State, City Plan "Race To The Top" Redo
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W
ith state and city schools budgets in tatters, officials have been expressing disappointment over New York's failure to capture millions of dollars in the federal "Race to the Top" competition. NY1's Lindsey Christ filed the following report.Both Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor David Paterson say it's critical for the state to win the second round of the "Race to the Top" competition to help close the education budget gap. The only problem is -- it's not true.
"It's not accurate to say you could use this $700 million to reduce the deficit that the state is dealing with in the current budget negotiations," said Teachers College at Columbia University Professor Michael Rebell.
That's because federal guidelines are very clear -- the money cannot be used to plug state budget gaps. It's for innovation, and in its application New York said it would fund 30 new projects, which leaves more than a billion dollars in education funding still on the chopping block. But that hasn't stopped Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg from continuing to claim the funds would help solve the state's education budget problems.
"When you see the cuts that will invariably hurt our public education system throughout the state thanks to the budget problems that the state has, remember that $700 million of them could have been mitigated or eliminated," Bloomberg said.
The governor apparently got an earful from federal officials by going so far as to count on the winnings in his budget proposal in January.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan reacted by saying, "That’s a bit of a leap of faith, I would say. And obviously if this money is seen as simply something that is going to be plugging budget holes, that’s not something we’re going to be interested in."
Still, when New York didn't get a dime in round one this week, Paterson again claimed it would have helped close the budget gap.
But even if the "Race to the Top" money won’t help the budget crisis, New York wanted lots of it. The state originally asked for $830 million but the Obama administration has now said in the second round that needs to be cut down to $700 million -- the amount the federal government originally recommended.
And there are some obvious places to cut. The state Education Commissioner admitted Wednesday that including requests for $550 chairs and $3,000 desks was a mistake.
The state's revised "Race to the Top application" is due in Washington on June 1st.