XPost: alt.psychology.personality, sci.med.psychobiology, sci.ps   
   chology.personality   
   XPost: alt.support.schizophrenia, alt.support.ocd, alt.support.shyness   
   From: Bother@ForgedPostsAnonymous.unorg   
      
   Unresolved school funding issue is state's 800-pound gorilla   
      
   (January 6, 2006) — The early punditry on Gov. Pataki's State of the State   
   address dwelled on the perception that it was a speech geared to a national   
   audience by a lame-duck leader interested in running for president.   
      
   But Wednesday's speech doesn't read as a campaign document any more than did   
   last year's, or those from the 10 years before that. There were   
   self-aggrandizement and high-flung agenda-setting in those speeches, too. Was   
   Pataki running for president in 1995 or 2001?   
      
   No, the problem with the address this year wasn't with what was said, or with   
   the audience he was trying to reach. The governor's vision has, as this page   
   said, some ambitious elements that would benefit New Yorkers. They include   
   moderate tax cuts, more backing for the regional Centers of Excellence,   
   toughening laws against sexual predators and a focus on building the pool of   
   math and science teachers.   
      
   The deeper problem is with what wasn't said. The governor did not address   
   specifically the need for him and the Legislature to resolve the so-called   
   Campaign for Fiscal Equity case. This issue squats ominously on the state   
   Capitol like King Kong perched on the Empire State Building.   
      
   A state court, saying public schools are unconstitutionally inadequate, wants   
   $5.6 billion more over four years for public schools — and those are just the   
   ones in New York City. Just to meet that demand would eat up the $2 billion   
   surplus the state has built up, and create another deficit. But the challenge   
   is   
   bigger than that. New York has to come up with a statewide solution, costing   
   yet   
   more billions, to get out from under the courts' thumb.   
      
   Pataki did talk about getting more funds to high-needs school districts, such   
   as   
   Rochester. But he does that every year. Indeed, he and the Legislature have   
   increased statewide education funding by nearly 70 percent since the mid-1990s.   
      
   Yet the courts have said that isn't enough. Unless the executive and   
   legislative   
   branches plan to defy the state's highest court, some funding plan has to be   
   developed and approved. This year.   
      
   The State of the State address was the time to address this issue forthrightly.   
   It's not going away.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)