Contact:
Rosie Hilmer | 212.784.5698 | rhilmer@groupgordon.com
Jeremy Robinson-Leon | 212.784.5702 | jrl@groupgordon.com
Democrats for Education Reform Responds to Alliance for Quality Education’s Opposition to Governor Cuomo’s Competitive Grants Proposal
New York, NY, February 15, 2012 – Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) released the following statement from New York State Director Elizabeth Ling in response to the Alliance for Quality Education’s (AQE) opposition to Governor Cuomo’s competitive grants proposal. The grants would reward struggling school districts that demonstrate progress toward improving student achievement:
“Every year, groups funded by special interests like AQE demand more money for the education bureaucracy when they should be demanding better results for our students. Their approach of throwing money at the bureaucracy has clearly failed. That’s why New York is number one in the nation on education spending and 38th on graduation rates.
“The Governor’s proposal to allocate $250 million of increased education spending to competitive performance grants is exactly the type of strategic approach we need. These grants will reward the struggling schools that demonstrate that they can truly help students improve. Indeed, student outcomes should help determine funding, not the special interests.