New York State’s Dual Crises: Low Graduation Rates and Rising School Taxes

(Released May 18, 2006) New York State’s school funding system faces dual crises. First is the failure to provide children with a “meaningful high school education,” also called a “sound, basic education,” as mandated by the state constitution and the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (“CFE II”) decision.1 The clearest consequence of this failure is that over one-third of high school students today do not graduate in four years. In the 2006-07 Enacted Budget, the Legislature...