U.S. Ed Department Pressuring NY State On Testing

The U.S. Education Department has reminded 13 states that federal funding is still tied to testing students on math and language arts, despite the end of No Child Left Behind. The department asked states with large numbers of students skipping the tests how they plan to do better. A letter to state school chiefs last month noted that the nation's new education law still requires testing for grade 3-8 students — and that states falling short of 95 percent participation risk losing funding. Letters went to California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin.

Eighty-two school districts have been designated as fiscally stressed under New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli’s Fiscal Stress Monitoring System. The scores are based on the evaluation of 672 school districts. This is the third year DiNapoli’s office has assessed and scored the financial stability of school districts. The latest round of scoring designated 8 school districts in “significant fiscal stress,” 24 in “moderate fiscal stress” and 50 as “susceptible to fiscal stress.” As far as local schools are concerned Unatego Central School District was in the Moderate Fiscal stress category. While Cooperstown Central School District and Richfield Springs Central School District were labeled as susceptible to fiscal stress.