyandanch (8.95%), Hempstead (11.25%), and Valley Stream 30 (11.96%).

The increase in foundation aid for Brentwood, whose student population is 36% English-language learners (ELL), pales beside the 17.32% hike given to the smaller, wealthier, and whiter district of Bellmore, which is not a high-needs district and has an ELL student population of 4%.

All of these inequities must be corrected.

Ongoing school funding inequity is exacerbated in part by the state’s long-standing practice of “holding harmless” all school districts, so that no district loses funding. Specifically, intensely segregated districts that have seen growth in high-needs students still do not have the funding they require, yet some smaller and wealthier districts with fewer high-needs students and declining enrollments continue to be well-funded. The state must address this continued disparity in next year’s budget.

ERASE Racism was pleased to see that the budget does allocate funding for a Rockefeller Institute study to examine foundation aid and prepare for formula changes next year, something we have advocated. However, Gov. Kathy Hochul should also appoint a commission to regularly monitor and update the foundation aid formula. The current formula was created in 2007. Even if it is revamped this year, it will quickly fall out of date again unless there is a vehicle to prevent that. Both the state Education Department and Columbia University’s Center for Educational Equity have advocated for such a commission.

By failing to redress past decades of inequitable funding, the state has yet to pay the debt it owes to school districts of students of color for long denying them the resources they need to succeed.

Our children deserve a high-quality education with the requisite state funding to ensure this occurs. It is time we make a truly equitable change to achieve this important goal.

This guest essay reflects the views of Laura Harding, president of ERASE Racism, a Long Island-based civil rights organization.