New York finally pays its schools what its funding formula promised

Foundation Aid is the main way New York pays for its public schools. The formula sends more money to districts with more students in need. The state wrote it in 2007, but halted its four-year phase-in during the 2008 recession and didn’t restart it for years. Starting with the 2023-24 school year, New York pays the full amount: $24 billion that year, $2.6 billion more than the year before. Total state school aid reached a record $34.5 billion.

Families don’t need to apply. The money goes straight to school districts, and the formula accounts for student need and district wealth. Districts can spend it on teachers, classes, and support for students.

The fight started in 1993, when parent Robert Jackson and the Campaign for Fiscal Equity sued the state over underfunded New York City schools. They won in 2006, and the formula came the next year. In 2021, lawmakers wrote a three-year plan to fully fund the formula into the state budget. They paid for it in part by raising taxes on millionaires and corporations. Jackson, by then a state senator, kept pushing, along with Sen. Shelley Mayer and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed the final increase and signed the budget on May 3, 2023. Later budgets have kept increasing Foundation Aid, including a $1 billion increase in the 2026-27 budget.