Democrats for Education Reform Responds to Alliance for Quality Education's Opposition to Governor Cuomo's Competitive Grants Proposal

There is overwhelming evidence that pouring more money into a broken school system without accompanying it with genuine reform will result in no improvement whatsoever for students (and may in fact do harm, as it enriches and entrenches the status quo; see, for example, the documentary, The Cartel, about what happened in NJ: http://edreform.blogspot.com/2010/04/cartel.html and www.thecartelmovie.com), so with that in mind, it's good to see DFER giving AQE a smackdown:

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.

"Governor Cuomo is putting students first, while AQE is putting the education bureaucracy first. We can no longer accept an education system, dominated by special interests, that allows the bureaucracy to thrive while our students fail. Governor Cuomo's approach is right for our students and our schools."