A deal has been struck among New York State legislators and Gov. Paterson to tax some higher income New Yorkers at a somewhat higher rate. See also the report in the New York Daily News. and the Albany Times Union

In my opinion this is a good deal for New Yorkers and a great victory for the complex coalition of labor unions, community organizations and social service agencies which lobbied for months. The irrational, unplanned and wildly harmful budget cuts proposed by Gov. Paterson will largely be avoided. The increased tax rate will produce about $4 Billion dollars which, while greatly needed is not quite enough.

The worst part of the deal is that the two-step rate increase expires in three years which means we will have to re-fight this fight then.

The coalition, One New York: Fighting For Fairness, will now have to face our Billionaire Mayor who proposes taxes on low and moderate income New York City dwellers. Mr. Bloomberg refuses to tax the personal income of higher earning City dwellers -- preferring instead much higher and very unfair sales taxes.  read more »

If you, as I do, worry about the quality of public education, hang out with public school teachers or have a child in school, you’ve probably given a thought to the federal “No Child Left Behind Act” an odd, ground-breaking statute which resulted from an alliance between President Bush and Senator Kennedy. (text, regulations & USDOE guidence here .) It’s brought vast increases in standardized testing to our nation’s schools, caused vast uproar among educators, parents and other “stakeholders” (standardized test vendors, prep course crammers and textbook publishers).

It’s up for renewal and /or major modification. One of my education heroes, Jonathan Kozol, on booktour with Letters to A Young Teacher, reports he has spent time talking with Democratic Senators about proposed revisions and says he thinks the renewed statute may more properly focus educational efforts away from standardized testing as the sole benchmark of student and school success. (Kozol was on WNYC last week – hear him here .

Wednesday, August 29, 2007, Rep George Miller (D.Calif), House education chair, floated the first Congressional proposals for revision of No Child Left Behind. The Education Week story is here (free registration required, sorry),  read more »