Education is emerging as a potential trouble spot between Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver

Earlier today, Silver made a very friendly appearance before members of the Alliance for Quality Education – a group partially funded by the teachers union that often comes under fire from the Cuomo administration. AQE brought hundreds of kids, parents and supporters to the Capitol to get an unusually early job on their legislative session lobbying effort.

Silver told AQE members that he “respectfully” disagreed with Cuomo’s claim in the State of the State last week that New York’s public school students lack a lobbyist, adding: “The most powerful lobbying group for our students is their parents.” The speaker also said children have had no greater champion in the Legislature than the Democrat-controlled Assembly majority.

Silver took issue with Cuomo’s claim that the answer to New York’s education woes is not simply to throw more money into the system. As per last year’s budget agreement, this year’s state education aid is scheduled to increase by 4 percent. The question now is how that money will be allocated. Education advocates, led AQE, and the Board of Regents are arguing high-needs districts got disproportionately cut in 2011-12 and therefore should get the lion’s share of the cash. Silver appears to agree.

” It’s never enough,” he told reporters. “But in today’s economic circumstances, it’s a positive that I think starts us down the road toward fulfilling some of the commitments that we had to fulfill over the years that got postponed.”

“It’s true we need better results, there’s no question about that. But you get better results by strategically placing money in the right places. And I think the high needs districts that don’t have the ability to raise the money on their own are the places where these increases should go.”

Silver has also taken issue with Cuomo’s call for a new education reform commission, saying the Board of Regents – which the Legislature, not the governor, appoints – is already working to address myriad problems in the public school system.

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