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NEW YORK, NY February 13, 2004 — How much money does it take to provide an adequate education for New York City students? Answering that question is up to state lawmakers and the governor. Last year, the state's highest court ordered them to find a new solution and they only have until the end of July. Governor Pataki created a new commission to study the matter. But as WNYC's Beth Fertig reports, there's growing skepticism about its intentions.



When governor Pataki appointed his education commission last September, Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued an unusually harsh statement calling the panel, quote, a cruel hoax. With time running out to meet the court order, Bloomberg saw no need for another blue ribbon panel. One which wasn't supposed to report back until March.



BLOOMBERG: The practical reality is the Governor and mayor at beginning of the calendar year have to propose a budget, that is impossible to do unless you know how you're going to address the court order to make the city's kids get a different share of the resources.



Many Democrats also criticized the panel, which is headed by former NASDAQ chairman Frank Zarb. They assumed the governor was trying to put off acting on a court ruling that could result in billions of dollars in extra school aid for New York City. Pataki had spent 8 years fighting the lawsuit by city education advocates.



Those suspicions only grew after the commission announced it was hiring Standard and Poors to do its study. Last month, State controller Alan Hevesi rejected the commission's 1.2 million dollar contract with the research firm. He noted that S&P is also the state's credit rating agency; and paying the firm could create the appearance of a conflict of interest. But Zarb vowed to get around that problem. And yesterday S&P announced it would work for free. Which left education experts wondering one thing about the commission and the research firm.



CASSERLY: I'm not quite sure why it is people are so determined to have them do this work.



Michael Casserly heads the Council of Great City Schools, which is based in Washington. He finds it curious that the commission didn't consider any other firms. It even asked for a waiver to avoid competitive bidding.



CASSERLY: The continued insistence on using this firm over others does beg the question why. Unless the answer rests in some expectation for what the results of the analysis will show. That is results that lowball the amount the state is expected to cough up to adequately educate its children.



Casserly points to studies conducted by Standard and Poors in Michigan and Pennsylvania. In both cases, the firm found higher levels of school aid were no guarantee of higher test scores. But S&P's managing director of education services, William Cox, says that doesn't mean additional funds couldn't help.



COX: Money of course absolutely matters. It matters especially if it is directed in a way that can lead to programs that have been proven to be effective. It will not matter if it is poured into a system without specific ways to measure and manage the way the allocation of resources takes place.



A spokesman for the Zarb commission said the firm was chosen because of its experience and reputation. S&P was recently selected by the Federal Government to perform similar reports for all 50 states.



Some Albany observers raised eyebrows when they learned that S&P's parent company, McGraw Hill, hired a lobbyist last August - just 2 months after the court ruling. But the education company says its lobbying work was about textbooks and testing, and had nothing to do with winning a contract for S&P. Likewise, Cox explains that S&P's credit ratings are completely separate from any studies by its educational research arm.



COX: We are not providing recommendations. Rather we are providing analytical insight and objective information and transparency.



Data, he says, that will ultimately be used however the governor and other lawmakers decide as they determine the cost of an adequate education.



And that's where things get even more complicated. There are different ways of looking at school aid. S&P uses a formula that examines how much money successful schools are spending. It also considers race and income. Some find that approach simplistic. Michael Rebell is executive director of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity - the group that sued the state over school aid.



REBELL: They'll be doing a lot of statistical analysis and a lot of computer runs. They will not be having a cross section of educators really look at actual schools, actual kids's needs, what do you need for the regents standards. They'll be doing astract statistical computations.



Rebell's group hired 2 research firms for its own study. They spent 15 months interviewing education leaders about what changes are needed to provide an adequate education. They recommended classes as small as 15 students for elementary schools in poor communities. The total cost: an extra 7 billion dollars a year, with more than half of that directed to New York City.



The governor's commission says it will look at BOTH studies before making recommendations. And its members say they expected controversy. One of them, former Board of Education President Ninfa Segerra, says it's no surprise that the Democratic State Controller was critical of a commission established by the Republican governor.



SEGERRA: It is a political process ultimately. How the money will be identified, what that amount will be and how it will be staged out. I think we've tried very hard to depoliticize our work.



It's unlikely the commission will meet the March 1st deadline. S&P says its study could take a month or more. Meanwhile, Governor Pataki has proposed a down-payment of sorts in his latest budget. He plans to raise 325 million dollars in extra school aid through video lottery terminals. For WNYC I'm Beth Fertig.