2 אהרונים לויערס גייען טיילען ביליאנען

צוויי גרויסע אהרונים לויער טאמסאן און מאלאנעס גיין טיילען ביליאנען געלט פאר עדיקעשאן די אהרונים וועלען זיכער באקומען א גרויסע מוציא
Manhattan judge appoints panel to study and recommend reforms in school funding

By SAMUEL MAULL
Associated Press Writer

August 3, 2004, 7:03 PM EDT


NEW YORK -- A Manhattan judge, citing the state's failure to comply with court orders, appointed a three-member panel to study and recommend ways to provide all New York City schoolchildren with "a sound, basic education."

State Supreme Court Justice Leland DeGrasse on Tuesday gave the panelists, two retired judges and a law school dean, 120 days to finish and asked them to pay special attention to the benefits of smaller classes for the city's 1.1 million students and to teachers' competence and training.
The special referees are E. Leo Milonas, retired justice of the Appellate Division in Manhattan, William C. Thompson, retired justice of the Appellate Division in Brooklyn and father of the New York City comptroller, and John D. Feerick, former dean of the Fordham University Law School.

DeGrasse gave said the referees will have the power of judges and will have until the end of November to report to him. He said he will then make decisions based on the panel's recommendations.

It was DeGrasse who heard the trial of a lawsuit brought three years ago by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE), a public education advocacy group that accused the state of shortchanging the city's public school children.

DeGrasse ordered the state to reform the way it funds education. The state fought the ruling, saying the court did not have the right to take over the functions of the Legislature and the governor, an assertion repeated by the state's lawyer Tuesday.

Last year, the Court of Appeals, the state's highest tribunal, upheld DeGrasse by a 4-1 vote and gave the state until last month to comply with the funding reform order.

Not only did Albany fail to come up with new funding by the deadline but customary state school aid also has been on hold because the state budget, overdue since April 1, is on track to become the latest adopted budget in New York history.

The court order won by the CFE was expected to require the state to pay from $4 billion to almost $10 billion a year in school aid over the next three to five years.

At Tuesday's hearing, CFE lawyer Joseph Wayland said he had considered asking DeGrasse to find the state in contempt of court. "There is no question what the court ordered, and there is no question that there has been no compliance," he said. "The state doesn't even pretend to have complied."

Wayland called the return to court a "day of shame for our democratic process" because lawmakers had failed to obey the mandates of the state's highest court.

Those mandates included doing a study to determine how much funding reform would cost, enacting reforms to improve education and putting in place measures to make the appropriate individuals and agencies responsible and accountable.

Calling the panel members "wise men of the New York bar," Wayland said, "We expect them to be very specific in the recommendations they make as to what needs to be done."

"I mean specific as to how much money and what actions need to be taken to reduce class size, to improve the quality of teaching, to make sure all students have science labs," Wayland said, "the kinds of the things we outlined in the trial for seven months."

Another CFE lawyer, Michael Rebell, said the letter to DeGrasse from Assistant Attorney General Richard Rifkin _ "simply a political statement on behalf of the governor" _ contains Gov. George Pataki's proposals that lawmakers rejected last week.

At Rifkin's request, DeGrasse gave the state until Friday to register its objections with his naming the panel of special referees.


Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press

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