“While the Commission announced by the Governor today may, in the long term, address the needs of the State’s children, it does nothing to meet the mandate of the State’s highest court, that the State come up with an adequate plan to provide New York City’s school children with a meaningful, rather than an eighth grade education.

“The process proposed has many flaws that make it unworkable.  The Commission’s March target is inconsistent with the State and City budget cycles, not to mention the Court’s order to achieve a consensus by July 1, 2004.  The Governor’s budget must be been presented in January and the Mayor’s soon thereafter. We both need to know how the state’s education financing system will be reformed before that in order to plan accordingly.

“The Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit was about New York City getting its fair share of resources from the State; the court specifically limited its decision to the New York City school system.  With 1.1 million students and a budget of $12 billion, the City’s school system is the largest in the State.

“The proposed Commission is stunning in its limited composition.  How such a commission could exclude City Administration and State Legislature representation is at best perplexing.  The City, which now runs its own schools, must be in control of it’s own destiny.  Having no one from the City’s Department of Education on the Commission is ridiculous.  The State Legislature has no representation on the commission.  Without these two interests having a majority of the members, the Commission is a cruel hoax rather than a useful consensus-building device.

“In order for this Commission to fulfill its obligation to fix the court-recognized inequity in funding for New York City schools, it needs to do its work quicker and involve all the interested parties.”