The Small Cities Lawsuit, Maistro vs. State of New York, was filed on behalf of students in the Niagara Falls, Jamestown, Utica, Kingston, Port Jervis, Poughkeepsie, Newburgh and Mount Vernon school districts.
The lawsuit also had the support of the two small cities districts in Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties. Attorneys representing the small schools that brought the lawsuit have said they plan to appeal the judge's ruling.
Assemblywoman Russell said despite the ruling she will continue her fight to make sure the state lives up to its constitutional obligation to provide all students in the state with access to a high quality public education.
"I have always fought to make sure school districts in the North Country get adequate funding so our students have similar educational opportunities as their peers in the state living in the suburbs with high property values," she said.
"I always fight for more aid because the suburbs are getting more than they should while our districts have been struggling in recent years to maintain even the most basic educational programs," Assemblywoman Russell added.
She pointed out she had been the sponsor of the small city school district legislation in the New York State Assembly aimed at fixing the state aid formula. She noted measures aimed at changing the foundation aid formula enjoys bipartisan support from the North Country delegation.
"I have a long record of saying we don't get our fair share, and this year's state aid funding to North Country school districts, which allowed schools to replace critical positions and restore programs, shows my argument is being heard," Assemblywoman Russell said.
"The state legislature must continue to play a more active role in addressing school district funding inequities," she stressed.
Acting Supreme Court Justice Kathleen O'Connor's decision this week relied on the findings of a report issued by Governor George Pataki during the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) lawsuit, decided in 2006.
In that lawsuit, the New York State Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, ruled the Pataki report provided a reasonable basis for a “determination of the costs of providing a sound basic education in New York City.”
That ruling, however, did not make any judgment about whether the report’s findings were valid for the rest of New York State.
The Pataki report recommended that the entire rest of the state receive only 25 percent of the funding it recommended for New York City, according to a release for the Alliance for Quality Education
By contrast, the foundation aid formula, created by the Governor and Legislature in 2007 in response to the CFE court order, used the Pataki number for New York City in order to create a formula to provide proportional funding to schools in the rest of the state.
IN THE PHOTO:
Assemblywoman Addie Jenne Russell chats with Dante Viskovich at Massena Central High School. Assemblywoman Russell said she was disappointed by a state supreme court judge's ruling rejecting a lawsuit filed by eight small city school districts in the state arguing they do not received adequate state education aid from the state.
