STATE AID AND THE PURSUIT OF EDUCATIONAL EQUITY: LESSONS FOR NEW YORK

Introduction It is a pleasure to be here. I have long believed that scholars trained in public fi nance, such as myself, and scholars trained in education, such as all of you, would benefi t from more conversations with each other. So I am particularly glad to have this conversation with you tonight. Before I begin, however, I must say that I do have one little complaint. As a big fan of the Syracuse University basketball team, I wish you had invited me to Albany two weeks earlier. Then I could have seen the Syracuse team, the eventual national champion, play in the regional fi nals of the NCAA basketball tournament, which was hosted by Siena College. There is a cartoon on the door of my offi ce. It pictures a middle school science fair somewhere in New York. On the left a student poses with his talking robot. On the right a student poses with her decoding of a fl yʼs DNA. But the blue ribbon is going to a student in the middle of the picture, standing in front of a blackboard that is covered with algebra. As he posts the blue ribbon on the black board, one judge turns to another and says “Great Scott, she has fi gured out the state school aid formula.” Today I am here to build on that studentʼs work, that is, to try to give you some insight into state aid and to explain why there is an urgent need to reform the state aid formula in New York.