New York

Will New York City Leave Millions of Pre-K $$ on the Table This Year?

Sara Mead — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:12:00 -0400

City Lights, a publication of the NYC-based Center for the Urban Future, has an excellent if disheartening profile of botched pre-k implementation in New York City. Hundreds of pre-k slots are going unfilled even as other programs have long waitlists. Millions of state pre-k dollars could go unspent,--and pre-k advocates fear that, given the tightening fiscal climate in New York, dollars that don't get used and are returned to the state translate into dollars that the state legislature won't appropriate for pre-k in the years ahead.

The main problem is that much of the state pre-k funding the city received can only be used to fund half-day programs--but many working families need full-day childcare and so aren't able to enroll their children in half-day pre-k programs. There are long waiting lists for the limited numbers of full-day slots available. Moreover, the system, which includes both public schools and community-based providers, has proven complicated for parents to negotiate. There's no centralized way for parents to apply for pre-k programs or get information about the various options available, their quality and other features.

New York's example provides a good case study of why the "if you fund it, they will come," approach doesn't work for early education. Yes, funding is often the major political barrier to establishing quality early education programs, but ensuring smart implementation after programs are funded is just important to get the long-term benefits policymakers are seeking when they fund pre-k. Unfortunately, New York made rapid investments in expanding pre-k without first ensuring that those investments were made in ways that matched parent needs and provider capacity, and without supporting necessary infrastructure to support an effective early education system--particularly in a city as large and diverse as New York. That's not an argument against more early education funding--but it certainly gives opponents of early ed funding a tool they can use to attack these programs. Planning effective systems to deliver high-quality pre-k that meet parent needs and provider interests--before investing--is a smart approach both practically and politically.

P.S.: One thing New York could do to expand the number of quality pre-k slots available to waitlisted families? Allow high-performing charter schools serving elementary schools to also offer pre-k--and get state funding for it. Under current state law they can't, and that keeps lots of excellent charter schools in the city from serving students at younger ages, even as the public school pre-k classrooms are overwhelmed. So, come on, New York legislators, let's open the door to pre-k in charters, too.

Photo by flickr user Brouhaha (Jonathan) used under a Creative Commons license.

States Reaching to Find Sales Tax Nexus

Annette Nellen — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:29:00 -0400

In April, New York changed its sales tax law to try to make a few large vendors subject to sales tax collection - most notably, Amazon.com. The new law creates a rebuttable presumption that a vendor is soliciting business and thus required to collect tax if, per an agreement, they compensate New York residents for directly or indirectly referring potential customers. Referrals may be made through a website or other means. The presumption only applies to sellers with over $10,000 of sales to New York customers made via the referrals in the prior four quarters. Sellers may rebut the presumption by showing that the residents did not solicit sales in New York for them. (Bill Summary, p. 10)

Amazon's "Associates Program" causes it to have many associates who may be New York residents. Amazon filed a lawsuit as soon as the law went into effect challenging the new law as unconstitutional. It also started collecting the tax!

Another company that fell under the law change is Overstock.com. Their remedy was to cancel its agreements with its New York affiliates who were helping Overstock.com advertise.

Arguably, the associates who have a link to Amazon or Overstock on their website are third party advertisers, not sales agents or representatives of these companies.

For more information on this law change and vendor reaction, see this short article - Grabbing Remote Vendors.

In a hard to find NY Senate bill - S 8638, senators voted on June 24 to repeal the provision. Here is information from the NY Legislative website:

"STATUS:
S8638 RULES No Same as
Tax Law
TITLE....Repeals provisions of law relating to an evidentiary presumption to facilitate the administration of the sales and use tax


06/19/08	REFERRED TO RULES
06/24/08	ORDERED TO THIRD READING CAL.2231
06/24/08	PASSED SENATE
06/24/08	DELIVERED TO ASSEMBLY
06/24/08	referred to ways and means

BILL TEXT:
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________

8638

IN SENATE

June 19, 2008
___________

Introduced by COMMITTEE ON RULES -- read twice and ordered printed, and
when printed to be committed to the Committee on Rules

        AN ACT to repeal subparagraph (vi) of paragraph 8 of subdivision (b) of
          section 1101 of the tax law relating to an evidentiary presumption to
          facilitate the administration of the sales and use tax where a person
          making sales of taxable property or services in the state uses resi-
          dents in the state to solicit sales

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-
bly, do enact as follows:

     1    Section 1. Subparagraph (vi) of paragraph 8 of subdivision (b) of
     2 section 1101 of the tax law is REPEALED.
     3    § 2. This act shall take effect immediately."

There appears to be no other action on this proposal. The April law change was estimated to generate $47 million in 2008/2009 and $73 million in 2009/2010 (see links in above article - Grabbing Remote Vendors). That's a lot of money. If this estimate is anywhere close to being accurate, it means that lots of New Yorkers are not self-remitting use tax on purchases they make from the vendors who are subject to the law change. (All states have similar problems - most people don't know what a use tax is or don't keep sufficient records to measure it every year or ignore it.)

