Shelley Mayer to begin fresh look at how New York state funds education [LoHud]

Only eight months after becoming chair of the state Senate Education Committee, Sen. Shelley Mayer is set to go after one of the biggest fish in Albany: The state's convoluted system for funding education. 

Mayer will soon announce a series of roundtables around the state, plus a public hearing in New York City, that will give experts, parents and others a forum to highlight problems with the state's much-critiqued "foundation aid" formula. The formula is routinely criticized for being out-of-date and manipulated, but is used as the basis for distributing $18.4 billion in foundation aid to school districts, about 70% of total state spending on education.

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"It's going to take grit and determination to build consensus, but I'm not in this to do nothing," the Yonkers resident said. "I'm in it to make a change to provide what kids deserve. Our [Senate Democratic] conference is not going to do business as usual."