BILL NUMBER:  S915

 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 require a statement setting forth the total expenditures made by
each school district, resulting from the Commissioner's 2015 ELL
mandates, in the annual report to the governor and legislatures

 SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :

The education law is amended by adding a new subdivision 3 to require
a statement setting forth the total expenditures on ELL services, made
by each school district in the regent's annual report to the governor
and legislature.

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 several local schools were
targeted by the federal government to receive an influx of ELL
students just this past year. 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.
Additionally, students have reported that having multiple translators
working in the classroom has distracted them from being able to
comprehend the given lesson. Education policy, such as this, which is
arbitrarily 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.