Education

BY IAN KINGSBURY Much of New York’s highest-in-the-nation education spending is driven by a single category: special education. Of the $66.2 billion spent on K-12 education in New York in 2017-18, $15.8 billion went to special education instructional services. No other state

BY IAN KINGSBURY Education Week released its A-F grades for states on school quality last week. New York earned a B-, appreciably better than the nationwide C average. A closer look at scoring methodology, however, shows grade inflation at work. Education Week raised New

BY KEN GIRARDIN Months of bad decisions and inaction by New York state officials have put school districts in the awkward position of having to give pay raises to most teachers while laying off others. The districts could have avoided

BY IAN KINGSBURY Governor Andrew Cuomo is withholding 20 percent of state school aid allocations pending federal bailout negotiations. The decision has been met with alarm and objection from district leaders and New York teachers unions. Yet notably absent from pleas to maintain funding

There are four local public school districts that serve large populations of Native American students living on area Indian Reservations: Gowanda, Niagara-Wheatfield, Akron, and Salamanca. Students and parents in those districts — both indigenous and non-indigenous — have been demanding

Ten (10) Buffalo Public School students, representing ten (10) different BPS high schools, will take the stage on February 8th at Buffalo State College’s Rockwell Hall Auditorium to perform their August Wilson monologues in front of a live audience.  The monologues come from

BY MARCUS WINTERS This report estimates the effect of enrolling in a charter school on student standardized test scores in Newark, New Jersey. The results indicate that attending a Newark charter school that participated in the city’s common enrollment system

The American Enterprise Institute released a report last week that details the benefits of consumer choice in education. The report’s key findings are as follows: Despite overall declines in college enrollment, various accredited and unaccredited providers of postsecondary education delivery are

More than 25 percent of public school teachers and administrators in school districts outside New York City were paid more than $100,000 as of 2018-19, according to salary data posted today at SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s transparency website. Public educator pay data are

BY TOM FITTON In the midst of a human rights crisis and violent pro-democracy manifestations in China, Judicial Watch has obtained records that expose a troubling partnership between a public American university and the Chinese Communists at the heart of

BY CAITLIN GILLIGAN New York school districts are missing out on non-taxpayer revenue due to antiquated legal restrictions, according to a new report from the Empire Center for Public Policy. Selling advertising and naming rights on school properties is widely seen as

BY BRIAN KOLB Summer always seems to go by in the blink of an eye. Before we know it, the days are shorter, the air is cooler and it’s time to send our children back to school. This change of

BY NORBERT RUG I am for the implementation of the Facial and Object Recognition System (FORS) in the Lockport schools. There I said it. I know this might be an unpopular stance but it is the way I feel. I

Austin Harig, the young candidate who nearly ousted Buffalo developer Carl Paladino from office at the ballot box — despite being underfunded and receiving no support from establishment organizations — is considering another run for the Board of Education’s Park

All nine members of the Buffalo Board of Education are up for re-election next May.  Those races have historically low turnout, in which district elections are often won with 500 or so votes.  The ‘reform coalition,’ which suffered the loss

Board of Education President Dr. Barbara Seals-Nevergold has gracefully managed a series of public relations crisis wrought by fellow board member Carl Paladino‘s deplorable political antics.  In recent months she has asked State Education Commissioner Mary Ellen Elia to remove Paladino from the

THE EDITORIAL BOARD Improving public education: No issue is more entrenched in the wild and unruly machinations of New York State’s politics, nor is any issue more central to our economic recovery and our ability to be competitive in the

BY AUSTIN HARIG Former Candidate for Buffalo School Board In May 2016, I ran for the Buffalo School Board against Carl Paladino. I lost (by 2% of the vote), but it was a campaign driven by ideology. Mr. Paladino had