BILL NUMBER:S4519

TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the education law, in relation to the legislature's
power over the board of regents

PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

To prevent part 154 of the Commissioner's regulations from taking
effect until such time that federal or state money is appropriated to
cover the costs associated with this local mandate.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section One prevents part 154 of the Commissioner's regulations from
taking effect until such time that federal or state money is
appropriated to cover the costs associated with this local mandate.
This section further provides that no other rule or regulation
effectuating the same shall be subsequently promulgated or adopted.

Section Two is the effective date.

JUSTIFICATION:

The 1974 United States Supreme Court decision, Lau v. Nichols,
              

established the right of English Language Learning (ELL) students to
have "a meaningful opportunity to participate in the educational
program." New York's Education Law, specifically section 3204, sets
parameters as to how school districts can ensure that ELL students are
provided with that "meaningful opportunity".

Subsequent to the 1974 decision, the New York City Board of Education
enacted a more rigid policy that provided all ELL students in the city
with a bilingual education. Forty years later, after the disastrous
roll out of the Common Core curriculum, the Commissioner of Education
for New York State, promulgated new regulations that would essentially
mandate that every school district in the state follow the policy of
New York City to offer any student who has not learned the English
language, a bilingual education.

These new and costly regulations were adopted by the Board of Regents,
without legislative approval and without an estimated fiscal impact,
in the fall of 2014. Among other requirements, the bilingual education
would need to be offered through both stand alone courses and
integrated courses, where instruction is co-taught or individually
taught by a dually certified teacher. Therefore, schools would need to
hire multiple teachers for each classroom with an ELL student, unless
by chance the primary teacher is bilingual, and speaks the language
native to that child. The costs associated with this new mandate are
further compounded by the fact that many schools in our state saw an
influx of illegal, ELL students, just this past fall. To date, the
cost of educating these students has been completely borne by the
local districts, with absolutely no additional funding from the
federal government.


While the Board of Regents stated that they revised these rules in
order to better serve the needs of the ELL students, they did so at
the expense of all of the other students in our state. As time has
shown, shortsighted thinking by those making educational policy in our
state, can have widespread, disastrous results. By mandating these
changes without first securing any additional state or federal
dollars, there is no question that school districts will be forced to
cut the programs and services they offer to the general population.
Before moving forward with these changes, state or federal dollars
must be appropriated, in order to prevent devastating impacts on the
quality of our general education programs.

Education policy, such as this, which is handed down from the
Commissioner and the Board of Regents, without consideration for the
costs associated or the impact it has on other educational programs,
is the exact reason why New Yorker's spend more money than any other
state per-pupil on education, and continue to be ranked in the bottom
in terms of results.

LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New bill

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None to the State.

EFFECTIVE DATE:

This act shall take effect immediately.