Gov. David Paterson is heading into the new year taking on Albany’s most powerful special interest on two fronts that will test the influence of the teachers union and put $700 million in federal funding on the line.
Paterson is fighting a lawsuit and biting rhetoric from the New York State United Teachers union, two school administrators groups and the state School Boards Association. They sued to keep the state from delaying 10 percent of aid payments due in December that Paterson had ordered as part of wide-ranging cost control measures to keep the state out of fiscal crisis.
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“It’s almost like children who start screaming and pulling the covers over their head to make the monsters go away,” Paterson told the Associated Press.
“Well, they can scream all they want and pull the wool over their eyes, but the public sees the monsters of the lack of cash and the monsters of unavailability of credit are here, and someone is going to have to be the adult force that comes into the room and gets rid of the monsters,” he said. “And the only way to do that is to practice a new culture of governance called discipline financing.”
Few governors have taken on the teachers union and its labor allies, and none can say they won. The New York State United Teachers union, with more than 600,000 members, has emerged as Albany’s most powerful lobbying force and one of the biggest campaign contributors to lawmakers of both parties. Its ability to get out the vote among its members and to staff telephone banks for and against candidates are major factors, especially in legislative elections.
But Paterson, who has struggled with low poll numbers and long ago lost the support of public workers unions, also plans to take on the teachers union by trying to lift the cap on the number of charter schools, which the unions and other school funding advocates oppose, to get a better shot at up to $700 million from the federal Race to the Top program to improve public education. He said the state would need to lift the cap of 100 charter schools in January or likely lose out on the cash.
Education advocates in New York, however, say the Obama administration thinks New York will qualify for the program.
“I proved by speaking to the [U.S. education] secretary myself that qualifying and receiving funding are two completely different concepts,” Paterson said. “I think these are ways that people are avoiding the issue because they don’t like the ideology. My view? I don’t have time to engage in sophistry when the state coffers are empty.”
