New York State is in a horrible fiscal reality.  Along with a recession the likes that most of us have never seen, NYS took a huge hit with Wall Street firms closing and some lowering of massive Wall Street incomes.

You see, NYS has, for many administrations, gone against the number one rule in freelancing and put all its eggs in one basket.  That was perfectly okay through the bull years.  Unfortunately, politicians seem to not look into the future with any great reliability.  The bear years came and then the recessionary ones.  The income taxes from huge salaries decreased drastically.  The property taxes for buildings that were now empty, defunct firms, did not come into state coffers.

So, NYS is facing a double whammy – part of it the fault of its own shortsighted lawmakers and part of it the fault of a recession and all that recessions entail – increased unemployment, increased social programs to help those who need it.

One area that has always been a sacred cow in NYS has been education.  The main reason for this is that the educational unions in NYS and their associated lobbies are extremely powerful.  This applies to both higher education and K-12 education.

Last year Governor Paterson attempted to cut TAP (Tuition Assistance Program) mid-year to help balance a growing budget deficit.  I was not in favor of this particular cut as it came midstream.  TAP is a grant program for NYS residents who attend an institution of higher education within NYS.  By cutting the funding in the middle of the school year, many students would be left high and dry for that amount for the second semester.  Financial aid does not get recalculated mid-year.

This year a cut to state aid to K-12 schools was presented in the governor’s executive budget.  The cuts varied from school district to school district.  These cuts will mean different cuts in the various school district budgets set to be voted on in NYS on the third Tuesday in May.  It has been seen that school budgets tend to carry the brunt of voter unhappiness.  These are the only budgets that people can vote on in NYS.  Other votes are for the representatives who will vote on budgets.

I am not saying these cuts are not needed.  I am saying that I hope, in many areas of the state, that people understand that funding was cut but not a lot of mandates removed.  This means that school districts do have a lot of required items that must be budgeted for, above and beyond contractual obligations.  There are few areas where cuts can come from other than personnel.

To that end, the state Board of Regents is discussing stopping some state Regents examinations.  In NYS, a high school student must pass a state final (a Regents) in five areas to graduate.  An additional three Regents must be passed for a diploma with distinction.  Currently, students must pass with at least a 65 a state exam in Global History (a two year course), US History and Government, English (a six hour exam given in two three hour sittings), in math and in science.

Other states do not have Regents exams.  Actually, California does but I am not invested in their educational systems.  I worry about several areas that are being looked into for saving money.

One, I worry that curriculum will suffer.  Without a doubt – and I do not say this in a demeaning way, the Regents exams are rigorous.  Curriculum has been built around this rigor.  Will curriculum suffer if the exams are no longer necessary for graduation?

Two, where is the accountability for a school district if there is not a set of state standards?  The current state standards are hard.  I did not raise a half dozen of extremely intelligent children.  None of my children have had difficulties with these standards.  The first five have gone into their senior year of high school with the number of credit hours met but needing required senior courses.  My theory is that almost anyone can meet the requirements at present.  I am sure there are some exceptions but I do not think these are the norm but the actual exception.

Third, NYS had to do little to fulfill No Child Left Behind (NCLB) when it was enacted.  A lot of the testing was in place already.  While not a fan of NCLB, I do appreciate that NYS had been doing a lot of the record keeping for years to help compare similar schools and how students were doing.  If these tests were stopped, where would NYS be in this continuum?

I am not saying I love Regents exams.  I am saying that cutting 13 of 17 exams and not printing any in a foreign language other than Spanish seems a bit drastic to me.