ALBANY – March 12, 2018  The National Urban League today joined other civil rights leaders and clergy in calling for equitable education funding and transparency in New York’s state budget.

“More than six decades after the Supreme Court declared that segregation has no place in public education, America still fails to provide an equal opportunity for all students,” National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial said. “Schools in poor communities in New York are underfunded. New York State needs an education funding formula that corrects inequity, and a commitment to transparency so New Yorkers can hold leaders accountable.”

Morial said students of color are much more likely to attend schools where three-quarters of the students or more are poor or low-income, and poor districts with a higher proportion of students of color have been shown to receive substantially less state funding than comparably poor districts that have more white students.

The clergy and civil rights representatives who gathered at the Capitol today met with Governor Cuomo and said they were encouraged by his commitment to addressing educational equity in the next budget.

Referring to a statement yesterday by New York State Budget Director Robert Mujica, Morial said, “The National Urban League agrees with Governor Cuomo’s position that chronically low performing schools should be the state’s priority for attention and funding. Morial agreed that the state’s approach to funding must acknowledge that there are two separate education systems in the state, “not public and private, but one system for the rich and one system for the poor.”

The National Urban League recently launched No Ceilings on Success, a national campaign to hold states accountable to their plans for achieving educational equity under the Every Student Succeeds Act. For more information, visit www.naturbanleague.org

“The nation needs a deliberate focus on ensuring that underfunded and under-resourced schools, communities and students receive what is necessary to achieve both educational equity and excellence. Simply focusing on the total amount spent on education does not specifically address inequity, nor does it ensure that students get what they need to be successful.” Morial said.

Teresa Candori
Senior Director, Media Relations
www.nul.org

*This article comes from National Urban League