All of this illustrates the challenges sales and use taxes face in e-commerce where it is very easy to have a physical location in just one state, but customers in all states. Such a vendor is only legally obligated to collect sales tax from customers in the state where the vendor resides (where they have a physical presence). Customers in other states must self-report their use tax on the purchases.

So, some states modify their sales tax laws to grab remote vendors by trying to connect them to some physical location in the state (such as Amazon's New York Associates). But, there are constitutional restraints that limit this. Given current case law, New York will likely have difficulties defending its law change.

States should do a better job educating their citizens about use tax and the benefits to the state (and its citizens) of collecting it. New York law allows individuals to use a table to estimate the use tax owed so they don't need to keep records. Given the revenue estimates attached to the April 2008 law change, compliance must be low. New York should take out some on-line ads to help buyers understand the use tax and how to pay it. In the long run, that would be better than enacting laws of questionable constitutionality that will be challenged in court.

Another option for states is to not allow the state or its agencies to purchase from sellers who do not collect sales tax. Unless a state has perfect recordkeeping (or doesn't require its agencies to pay sales tax), when purchases are made from remote vendors, it is possible that the use tax payment gets overlooked. Also, some schools and home-and-school clubs have Amazon links on their websites. Perhaps those sites should at least be told to include a note about the need to pay use tax (which in most states helps fund schools!).

What do you think states should do to get more of their residents to pay use tax?

Smart Ideas on Early Elementary Accountability From UFT

Sara Mead — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:02:00 -0400

Last week United Federation of Teachers (New York City's teachers union) President Randi Weingarten gave a major speech proposing a new accountability framework to replace the controversial school report cards that NYC schools chancellor Joel Klein instituted last November.

In contrast to Klein's report cards, which assigned schools a single letter grade based primarily on student test scores, UFT's proposed alternative would offer parents and the public a matrix of indicators concentrated in three areas: academic achievement; safety, order and discipline; and teamwork for student achievement. Each schools report would also rate the NYC Department of Education on the quality of support it provides the school.

What we like about Weingarten's proposal is the effort it makes to include indicators that reflect how well schools are educating students in grades K-2. Too often, school report cards and accountability systems totally ignore the early grades, because those systems are based on test scores and K-2 students dont typically participate in state assessments. The result is an information black hole for parents and policymakers at the time when schools should be putting in place the fundamental groundwork to support childrens later learning. It also makes it harder to recognize or reward highly effective K-2 teachers. But the solution isn't to extend testing down to younger students--because the kind of standardized assessments we use under NCLB arent appropriate or necessarily reliable for younger children.

The UFT plan takes some sensible steps to include K-2 students in accountability reports:

First, it used third grade test scores to evaluate K-2 academic performance. We've previously argued that all elements of the PK-3 continuum need to be judged based on their contribution to the ultimate goal of proficiency by third grade, so we can really get behind this idea.
Second, UFT's plan would use independent on-site observations and surveys to evaluate the quality of K-2 learning environments, including the extent to which they provide a rich, age-appropriate curriculum for K-2 students. Because there is a strong research base about what works in early education, what young children need to know, and the kind of teacher interactions that contribute to student learning, on-site observations make a lot of sense as a quality measure in the early elementary years.
Third, UFT 's plan would evaluate elementary schools on the extent to which K-2 students display "school readiness skills, such as effort, cooperation, responsibility and respect." We think this proposal is on the right track, because fostering the kinds of social and emotional development skills that it mentions should be a critical goal of PK-3 instruction. But we fear the language UFT chose to use here may confuse parents and the public. The phrase school readiness here suggests the UFT plan would rate schools based on characteristics children bring to school with them, not the contribution schools make to students' acquisition of these skills. It also implies that the early grades aren't themselves school--a position we're pretty sure UFT doesn't hold. We'd be a lot happier with this part of the proposal if UFT called it "K-2 social and emotional development" rather than "K-2 school readiness." We'd also like to know more about the kind of indicators and assessments that would go into this measure, because evaluating social and emotional development in the early years, while critical, can be tricky.

We also like the UFT proposal's emphasis on teamwork among educators and effective school leadership as a part of a school's evaluation. In order to offer an aligned PK-3 education experience to students, schools must have strong leadership and collaborative relationships between teachers both within and across grade levels and subject areas. Creating incentives to build such collaborative relationships is smart.

Eduwonk and Leo Casey offer further analysis of the overall plan on their blogs. In general we agree with Eduwonk's comment that, while accountability consequences should be based on a relatively few, narrow and clear-cut indicators, parents, educators and the general public all benefit from systems that provide information about a variety of school performance indicators. Leo says UFT hopes the "proposed framework initiatives a vigorous debate over both the ends of accountability and the best means to achieve those ends." We're pretty sure they'd also like to see some concrete changes to make the NYC report card system look more like this proposal. As that debate unfolds, we hope it includes serious discussion of how NYC, and other school systems, can do a better of providing parents and the public with information about how schools are educating students in the early elementary school and pre-k years.

Prostitutes and Pre-K

Sara Mead — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:57:00 -0400

By now anyone with access to a television, radio, newspaper, or internet connection knows that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has become ensnared in a federal investigation into an interestate prostitution ring. It's a major disappointment for both his family and the people of the state of New York. The internets are abuzz with speculation about the salacious details and whether or not Spitzer will step down as governor. As a family blog, we'll eschew the tawdry aspects of this story to ask a substantive question: What does this mean for early education in New York State?

New York's been a happening state on early education lately. Last year Spitzer, who made pre-k expansion and school reform key planks of his 2006 election campaign, and the legislature increased universal pre-k funding by nearly 50 percent, expanding pre-k access to another 44,000 four-year-olds after years of stagnant funding under Gov. George Pataki. Pre-K Now, a national advocacy group on high-quality pre-k, has lauded Spitzer's efforts on behalf of early education, and he's also won raves from school reformers for his support for accountability, charter schools, and school finance reform. New York still has a long way to go on pre-k however: Even the increased funding covers only half of the state's four-year-olds, the expansion has faced a host of implementation challenges, and charter schools still aren't allowed to offer pre-k. The state also lags behind in linking pre-k with K-3 school reform efforts.

Do Spitzer's woes threaten New York's progress to date on early education, undermine his education reform agenda, or jeopardize future funding increases needed to make pre-k truly universal? Most likely not. The New York legislature, including powerful Assembly Chairman Sheldon Silver, has been a driving force in pushing greater pre-k funding even during the Pataki years. And New York also has a strong network of advocates supporting quality pre-k. The most serious potential consequence of the Spitzer scandal for education and children's issues is probably its impact on the composition of the New York State Senate. A special election last month put Democrats one seat away from taking control of the State Senate for the first time in more than 40 years. Spitzer's scandal could undermine Democratic efforts to gain a Senate majority, and if he resigns and is succeeded by Lt. Governor David Paterson, the Senate would also lose Paterson as a Democratic tie-breaking vote. This could affect education legislation. Paterson, who would be New York's first African American governor, is not particularly associated with early education, but does have a strong record of supporting education funding and reform.

Parents and teachers in New York are likely to face a lot of akward moments over the next few days as children start asking them why the governor is in so much trouble. We wish them luck. Fortunately, there are reasons to hope this won't have more serious consequences for New York State kids.

UPDATE: It looks like Spitzer is going to resign today.

A Huge Missed Opportunity in New York State

Sara Mead — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman devoted her Huffington Post column last week to singing the praises of Excellence Charter School, an all-boys school in Brooklyn, New York that seeks to combat the high-dropout rates for African American men by providing a strong academic curriculum in an environment that supports students' social and character development. Excellence, a member of the Uncommon Schools network, currently serves 220 boys in kindergarten through fourth grade. [slideshow]

Wright Edelman is clearly impressed by the school, which she proposes replicating in thousands of urban and rural school districts nationally. She and the organization she runs have also been strong advocates for quality early education, including universal pre-k. But, ironically, the school Wright Edelman praises here is barred by law from providing the kinds of pre-k services CDF has advocated for.

How come? Under the New York state law, charter schools--independent public schools that receive state funds and are accountable to the state, but are operated by non-profit groups rather than school districts--are not allowed to offer pre-kindergarten programs. They cannot receive pre-k funding from the state the way public school districts do, nor can they contract with school districts to offer pre-k programs, the way other non-profit organizations and community-based early childhood providers may. (New York's universal pre-k law, passed in 1997, requires that 10% of pre-k funds be used for community-based providers.) New York doesn't even allow charter schools to offer pre-k with funds they raise themselves from private philanthropy!

This is a huge mistake.

Most obviously, this policy makes it impossible for charter schools to offer children an aligned PK-3 experience. High-quality schools like Excellence can't start working with low-income children to close acheivement gaps until kindergarten, losing a valuable year. Even if students are fortunate enough to attend pre-k elsewhere, the pre-k program is often not aligned with the K-3 programs offered by charter schools or other public schools.

Equally important, this policy deprives New York State of a valuable potential source of high-quality pre-k capacity. Governor Eliot Spitzer has promised to make universal pre-k available to every New York four-year-old by the 2010-2011 school year. Getting there will require a huge increase in pre-k capacity to accommodate the two-thirds of New York 4-year-olds who aren't currently in state funded pre-k. As the state seeks to expand pre-k, it must take advantage of charter schools and other providers than can align pre-k with quality early elementary programs. Many New York Charter Schools--including Excellence, the Achievement First network, or UFT's charter school in Brooklyn--are providing students a high quality elementary school education, and could be a valuable source of high-quality pre-k capacity as New York expands its pre-k investments. Barring these schools from offering pre-k undermines New York's efforts to offer all children high-quality pre-k, and denies children access to a high-quality, aligned PK-3 experience.

Fortunately, this problem is an easy one to fix. New York would need to amend its charter school law to allow charter schools to offer pre-k. The universal pre-k legislation should also allow charter schools, along with school districts, to receive state pre-k funding. These are simple changes with big potential to benefit New York children.